15.07.2005 - 11:30 a.m.

The weeks surrounding this date are the time in UK primary schools for the annual 'sports day', you'll notice the apostrophe's around the words 'sports day' and i use this term in it's loosest possible sense.

back in the day, sports day featured actual sports as recognised by sport regulation bodies around the country, like running for 100m, 200m, 400, 800, etc and although the hammer throw was actually a large welly boot, the effect was the same.

We were placed in direct competition with each other and the payoff (if you won) was being able to strut around the playground safe in the knowledge that you beat everyone else and you were the King, you had Skill, yeah. This meant other boys wanted to be you and the girls wanted to be your girlfriend because you were most fit (in an evolutionary sense) and on a deeper, subconscious level they all knew this.

I rarely won anything on account of being not quite fast enough, or not quite strong enough, but i wasn't so far up my own arse that i went off and sulked just because i didn't win, we weren't raised to be selfish little fuckers, if you lost you lost and you tried harder next time or you accepted you place in the hierarchy. I call this 'Lessons in Life' and because of this, when i left education and entered 'The Real World' where i was ignored, shouted down or shouted at, i wasn't too surprised.

It seems that in the last ten years or so (like everything else) sports day has been 'dumbed down', the kids that didn't win went home crying to their parents saying that teacher hates them and didn't let them win, the tears of these spoilt little bastards so incensed the parents that they all complain to the PTA, the PTA then withers under the combined glares of Mr and Mrs Angry, and what kind of teacher are you to let little Tarquin or Chrysanthemum or whatever, feel like this, you really hurt their feelings, i had to buy them a new playstation and dvd player just to stop them sobbing into their Action Man pillows.

Sports day at the moment features :
Carrying a glass of water around some obstacles while negotiating hurdles not higher than eight inches (a bit like 'It's a Knockout - do you remember that ?) before then pouring this water into a bucket with some dye in it.

A relay race where they have to walk (no running, health and safety y'know) ten metres and then throw a beanbag into a hoop on the floor before going back and tagging the next person.

A race where they soak a sponge in a bucket of water, run twenty metres and then squeeze the remaining water into another bucket

Dribbling a football around cones for ten metres

A hopping race ( isn't this discrimatory against (or in favour of) unipeds ?)

One school here did actually have a 75 metre sprint (gasp)

There have been five-a-side football tournaments where no-one actually wins, goals are scored but there are no celebrations for the winning team and at the end of the tournament no prizes or cups / shields are offered to the victorious team, everyone just goes home.

For the kids who do extra-curricular activities (dancing, martial arts, gymnastics etc), the difference is noticeable, and they stand out over the kids who mostly watch tv after school. There might be a pushy parent pushing them but ultimately the kid benefits to a degree. This small percentage of children exposed to competition and failure will be the UK's only hope at future Olympics.

A lot of this is driven by government 'initiatives' so that everyone feels equally bland and mollycoddled, no harsh realities here just bullshit diluted for little people. Parents aren't allowed to cheer for their children because that might make the other children feel bad, and there's no race for the parents because that might make other parents feel bad, i remember the annual stampede that was the adults 100 metre being hilarious for the kids and we all enjoyed cheering for our parent as they thundered down the course.

Bear in mind that the children involved here are nine or ten, we're not talking about five year olds, and worse still, some of these kids don't have the co-ordination to get over the eight inch hurdle without knocking it over in the process (these are the same kids who probably manage to jump off the back of the sofa while watching Power Rangers) the parents argue that little Felicity is a violin virtuoso who has already performed at the Albert Hall, the fact that little Felicity is unable to walk in a straight line while carrying something and then drop that thing into a large hoop seems to have escaped them.

This country is already feeling the effects of these kids as they are starting to enter the working world and already they've noticed that :

It's not fair

You didn't give me a chance ( yes we did, you're incompetent and incapable of learning)

My manager hates me that's why i get all the difficult jobs (see above)

I don't need to be told how to do this, i'm clever enough and i'll do it my way (you do need to be told because you repeatedly fuck it up and then try to cover up your mistakes by lying about it, and your way is the wrong way)

I'm really funny with razor sharp wit and all my colleagues love me (that's not what they say when you're not there)

Do you know anyone like this ?

Secondary school for us was a harsh series of lessons designed to weed out the idiots and either bring them up to speed or highlight them as failures early on so they could be routed towards refuse collection or serving-fries-with-that, when they left school. The fact that i went to a single sex grammar school meant that the teachers had to be hardline or they'd lose control completely and it did us no disservice. During sixth form i joined the TA and the whole thing was stepped up a gear, with a Sergeant Major screaming in my face about how i was in shit order and if i didn't sort myself out i'd be in the guard room in a stress position for the next two hours.

I know my position in the greater scheme of things, i'm not going to set the world alight with my entrepreneurial flair or win gold at the Olympics, i'm happy to stay beneath the radar of the police and security services and get on with my life, as long as i'm happy i don't care, i'll live out my life and then i'll die. If i can bring happiness to myself, my friends and my family in the process that's an achievement worth achieving.