Heil, erm, David
Nov. 28th, 2012 11:39 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
davywavyIt was a weekend when the she-David was away a few months ago, during the Olympics. As I was at a loose end, I decided to saunter to the trendy bar up the road as they had a television upon which I could watch the excitement and, more importantly, booze.
As it turned out the evening ended up as 'Super Saturday', in which Jessica Ennis, Greg Rutherford, and Mo Farrar generally proved themselves to be faster, stronger and so forth than the competition and the atmosphere in the bar was lively to say the least. I drank slightly more than was good for me, made some of those ephemeral friends you acquire when you've had a few and there's sporting success on the telly, and generally entered into the good time being had by all. Eventually, after the medal ceremonies, I swayed slightly unsteadily out of the bar intending to head home where I was stopped by a bloke loitering outside asking if I had a light.
I didn't, but I got chatting to him anyway because, hey, the world was full of cheery bonhomie and why not. After a while I asked him why he wasn't inside to watch, and he said in a sullen tone "I couldn't, mate."
This surprised me so I asked a bit more and after about a minute of my wondering what was wrong - claustrophobia? Had one too many and needed some fresh air? - he looked angry and asked me how, as a white British person, I could support these immigrants and foreigners pretending to be British just to get medals?
This took me aback for a moment or two before I replied "Probably because I'm not a complete twat", and stalked off.*
I wouldn't have given it any more thought were it not for the fact that a few days later I was in the gym one afternoon dividing my attention between the weights, the girl on the treadmill and the telly where they were showing more Olympics when someone I vaguely know wandered over as I stood in front of the telly and tried to engage me in conversation about the relative Britishness about different colours of athlete. I gave him pretty much short shrift as well, but it got me thinking.
I've had my run ins with the white-supremacists before now. The BNP had a crack at recruiting me a few years ago, and I'd be lying if I said that at some level I'm not flattered. The thought that from time to time people look at me and think to themselves Well that fellow looks like a member of the master race, and no mistake is, well, you can see how people get suckered into that sort of bobbins.
The thing is, I've raced against Kelly Holmes, rowed against Daley Thomson, and then there's Lawrence Okoye, who deferred his Law Degree at Oxford in order to compete in the Olympics and what that tells me is that if there's a master race out there I'm probably not a member, thanks all the same.
*Actually, that's not what I said**, but this is a family livejournal.
**I find being four or five inches taller and probably outweighing someone by forty or fifty pounds helps me get away with this sort of thing.
As it turned out the evening ended up as 'Super Saturday', in which Jessica Ennis, Greg Rutherford, and Mo Farrar generally proved themselves to be faster, stronger and so forth than the competition and the atmosphere in the bar was lively to say the least. I drank slightly more than was good for me, made some of those ephemeral friends you acquire when you've had a few and there's sporting success on the telly, and generally entered into the good time being had by all. Eventually, after the medal ceremonies, I swayed slightly unsteadily out of the bar intending to head home where I was stopped by a bloke loitering outside asking if I had a light.
I didn't, but I got chatting to him anyway because, hey, the world was full of cheery bonhomie and why not. After a while I asked him why he wasn't inside to watch, and he said in a sullen tone "I couldn't, mate."
This surprised me so I asked a bit more and after about a minute of my wondering what was wrong - claustrophobia? Had one too many and needed some fresh air? - he looked angry and asked me how, as a white British person, I could support these immigrants and foreigners pretending to be British just to get medals?
This took me aback for a moment or two before I replied "Probably because I'm not a complete twat", and stalked off.*
I wouldn't have given it any more thought were it not for the fact that a few days later I was in the gym one afternoon dividing my attention between the weights, the girl on the treadmill and the telly where they were showing more Olympics when someone I vaguely know wandered over as I stood in front of the telly and tried to engage me in conversation about the relative Britishness about different colours of athlete. I gave him pretty much short shrift as well, but it got me thinking.
I've had my run ins with the white-supremacists before now. The BNP had a crack at recruiting me a few years ago, and I'd be lying if I said that at some level I'm not flattered. The thought that from time to time people look at me and think to themselves Well that fellow looks like a member of the master race, and no mistake is, well, you can see how people get suckered into that sort of bobbins.
The thing is, I've raced against Kelly Holmes, rowed against Daley Thomson, and then there's Lawrence Okoye, who deferred his Law Degree at Oxford in order to compete in the Olympics and what that tells me is that if there's a master race out there I'm probably not a member, thanks all the same.
*Actually, that's not what I said**, but this is a family livejournal.
**I find being four or five inches taller and probably outweighing someone by forty or fifty pounds helps me get away with this sort of thing.
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no subject
Date: 2012-11-28 11:58 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-11-28 12:59 pm (UTC)H
no subject
Date: 2012-11-28 01:16 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-11-28 01:17 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-11-28 02:28 pm (UTC)Besides, everyone knows the master race are the cybernetic Meklar, whose ruthless, War of the Worlds-esque invasion from outer space will extinguish human civilisation by 2044.
no subject
Date: 2012-11-28 02:58 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-11-28 04:33 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-11-28 05:59 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-11-28 06:01 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-11-28 06:12 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-11-28 07:32 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-11-28 08:32 pm (UTC)(I'm unimpressed with national pomp, and I try to be broadly nonpartisan about other people's politics, as it were, but I'm viscerally annoyed by the BNP's apparent view that the Union flag is their own personal party badge. I can easily explain why I reserve vitriol for their politics, but I have difficulty explaining rationally why their attempt to appropriate the flag irks me so much. It's not like I have a horse in this race. Either way, they should stop it before I come down there and mock them for it.)
no subject
Date: 2012-11-28 09:36 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-11-29 12:56 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-11-29 04:30 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-11-29 04:31 pm (UTC)Just 'cos it's a cliche doesn't make it wrong.