The Commentator’s Curse

Wimbledon is magical. Breathtaking skills on the most demanding surface, manicured courts, immaculate officials, knowledgeable and respectful crowds.

This year offered a men’s final of exceptional quality with 20-year-old tyro Carlos Alcaraz plucking Novak Djokovic from his perch. 

If only the commentators had lived up to it. Naively, I always thought the commentator’s role was to comment on the sport. Instead, the viewing public was treated to something more akin to Hello! magazine on grass.

Celebrities endlessly picked out from the crowd between points. Tittle-tattle about the rich and famous. Ball-by-ball centre-court sycophantism.

Some commentators are more to blame than others. John McEnroe, despite his reported £200,000 plus take-home pay for the two weeks, at least sticks to the point. Can you imagine Dan Maskell of old twittering on air about Brad Pitt’s youthful looks?

A Spanish friend and her family listened to the match on the radio on their way to Barcelona. I doubt the Spanish commentator had time for King Felipe’s stylish blue blazer.

A far more appropriate tone was set at the men’s wheelchair final. A thrilling encounter with Japan’s 17-year-old Tokito Oda beating Brit Alfie Hewitt. The admirably concise commentary tracked every spin of the wheel.

Snake charming

On the hottest day of the year, we attended a party at London Zoo. Nobody was looking their best. The gorillas prostrate. The camels running on empty.

We headed for the reptile house. No respite there from the heat either. The snakes were in no mood for company. Not a slither behind the glass divide.

A different story back home. Stuck fast in the strawberry netting was a five-foot grass snake. I fetched my barber’s scissors, put on my garden gloves and set to work.

Not for the first time. The trick is to start at the tail and work up the body, snipping all the tight plastic binds until the snake is finally freed.

Soothed by Parseltongue, the snake did not move a muscle. I always fancy we have a shared understanding of what is taking place.

Japan’s mamushi rarely receive the same consideration. The country’s only venomous snake, this pit adder receives short shrift. Summary dispatch, or worse.

A friend once described being encouraged to drink a glass of mamushi-zake. The snake is pickled live in a sake bottle, slowly releasing its toxins. It’s a traditional libido pick-me-up.

After downing his tipple, he described a vile smell emanating from all his pores. Hardly cuddle enticing.

As a child my wife remembers eating mamushi grilled by an elderly aunt. The same aunt was later hospitalised after a snake bite. The biter bit.

Freed, my grass snake slithered off. The envy, I imagine, of its London cousins.

In Memoriam

I find scything my field particularly satisfying. Economical and quiet, it lends itself to contemplation. A tonic for the body and the mind.

Moreover, I can listen to the BBC Radio 4 as I work. Friday afternoons are a particular delight. “Gardeners’ Question Time” followed by “Last Word”.

Nurturing new life juxtaposed with eulogies for the recently departed. Life’s mysteries squeezed into a couple of hours.

“Last Word” often throws up interesting combinations. In a recent programme, Martin Amis was featured alongside Tina Turner, photographer Leroy Cooper and Rolf Harris.

There is an admirable democracy in death. Graveyards are full of odd bedfellows.

According to Martin Amis death becomes a writer. He held little truck with contemporary judgements on living authors.

In his words, as quoted on the programme: “Writers don’t realise how good they are, because they are dead when the action begins with the obituaries. Then the truth is revealed 50 years later by how many of your books are read. You feel the honour of being judged by something that is never wrong. Time.”

I shall soon be able to dwell on less morbid matters as I scythe.

It’s nearly time to tune in to The Ashes.

The gift that keeps on giving

Reclining on my 40-year-old collapsible garden chair, I found myself dropping off while listening to a BBC interview with Martin Amis. He had died two days previously.  

Not that the interview was dull. Quite the opposite. His melodic delivery, precise diction and original thinking were most admirable. But when he touched on how, while asleep, he let his subconscious unravel the knots created in his writing, I took him at his word.

When I awoke, my eye was drawn to the sizable patch of ground elder which seemed to have advanced even closer during my nap. Like a game of statues.

Ground elder arrives uninvited and never leaves. It creeps around the garden, its rhysomes stifling the life out of other plants.

We can thank the Romans. They introduced it as a tasty addition to the bland English diet. Why, I wondered, weren’t we eating it?

British guinea pigs turned their noses up. But not so the Japanese. Freshly cut ground elder is a dead ringer for the Japanese plant mizuna.

No Japanese visitor went home without armfuls of ground elder. Our generosity knew no bounds.

Until now. Recently a Spanish friend pointed out that dried ground elder retails on the internet at 16 euros per 100 grams.

Run rabbit run

Rabbits have basked in positive PR for too long. Beatrix Potter’s Peter Rabbit has burrowed its way into every child’s heart. Dig around in any Japanese school satchel and you will come face to face with Peter scrunching a carrot.

Cute we think. But our local champion rabbit breeder tells another story. One of sharp teeth and claws and fierce territorial instincts.

When I saw a rabbit on our lawn early one morning, my first thought was “Ah!” so conditioned am I by my childhood. But when I glimpsed a grey flash in my rabbit-proof vegetable garden, the fur flew.

Why I wondered, with three acres of lush grass outside the enclosure, did it bother to cut its teeth on the wire mesh fencing? Like some perverse reverse Great Escape.

Then I took a closer look. My peas nibbled. My carrots nobbled.

Beware the fussy eater.

I spent yesterday fixing the fence. If I see that flopsy bunny again, I’m going to get Mr. McGregor on its ass.