Lightning Bolt

I have never been to an athletics meeting before.  When Mr. Jules was running around the track I was spending my time on the hockey pitch.  Autumnal twilight evenings will always find me nostalgic for the echo-y shouts of young girls and the elasticated snugness of hockey knickers.  I mentionned ”knickers” two blogs back …it must be all the figs….

So it was with much surprise that I found myself enjoying last night’s Athletissima at the Stade Olympique in Lausanne.  Mr. Jules was so excited about the whole thing.  I only got excited when I heard we had VIP tickets.  UBS had invited us.  Let me just take the time to say that there are two types of people invited to these VIP functions: those who have a lot of money and those who owe them a lot of money.  Mr. Jules’ companies fall into the latter category.  They are so concerned that he will take his debt elsewhere that they make it their INTEREST (geddit?) to keep us close by. 

I saw Bolt!  In the flesh!  He ran the 200metres just managing to pull the brakes in time to NOT produce another world record (obviously Lausanne/UBS couldn’t afford enough for him to do that, silly).  I also saw Powell who is just as impressive and this time, in the absence of Bolt, won the 100metres easily…boy must he hate him.  We dutifully clapped to the clapometer, we were cajouled and chastised by the irritating court jester/commentator and we did the mexican wave, well, er, most people did the mexican wave, I hate that stuff, it’s as embarrassing as having to do the hokey cokey or the conga or that chicken dance what’s that called? Or is it duck?   ANYTHING that involves a communal synchronised shaking of the limbs is just plain ridiculous.

What I did notice, whilst not doing the wave, was how close the world of sport has come to the world of show business.

Mr. Jules was so thrilled by the whole event that he struck up a conversation with his neighbour and boasted, BOASTED!!! about his athletic prowess way back in…wait when was it? Before lycra that’s for sure.  I thought I must be hearing things.  It was a comic, tragic-comic moment in our marriage.  I laughed out loud hoping he would catch the Can You Hear Yourself? undertone.  Blah blah blah on he droned so I caught the neighbour’s eye as if to say ”Can you believe him? ha ha”.  The neighbour continued to listen intently, even gasping on occasion, nodding his head and trying his best to ignore me.  Personally I think he was overdoing it.

“Who is that sitting next to you?”  I asked later sotto voiced.

 ”Oh him.  He’s in charge of PR for UBS,”  said Mr. Jules.

“Ah!  Of course he is.”

Copyright Jules Ritter September 2008