The Weirdest moment of 2010
You know what was weird this year? That Raoul “Moaty” Moat incident. That was weird.
I know other weird things happened this year and, heck, there were even other weird serial killers this year.
There was, notably, the bloke who admitted to killing 3 prostitutes. I listened to a criminologist on the radio discuss the inner mind of that guy – what the signs are that he is not really a normal, everyday person like us. I can’t help but think he missed the point here and there. “First of all the killer, when asked to identify himself to the court, gave his name not as Stephen but as the Crossbow Cannibal” [Ok – the rule is never give yourself a nickname but if you absolutely have to, then never a bit of a comic book villain name. But to be fair, his MO in the murders was a crossbow and he did suggest he had then eaten a bit of the victims after] “Then we learn that he kept an iguana and would take it for walks” [again, this is odd but not as odd as that time he chased down a prostitute, shot her in the head with a bolt arrow – from his crossbow – and then dragged her dead body back along a lane and into his flat] “Finally, we know that he had an extensive collection of criminology and populist history books on famous murders” [Yes and he also had that Crossbow, didn’t he, that he used to shoot women in the head with].
But for me, the Moat thing had it all. It had a nutter with a gun and misplaced paranoid vendetta issues who thought himself able to stage a form of Rambo: First Blood affair against the local constabulary of a gentle riverside northern English village (and for a short while succeeded). It had a national news system in place that could not only cope with, but at times wilfully fuel, the public interest in the events. And, crucially winning it this award, it had a washed up alcoholic ex-footballer trying to attempt to talk a known armed murderer out of his woodland hide with a fishing rod.
Gazza’s negotiation plan was like all the best plans – simple: shout to “Moaty” that he “had a couple of cans of beer, a dressing gown and a fishing rod for him in the car” at the Police Do Not Cross cordon. I especially like the inclusion of the dressing gown – because if nothing else, Moaty appeared the type of guy who would be appreciative of a warm dressing gown.
I would have sent Paul Gascoigne straight in. Surely the sight of Gazza wandering aimlessly cutting a Rasputinish figure with a fishing rod in a wood in the drizzling dead of night shouting: “Moaty! Moaty! It’s Gazza!”, would have got Raoul thinking that this has taken an unexpected turn even for someone who was now holed up in an excess water pipe with a gun.
The fact that the late Raoul Moat was listed (albeit lowly) in a poll conducted of the Newcastle Utd FC fans when asked who they would have preferred as team manager to the current team manager, only served to highlight this triumvirate of madness.
The sports personality of 2010
There is little to no debate here from the shortlist.
The World Cup went off like a firework – that annoying squealing firework and it was held to your ear. For 31 days. I used to play football with a similar ball they used in this tournament back in primary school. Back then it didn’t have a pretentious name – we called it far more accurately a “fly-away” ball. The most interesting personality was ITV pundit and former Jamaican international Robbie Earl giving those complimentary tickets of his to 30 orange mini-dress wearing blonde Dutch girls. The controversy being that these girls were the main thrust of an illicit ambush advertising campaign for a beer company. Robbie had just met them on the street and supposed that all 30 of them were into him in a big way. You can see how he could think that. The advertising executives believed that the girls would get free airtime from male television directors and press photographers and media bloggers simply because of their aforementioned blonde mini-dress wearing appearance. What did they take us for? For some men the times have moved on, daddy-o. This is 2010. I was almost offended.
The Wimbledon Championship in 2010 was entirely predicable too. There was the match in the early rounds that went on for 3 days [non-stop, I believe]. But the American always looked the likely winner.
The Commonwealth games, again, was only truly interesting outside the sporting events. Before it began, speculation grew that teams would refuse to attend on Health and Safety grounds. And, in hindsight, it might have been better if Bowls Scotland had decided not to bother. Not one bowling medal for Scotland? For shame Scottish bowls high performance elite. In the culture of balanced journalism, I think the name has to take some responsibility though: you look at a 73 year old man called Winky and try not to think “High performance Commonwealth Athlete… really? You can’t honestly be a team mate. Are you sure you are not one of the Pommel Horse jumper’s granddads and have gotten lost – y’know because you are senile with age? Heaven help us.”
We also had the Winter Olympics this year, where a competitor died and featured no snow. Grim.
So it leaves only one sporting personality in the running, so to speak.
Greville Tombs taking to the hockey pitch to join in the age old sport of hocker. Or “Hockey” as it is known in today’s parlance.
I had never played hockey before. I didn’t know if I was physically capable of playing for an entire game. I needed to train. Queue 80’s training montage: “It’s the – eye of the tiger… da, dad, da, dad, da”… running up the office building stairwell with my gum shield in / “got to get into the eye! Of the Tiger…” / rolling a hockey ball over the keyboard of my PC… “Dah! Dah, dah, daaahh...” / at the top of some ladders in a library with a hockey stick then hitting the books with the stick… “The eye of the Tiger…”/ punching frozen meat in a hockey skirt [the frozen meat in the skirt, obviously, not me. That would be mental]. Music fades as I throw a hockey ball high into the dusk sky and leap with arms raised to freeze frame…
Even after a montage of up to 4 minutes, it turns out that I was barely capable of lasting the pace. Men 20 years my elder thundered by me, small Irish women almost ran my legs off. In light of this, quickly, I found my position – the Franco Baresi defensive General role.
My Office Hockey Team season stats then are thus:
Played: 2, 1 win (4-1) / 1 loss (0-4)
Number of times passed to: 2
Number of successful tackles made: 2
Number of passes completed: 3
Number of touches of the ball: 5
Blood Injuries: 2
Caught the Golden Snitch: none times.
You can’t argue with numbers like those – even if you want to.
TV moment of 2010
There were some great TV moments. The syndicated run of T.J. Hooker was great TV – and only doesn’t get the award through disqualification on a technicality. Further, BBC4 had an excellent 3 part series about the development and history of horror films fronted by Mark Gatiss followed by a rewarding review of the life of E. A. Poe through his relationship with women. Also there were some disappointments – anything that was not an American cartoon on BBC3, that Saturday night thing with the omnipotent John Barrowman, the Million Pound Drop and ITV no longer showing Quincy M.E. episodes. And there was Daybreak.
Daybreak is a curio. Not GMTV but with a lot of the old GMTV line-up in bit part roles, being told to be excitable and find everything youthful and cool. It is GMTV with a slow gin listening to its daughter's music collection and claiming it to be better than Showaddywaddy even though it is plain it prefers Showaddywaddy and would like nothing more than to dance to it with Dr. Hilary Jones than be in its daughter's bedroom listening to this noise.
And there was Glee. F**kin' Glee.
Nothing betters The Scheme on BBC1 though. Well perhaps BBC Breakfast when Susanna Reid is on it. [Sigh]
The Scheme was a distraught, non-compromised, darkly hilarious viewing experience. So much so, that only 2 of 4 episodes have yet been aired for legal reasons. It simply forced the viewer to make judgements on what was being shown.
For each participant being filmed for the fly on the wall documentary, sadness, selfish entitlement, defiant anger and sense of resignation overwhelmed the screen. Drink, drugs and skirmishing moments of sex wedged between violence, arguments and blame on a backdrop of depravation and garden trampolines. It wouldn’t surprise me if it turns out Jeremy Kyle owns schemes and estates just like this and uses them as nature reserves for guests. Jeremy taking to his Safari styled JEEP and firing off tranquilizer darts into back gardens, twirling a cast net above his head, eyes wide with the scent of the hunt.
It would be fascinating to place the folk on This Is Essex, the polar opposite, but on the same spectrum, into the scheme and see how they got on. Not well, I would wager.
Most significant moment of 2010
No pre-amble. The Greville Tombs blog going live is the clear winner here.
And this is not just because I am biased. It is also because of my partial apotheosis complex. Ok, there was the Pope making his visit to the UK, in an attempt to deflect from what happened to the unicorns. There was the formation of the Liberal Democrat and Conservative coalition government. There was the ash cloud over the Atlantic. There was the Chilean Miners rescue. There was the woman who put that cat in the bin to the horror of the nation [when asked why she did it she waffled on about it being a joke gone wrong, something she couldn't explain - I wished she would just say "look, the thing is I thought it would be funny, there was an easy opportunity, and it turned out I did find it quite funny. I would do it again too"] There were births. There were deaths. There were all sorts of things which happened in 2010 that will be potentially the most significant thing in 2010 to many people. It would be churlish of me to say otherwise.
However, this blogging thing, for me was significant as a new experience and I am glad I have entered into it. It has been interesting. Deciding what to write, trying to draw a line in the sand as to what should and should not be expressed in it was the tricky part. How to be entertaining reading, even for a moment, under those conditions, is a hard thing. Having followers (not the best with the aforementioned complex) and hearing of those who have made efforts to read the ramblings that have passed the self-edit filters was the bit I enjoyed most. So many thanks for that.
You may notice one or two decorative changes to the Blog and also a leading market research question to answer too. But more of that in 2011! Have a great end to your two oh one oh.
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