Shabbat Goy: Are the Brits good sports?

If there is one thing that we English excel at, it is the art of whinging, but I do miss the esprit de corps that Londoners get so well when it really matters.

By AKIN AJAYI
Londoners (photo credit: pepe fainberg)
Londoners
(photo credit: pepe fainberg)
Are the Brits good sports? If there is one thing that we English excel at, it is the art of whinging, but I do miss the esprit de corps that Londoners get so well when it really matters On the day Great Britain was awarded the 2012 Olympics, I was in a hospital in north London for a check-up following chest pains.
The doctor sent me off for an xray, an ECG reading and blood tests before sitting me down in his office. He peered at my charts for a couple of moments.
“You don’t use steroids, do you?” What, me? Steroids? Can’t see how they’d help with my favorite sport, competitive couch potato-ing.
“No, no, I can see that you’re not quite... in prime physical shape,” he said kindly. “But your resting heart rate is... well, it’s quite exceptional.
Not far off from that of a competitive athlete. So I just had to check if I’d missed anything.”
He then gave me the talk about a healthy lifestyle, less fags and booze and more fruit and veg etc., etc. Then we heard the cheer from the street, as the announcement about the Olympics came through.
“You’ve got seven years to get yourself in tip-top shape if you want to take part in the Games,” he said with a smile. Fat chance, I thought. There’s only one sport that I could possibly compete in at the Olympics, and the unreasonable so-and-sos won’t put it on the program.
IF THERE is one thing that we Brits (in this context, I am unambiguously British) excel at, it is the art of whinging. If whinging were an Olympic sport, we’d win hands down. We complain about anything and everything, from the weather (quite justified, actually) to the fact that Fings Ain’t Wot Like They Used To Be, to take a local liberty with the Queen’s English.
But I do the nation a disservice. Not for us the petulant whining or the abrasive bullying of some other countries who I shall not deign to name.
Rather, there is a understated elegance in the way we complain. It’s a combination of sarcasm, sangfroid and the superiority that comes from knowing that if we controlled things, we’d do a much better job (ignoring the fact that we did control things once upon a time, and made an unholy mess. The Middle East, for instance).
Even better: we know when to turn it off. Take the Olympics, for instance. They’ve made the past seven years one long whinge-fest in the British Isles. Everything was fair game: the cost, the location, the security, the squad. And, of course, the weather. But cometh the hour, cometh the people.
When the Small Noisy One and I arrived in London a fortnight ago, it was wet, windy and all the newspapers were full of guff about aborted attempts to outsource security arrangements to a private firm.
“Dad, it’s summer, why is it always raining?” the child asked. Good question.
But then, the week of the Olympics turned up, and guess what? The pieces fell into place.
Strangers smiled at each other in the street. A cheer filled the air. The sun came out to play. And, if all this weren’t enough, a certain American politician with a tin ear selflessly lent himself to the nation, a hate figure everyone could unify against.
I can’t lie to you, there are many advantages to living in Tel Aviv over London. But I do miss the esprit de corps that Londoners get so well when it really matters. We could do with a bit of that in Israel.
STILL ON the matter of esprit de corps: my sister asked me the other day what I thought about the petition to commemorate the Munich tragedy of 1972.
“If Danny Ayalon is for it, then I’m not,” was my spontaneous reply. Which was childish. And, in any case, my sister doesn’t know Danny Ayalon, or indeed any Israeli politicians (obviously, her life is the richer for this lack), so my lame attempt at humor fell flat.
Seriously. On the one hand, the IOC’s refusal to commemorate the moment in any meaningful way shouldn’t surprise. The stark horror of the tragedy aside, the IOC horribly misjudged its handling of the situation then; it hasn’t done much to indicate that its thinking has evolved since.
To be clear, I don’t think about it as anti- Semitism, but rather a deep-rooted – and completely irrational, in my humble opinion – reluctance to allow the event to disrupt the narrative of the Olympics being about fraternity, the fellowship of man.
But there is something else. The petition rightly points out the fact that it was an attack against Jewish athletes. But even so, it wasn’t solely a Jewish tragedy. It was a tragedy for the world, for everyone who believes that we have more in common than that which distinguishes us from one another. We’d all do well to remember this.
FINAL WORD to the Small Noisy One, citizen of Israel and the United Kingdom, with German, Nigerian, Polish and Brazilian antecedents.
“Who will you be supporting at the Olympics?” someone asked him the other day.
“The team having the most fun,” he replied.
He does get it right sometimes, my child.