John Gielgud's summary line on the treachery of private coaching, as Master of Caius in Chari-ots of Fire, comes to mind as we commence our winter training on debauches of December. Some of us have not been playing fair, and we have proof. Some of us have been hauling columns on our back, knitting sleeker armstrands into pads of peachy prominence. Some of us did neckbridges instead of closing bars, or simply held the secret of a timelier escape. How uncollegial.
Of all the precious phrases we reserve for the winner of games, that he cares too much is probably the sweetest. Just when we thought collegiality might turn on commitment, we were handed this solution to the prestige of defeat. Yes; and isn't it all, in the end, so unattractive to exhibit one's ability, instead of harbouring its wealth in club chairs in the corner, unspokenly cementing lifetime bonds? It's the nature of true wit, after all, the difference between carrying Wittgen-stein to the coffee house, and opening him up. Somebody draws a First in Philosophy, and recognition is his punishment.
But I stray. The tradesman's son stands out for the perfection of his kit, the somewhat glossy shine upon it all, an almost continental way of saying, he is not our kind. It's a wonder you can get a cox to steer a boat with him, correcting for the power of his stroke. There's one in every eight, you know. Or, near enough.
.. Whichever saint calls out
of an awning is ours to succor and molest, else
why harp on the differences between us? Why castigate
what divides or loll on the boundary
that was almost always there?
John Ashbery
Cliffhanger
A Worldly Country
Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 2007©
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