Nothing New

We tend to think of ourselves as so advanced, light years ahead of all other generations, especially with all that technology rushing us towards goodness what conclusions.  Making the world a better place?  Who knows?  I haven’t yet stocked up on the Doomsday Beans but the day might not be far off.  And I’m checking to see if Bear Grylls has any spare spots coming up in his survival courses.

Why?

Well, there’s all this talk of ramping up the defence spending and when I look at the destruction in Ukraine, Gaza and far too many other places (not all of it because of wars), I realise that I’m a soft-centred wimp, thrown in to a paddy if the water is turned off for a morning or there’s a brief power cut.  Is there anybody less equipped to survive a bit of hardship?

I do remember not having central heating growing up and ice on the inside of the windows but that was a long, long time ago.  And we didn’t know what a wetsuit was when we cavorted in the sea (the chilly Atlantic) at Portstewart, where hardy rellies (relations) still bathe all year round.  Those days are long gone for me, much though I hate to admit it.  This is a woman who uses two duvets, even though the temperatures in the Midlands have soared in to double digits.

Ready for anything?….

Refugee material?  I think not.  Though perhaps I’d be tougher on the inside than on the outside.  Who knows?

Our parents knew what rationing was – though I’m not sure if Northern Ireland was under the same rules as the mainland (nothing much changes there) and there was always that porous border to smuggle things across.  We had a very good friend who lived a long and mostly legal life but paid no attention whatsoever to customs rules, treated them with such disdain that I don’t think she even knew they existed.  Growing up not too far from a largely random border – as so many are – she favoured the pragmatic approach and simply ignored all governmental edicts.

That’s probably not too much of a problem for those of us at the bottom of the pecking order but it’s a recipe for chaos when it’s the attitude of those at the top.  Not least because nobody has a clue where they are.  Isn’t it a Chinese curse:  May you live in interesting times?

Ah well.  Perhaps it’s time to explain the Doomsday Beans.  It was at the height of the Cold War (look it up kids) and we were fully expecting some eejit to press the button and launch a nuclear war (nowadays we’re foolish enough to think that all bombs are smart and forget about fallout).  So an aunt and uncle who’d been through WWII (1939-1945) stocked up with a cupboard of baked beans – Heinz of course – in case the worst came to the worst.  We joked about those beans and not many of them were ever eaten.

Just as well really because Mo would have been in real trouble.  She HATES baked beans.

No baked beans in here – yet.  And Mo wanted another look at my cupboards…

Is this a bit of a depressing blog?  Apologies if so but Spurs lost away in Holland and the BBC Sport report called them “flat”.  Flat?  How on earth can you be flat when you haven’t played for a week and are still going in the only competition you have any chance of winning, the cup that could save your season?  You’ve got to bust a gut, surely?

Next Thursday I’ll be trekking down/up to N17 for the second leg and if my Totspurs are flat that night, there’ll be hell to pay…They’d better be quaking in their boots and run their socks off.

It was draw night at our golf club last night (the blog was put on pause) and one lucky man, a regular attender, won £500 – you have to be in the room to win.  There weren’t too many there and numbers have been down for a while, so the draw is being put on hold for a few months.  What to do to make the joint jump again?

It’s a conundrum that is nothing new.  Looking for the answer to something else, I started perusing a volume called The Essential Henry Longhurst.  Fatal.  So compelling.  So readable.  So irresistible.  So timeless.

I was looking for something about foursomes (you’ll find out why in due course if you read Mo’s blog – or you’ll already know if you’ve read that first) and found a piece entitled “Utilize the Plant”.  It talks about how Sunningdale, “nearly on the rocks…empty throughout the week”  and not much better at weekends, worked hard to turn things around and prosper.

“It is like the parable,” Henry wrote.  “If necessary, go out in the highways and byways, but bring them in somehow.  Keep the staff occupied.  Keep the bar going.  Keep the kitchen going…

“None of this comes the easy way.  It does not just happen.  It means that even so eminent a club as Sunningdale has to realise that there is no reason for people to go there, or be a member there, if they don’t want to.  It is a buyer’s market and you have to ‘sell’ a golf club these days.  By very hard work on the part of a small number of people Sunningdale was turned from near ruin to great prosperity.

“At nearly every other club which is ‘doing well’ you will find the answer to be the same.  They utilise the plant.”

Date of that piece?  9th December 1954.  It’s nearly as old as I am and just as timeless.

A cheerful blast from the past to finish.  Dai at Wentworth in 1988, proud winner of the Henry Cotton Salver, the original, now at the bottom of the Thames – or wherever the tide has taken it.  Original pic by the late, great Phil Sheldon.