Falling, Badminton, and The Rig
Just before Christmas, I fell. We had been away for the weekend visiting friends and on our way to catch a bus back to the hotel we were staying at. The road outside their house was completely covered in iced-over snow. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw a lady— I guess she was in her late-sixties or early-seventies, struggling over the snow with a wheelie shopper. Just as I was thinking: ‘I hope she’s okay, I hope she doesn’t fall’, I lost my footing and I fell — spectacularly. Though I can’t be sure (I suddenly became overly concerned with my own circumstances), I hope she carried on her way entirely unaware of my condescension, or that I got my comeuppance for it.
Fortunately, I fell backward and my rucksack broke the fall. Less fortunately, because of the way I was wearing it, the impact jolted my arms apart sideways, pulling the muscles down both sides of my ribs. Sitting in the middle of the road like an upended turtle I gave a throaty cry, the likes of which I’ve never heard nor wish to hear again: an impassioned howl of embarrassment and pain and shame.
I was fine, of course — seconds later, scrambling to my feet saying ‘I’m fine, I’m fine’ to myself repeatedly and then went to get the bus. And perhaps because of the cold or the shock, I strangely didn’t feel any discomfort. It was only the next day, and many days after that, that I felt something — and only when I did a very specific sub-set of things like open a packet, or open or close a window, or cough. A deep rumbling ache. It lasted for weeks, a constant reminder that I’m at the age where my body is starting to refuse to heal itself properly.
My minor grips and grumblings were thrown out of the water by the news of Hanif Kureishi’s much more serious fall which he chronicled on Twitter and which has left him unable to move his arms or legs. The combination of the stylistic verve of his report, combined with its heartbreaking seriousness to his future output was shocking and saddening. Here’s the thread –
I’m now fully recovered and in the new year I’ve started playing Badminton again, something I haven’t done since I was a teenager. Back then it was the least a nerdy would-be writer could do and still be considered to have ‘done’ PE class — and it also had the advantage of being so niche that even without much skill, strength or athletic ability, I could find myself being sort of good at it.
There’s something enticingly easy feeling about Badminton. It’s not like tennis or squash where the ball whizzes past you at such a speed that you feel like it’s an achievement just to get your racquet to it.
Also, you can’t muscle your way through badminton: no matter how hard you hit the shuttlecock it sort of balletically floats through to the other side of the court waiting to be hit. So the jocks couldn’t get the better of you just by the fact that they were jocks. If anything, it’s a sport that rewards the chess player, those who like to manoeuvre an opponent around the court, who favour approach play over going in for the kill. As I said, it’s a sport very much for nerds.
Playing it over the last couple of weeks at the local sports centre has been a gym-sock smelling Proustian madeleine: the squeak of trainers on polish timbered floors the swish of racquet on feather. It takes me back…
I watched the first couple of episodes of Amazon Prime’s The Rig this week, which is really good rip-roaring, creepy entertainment with an absolutely stunning cast. It’s fantastic that we’re getting something on this scale and size written and produced in the UK.
I should declare an interest (I vaguely know David McPherson (@David_Mac13 on twitter) who wrote it. This is David’s first show, and it’s brilliant that we’re taking bets on series of this size and scale from a relative newcomer. From the impact it seems to be having — top of Amazon’s charts in countries across the world — I think it may be a bet that is paying off.