There’s something just a little smug about sitting in front of the television in your Y-fronts watching people wrapped in four layers of clothing at the Winter Olympics.
I’ve seen snow, and it’s not all it’s cracked up to be.
Sure, it’s nice sitting in a room surrounded by the smell of freshly-ground coffee, watching particles of ice fall from grey skies while you enjoy the latest in heating technology.
But try sliding your way along a path, trying to navigate gutters and pedestrians while your feet get the same feeling as fingernails sliding down a blackboard as you slip and crunch through dirty sludge in pursuit of a breakfast Danish.
You’ve spent 20 minutes kitting up for the experience, only to discover that the romantic notion of snow is little more than a melting pellet of pain blowing into your face, the only remaining exposed part of your body.
You’re walking like a body builder not because you’ve been hitting the gym, but because you’ve got so many clothes on it’s impossible to move.
I’ll take last week’s sweltering days anytime if that’s the sacrifice for dodging minus-anything degrees of a European Winter.
I do however, digress.
The Winter Olympics is of course in China, not Europe. It’s fun to watch sports that rarely see the light of day in our part of the world, and to realise that some Australians don’t seem to mind enduring year-round Antarctic conditions while becoming the best in their chosen fields.
Hardly a fields of dreams, I might add. During the week, I had a peek at the curling competition.
I found myself chuckling intermittently, which bears no disrespect to the competitors whose precision is admirable.
Regular readers of this column will know that I don’t mind a trip to the bowls club, and anyone who has also caught glimpses of the curling will realise, the rules are vaguely similar.
What triggered my funny bone was the sweeping. I somehow couldn’t help picturing what it would be like if sweeping was introduced to lawn bowls, watching some of my acquaintances at the club screaming at each other to remove pieces of rogue grass from the front of their bowl as it approached the kitty.
The greenkeeper is already challenged by one particular bowler who chooses to drop their heavy mass of composite plastic from the height of their hip, onto a carefully crafted and somewhat delicate strip of high-end workmanship.
She does wonder why she only ever gets to play on the outer rinks.
Sweeping however, would take the nightmare to a new level. Allowing anybody near his grass with anything more than a flat pair of shoes and a well-polished bowl would be unholy. Mess with any blade of sacrosanct tift dwarf at your peril.
And given the energy that curlers, if that’s what you call those who indulge in a game of curling, put into their sweeping … well, let’s just say there won’t be any changes to the rules any time soon. There’s enough bickering as it is.
At our club, we have one bloke who uses a modified walking stick.
His accuracy is uncanny, to the point some of the cavalry argues he’s bending the rules by using his walking stick as a steadying tool – a bit like a tripod, with two legs spread apart and a third “leg” protruding from his left arm.
This, they argue, allows him a perfectly perpendicular swing of the arm each time he delivers his bowl.
While the rest of us find ourselves falling any which way in our endeavours to find a smooth release, his centre of gravity survives a mini tornado. Hardly fair, they say. I personally, am not one to judge. He’s 85 and deserves a win from time to time.
Conditions aside, part of me does question how easy curling might be. No wind, every end the same length – the only variant being the ice.
Then again, everything becomes easier in a pair of Y-fronts, feet on the pouffe.
Slalom, moguls, ski jump, half pipe – I reserve the right to remain critical of those who put themselves in that situation. But at my age, my bones cringe at the thought.
