I’m a real sporty type; no, honestly

I may not have won much on the sporting front but I do consider myself to be a sporty fellow. Just look at the trainers and jogging bottoms I wear all the time.

Although my trophy haul is pretty pathetic, no-one can say I wasn’t keen.

I was a member of the team that finished as Bishop’s Stortford, Stansted and District Football League, Division 3, Cup runners-up in the 1973/74 season – the mighty Heath Rovers.

My second trophy came in 1982, when I was a member of the all-conquering Admin. Allsports darts team, winners of the Dubai Aluminium Company Darts League.

The third was probably my finest football achievement – as a member of the Admin. Allsports football team that finished runner-up in the 1983 Admin. Welly Cup Final. Yeah, I know – pretty amazeballs, really.

There followed a short, barren spell, of just 15 years, until I snared my next trophy – the inaugural, and never played again, Saffron Walden Breakfast Club Golf Tournament in 1998. I’m welling up at the memories.

My last major (?) sporting tournament victory to date was in 2005, when I was victorious in the Almond Golf Day.

I should point out at this juncture that there was more than one Almond taking part and the annual event (from 1996 to 2010) included members of the extended family. You didn’t have to be called Almond but it helped.

My previous Almond Golf Day success was in 1996 and it remains a mystery to this day why I did not win more. After all, it was my idea and I was one of the two scorers.

But that’s enough about my sporting prowess. Nowadays, although some would say alladays, my sporting activities are limited to spectating. I may not run around much but I do know the offside rules.

Which brings me to the point (yes, there is one) of this communiqué.

My Rugby World Cup 2015 tickets have arrived. I’m so excited.

This means I have another event I can tick off my sporting attendance wish list. I watched Bishop’s Stortford win the FA Amateur Cup Final at the “old” Wembley in 1974; I was there when Arsenal lost to Chelsea in the Carling Cup Final at the Millennium Stadium, Cardiff in 2007; I saw all five England games plus the final between Germany and the Czech Republic at Euro’96; I tried to act cool at the Africa Cup of Nations tie in The Gambia in 1979; I watched in amazement at the Olympic gymnastics at the O2 and the football at the “new” Wembley in 2012;  I cheered on James Hunt at the British Grand Prix at Brands Hatch in 1976; saw England beat South Africa at Twickenham in the early noughties; cheered on with the Sunderland fans at the FA Cup Final in 1973 and watched many, many England games, including World Cup qualifiers at Wembley between 1974 and 2001 (and one friendly in the Algarve in 2004!)

I have enjoyed them all. And I thought I didn’t get out much.

Perils of chatting with strangers on holiday

Have you ever been had? It’s a painful and often embarrassing experience, especially when it’s a good friend catching you out.

Many, many moons ago, SWMBO was asked to help take a group of children from her school on a skiing trip.

Being a star turn both on and off piste, she accepted the invitation and in the Spring of 1992 we found ourselves on a Balkan Air flight from London to Sofia for a week’s skiing in Borovets.

When I say we, I mean SWMBO, me, and our friends Mrs and Mrs O.B. – I have changed their names to protect the guilty.

I spent most of the week carting ski gear up and down the mountain and sitting at cafes with Mr O.B., sipping tumblers of cheap Bulgarian brandy while the others in our party paraded/ slid/traversed/ fell (delete as applicable) down the slopes.

That meant I had plenty of time to hone the skills of my favourite pastime – talking. I met many interesting people, from all over Europe including several Russians, and spent many a happy hour (literally) chatting away and swapping business cards.

The week passed without major incident.

A couple of weeks after our return to Blighty, I got home from work one day to find the answering machine (we didn’t have voice mail in those days) blinking.

As I played back the message, my heart sank. “Hello, Mike”, said the distinctly Russian voice. “This is Vlazhni. We met at Borovets and you said if we were ever in the UK to look you up. My wife and children are with me here in London and we were wondering if we could come and stay with you”.

Panic set in. I tore the study apart, looking for the business cards I’d collected in Borovets. None bore the name Vlazhni. Oh no – was he that Russian man I got chatting to in the gondola? Or that eastern European in the bar?

Then SWMBO came home. I explained the dilemma and she, being wise, played the message back. “Oh, that’s Mr O.B.” she said. “Don’t you recognise his voice?”

The realisation that I’d been had really did hurt. I eventually got over it, after a couple of years, and even managed to smile disdainfully whenever Mr  O.B. regaled fellow guests at dinner parties with “The Bulgarian Stitch-up”. Oh how I laughed.

Anyway, why mention this now? Why bring up such a painful memory?

Well, my post of August 7 (Tentacles of power reach a long, long way) elicited a comment from my reader, Sven.

“Perhaps your Russian follower is Vlazhni come back to haunt you!”

Visions of Mr Putin’s henchmen surfing the net for derogatory comments about their wise and wonderful leader and then issuing warnings to the perpetrators left my stomach knotted.

Until I read the comment again, out loud this time, and recognised the name Vlazhni.

Oh rowlocks – 23 years on and the O.Bs had stitched me up again.

Tentacles of power reach a long, long way

Hello, reader. Have you missed me?

Contrary to the title of my blog, I have been out quite a lot recently, hence the lack of reading material over the past couple of weeks.

But then not many people seem to look at this blog unless a) I post something on Facebook or b) I send out a round-robin email.

My blog stats show just one or two “readers” a day since my last novelette. So, as a bit of a consumer test, I have just posted this without any notification.

But the stats also show an interesting twist to my popularity (?) – this blog has had 17 views from Russia.

I don’t know anyone in Russia so that’s a bit odd. I wonder how that happened. Is Mr Putin is keeping an eye on me?

But I digress. It’s been a newsy few weeks, with two standout stories as far as I am concerned.

The first concerns the disclosures about Edward Heath. Part of me asks why do these allegations crop up when someone is long dead. It seems very un-British to accuse someone of something when they cannot defend themselves.

But the Jimmy Saville affair gave some pretty clear clues why.

There is no doubt that attitudes have changed over the past 30 or 40 years.

In those days, we still believed in the Great and the Good and most journalists wouldn’t touch such an allegation for fear of incurring the wrath of the Special Branch.

Senior politicians, and “celebrities”, were generally wrapped up in a tight ring at a very high level.

Those tentacles of power reached a very, very long way. And to think, in the balmy days of the 70s and 80s we were afraid of the Freemasons! Mind you, most of the police I knew were members of the rolled up trouser leg and apron brigade.

The second news story that caught my attention was the jailing, for 14 years, of Tom Hayes, a former trader at Citigroup and UBS.

At last – someone paying for the havoc caused by greedy banking types.

Hopefully the first of many.