(WHAT'S THE STORY) BLADES OF GLORY ??

So, it's the Winter Olympics, two weeks of people sliding down ice on tea trays, racing round ovals of ice in all-body condoms, skiing and shooting, more skiing, skiing off hills and down hills, and of course we now have snowboarding, which involves shaggy-haired people in baggy clothes and brightly-reflective sunglasses who go around calling everyone 'dude', flinging themselves around on planks of wood.

I must admit though, I do enjoy watching, especially the bobsleigh, which is basically Formula 1 with four men in an aerodynamically-designed bathtub charging down the cresta run on what amounts to be a clear death wish. It's all a lot of fun, especially as Britain now actually has a decent chance of winning or doing well in some of these sports. There is however, one notable exception … an anomaly of the Winter Olympics, a event utterly baffling as well as being unbelievably boring at the same time … figure skating.

Figure skating is NOT, never HAS been, and should never, EVER, be considered to be a proper sport.

Now, before those of you who follow or indulge in figure skating whip off your Risports and spike the blade through my aorta after garrotting me with the laces, please note I think figure skaters are not just athletes, but remarkable athletes, requiring strength, speed, stamina, dexterity, balance, timing, guts and just about everything other imaginable athletic skill. Certainly, more athletic skill than I could ever muster, given I have all the grace and fluidity of a heavily-pregnant hippo. Circus performers work at their craft for years, they entertain the masses with their incredible feats of athleticism (check out any Cirque de Soleil production and you will be amazed at the capacity of humans to perform such feats). Ballet dancers are amazing physical specimens who have grace and beauty in their movements. But, when all is said and done, figure skating is a competition, not a sport.

Oddly it has nothing to do with how difficult or entertaining it is (thank God that Bernie Ecclestone doesn't set the rules, otherwise we'd have skaters having to cope with random pyrotechnics or live snow leopards being released onto the ice if they're being too technical). Rather it is simply a matter of how the winner is determined, in that they use judges. It is the same for gymnastics, diving, beauty pageants or anything that chooses a champion solely by human opinion.

Now, to me a real sport needs to have a definitive, indisputable, quantifiable way to determine a winner. There can be no debate about the scoring system. A ball must go into a goal or through a hoop; a racer reaches home, stops the clock or finishes before the others. The winners run faster, jump higher, score more points or defeat all other opponents en-route to doing so in a final. Uniforms are required, not feather boas, or sequins. Claude Debussy’s Claire de Lune shouldn't be used as a part of the competition. When done with the Olympics, the next step to becoming professional does NOT entail you skating with large stuffed mascots at Disneyland. Sport and Liberace should never be mentioned in the same sentence.

In many sports a clock is used to determine a winner, but the clock is not subjective, you can't logistically have 53 guys racing down a ski hill at the same time (as entertaining as that would be, but hey, there's always the snow-cross ... ) without some form of chaos, which is a valid reason for tuning in. Figure skating has bugger all of this. Everything is about interpretation of success. It is about what the judge thinks, believes, feels. There is nothing absolutely quantifiable. Yes, the number of revolutions in a jump counts, or something, but in the end if two people do the same jump, a human has to decide which one he or she likes better.

That is not a sport.

Figure skaters wear fashionable ( … debatably) costumes in an attempt to appear more appealing, more flowing, more beautiful. The women (and most of the men come to think of it … ) wear makeup, get their hair done, wear jewellery, play stirring music. An overweight, ugly person would stand at a considerable, if not insurmountable, disadvantage in figure skating (Jenna Coleman would whip them every time). A few years ago we had some hoo-ha with two American lady skaters, one was a powerful skater, possibly better at most aspects, but she was shorter, stockier and less feminine. Although she knew she was at a disadvantage against the taller, prettier, more graceful one, she conspired with her redneck boyfriend to have her opponent whacked in one of her skinny little knees. In a real sport, this wouldn't have been necessary. Ugly people can win in boxing, in skiing, in rugby, in soccer, in cricket. Beauty doesn't matter. Style doesn't count. There are no judges. Dominoes is more of a sport than figure skating.

Some devotees of figure skating will argue that referees are judges, but this is wrong, a referee is merely there to assure order and make the competitors follow the rules. A large part of the judging in figure skating is based on aesthetic beauty, which is something most people do not watch sports for. You know a sport is lacking in athletic demand when a choreographer rather than a cornerman is a crucial part of the coaching staff. Yes, in most sports, the referee has the freedom to determine right and wrong by what he or she sees – a false start, a professional foul, gaining an illegal advantage – but he or she is not determining the final victor. His or her assignment is to simply ensure that the field of fair play is adhered to by both sides. The refs can't just say that while one team scored more points or goals, in their opinion they thought the other team played better anyway. This creates a bizarre paradox where something like darts is a sport and figure skating isn't, even though to compare the level of necessary athletic ability is comical, but it is what it is.

Of course, many Winter Olympic sports are based on judges' scoring, including the snowboarding competition. But at least the scoring in sports like snowboarding is easier to decipher; the millions of people watching could see that the baggy-clothed, shaggy haired dude who won gold did so because his tricks were more impressive than those of his competitors, so there was no controversy when he was crowned the winner. With figure skating, however, people will be left thinking they saw two fairly equal performances, only to find that the judges have somehow decreed that one was “far better” than the other.

There is one exception to this though: boxing, (or UFC / MMA or other kind of fighting / combat sports). However, this is fine because a clear victor can still be achieved (with a knockout). The judges are only used when the fight has gone on so long that it has to be stopped for the safety of the competitors (of course, the presence of judges is why boxing is considered the most corrupt sport of them all). Other than that, no judge should ever determine a winner in a true sport. When you have that, whether it is figure skating, gymnastics, gymkhana or diving, you have a competition. It isn't any different than "The X Factor", "Celebrity Big Brother", "I'm a Celebrity ..." or "Strictly Come Dancing". It can entertain, the athletes can be talented, but don't tell me it's in any possible way a sport.

It simply just isn't. Now if you'll excuse me, I'm off to watch the curling …

PANIC STATIONS!

When I was a little boy, in the age of doom-laden public information films and pamphlets ("Protect and Survive" anyone ??) I was constantly worried about myself and my family being killed by a nuclear bomb. The thought of having to perform air raid drills and hiding in underground shelters were an almost daily part of my young life.

[Remove all pens, pencils and sharp objects from your breast pocket, take off your glasses, look away from the window, find a buddy and hold hands, no talking, walk quickly to the basement, get on your knees, place your head against the wall, wait for the all-clear signal and hope that the teacher forgets about the maths test that you didn't study for ... ]

But like so many awful things, you got used to it. The fear of instant annihilation was just always there, lurking in the background. Until it wasn't. Somehow, over time, the inevitability of the mushroom cloud simply went away. Wise and prudent men in our country and others, found a better way to exercise their hatred and fear of each others social and economic system.

Until now.

Now the wise and prudent men are no more, and the unthinkable is back on the table. Death and suffering on an unimaginable scale is once again an option. The low drumbeat of existential dread has returned, and I find myself thinking odd thoughts, like: "I hope someone reminds Donald Trump that he can't play golf in a Hazmat suit."

When I was a little boy the Russians were coming. At least once a week. I actually thought learning to speak Russian because when they got here, I wanted to know how to say, "Don't shoot !!" (не стрелять! if you really want to know, don't say this blog doesn't know how to disseminate important information ... ).

And now, more than half a century later, after their dumbass system of government imploded, the friggin' Russians are still coming. How is that possible? How are we still being tormented by a nation that thinks borscht is a good idea? By the people who somehow managed to contribute less to rock music than the French and have still never managed to make a decent motor car until the Germans, of all people, bought out Skoda.

I mean, sure, kudos on vodka, but how is it that these people are still making us miserable? And more importantly, why? Is world domination still a thing? And if it is, let's say they succeed. What then? The future supreme rulers of planet Earth are gonna rock the casbah with balalaikas? Forgive me, but in the words of their favourite son, Orange Julius, that is "sad."

I don't know about you, but I've been spending most of my free time in the land of Not Yet. If you're unfamiliar with it, Not Yet is a happy place where all the bad things that seem likely to occur have not happened ... yet. I like to think of it as a shimmering, shivering soap bubble whose fragile beauty is only made greater by the knowledge that it will soon burst, making way for the dark realm of You Gotta Be Kidding Me.

But not now.

Not Yet.

And yes, I would love to say Not Ever, but that place doesn't exist. Sometimes I feel like I'm standing on a dock watching Western culture drift away from me like a massive boat. As I imagine it, the people on the deck are not waving goodbye. They're looking away, toward the horizon. The future.

And the boat is accelerating. I don't bring this up to generate sympathy. No one threw me overboard. Disembarking was a conscious choice. And so is returning. With a little effort I can take a skiff out to sea and scramble up that gangplank anytime I want.

There is an almost perpetual gap between my expectations as to how things should be and the way things actually are. This space, or divide, causes me a considerable amount of discomfort, which I try to alleviate through the use of repetitive thoughts, as well as spoken and written words.

This activity is called "complaining." The fact that it rarely accomplishes anything, other than exacerbate my irritation, does not keep me from engaging in it. Furthermore, it appears that buried deep within my psyche is the firmly held conviction that complaining is therapeutic - even though experience shows again and again that it's not. In other words, I have a false belief that appears to be immutable, which drives me to take an action that only makes matters worse ... and I like it.

My only consolation is the knowledge that I come from a long line of complainers. One of my fondest childhood memories is looking up at the adult relatives gathered around the kitchen table, the men smoking, the women smoking, everyone eating smoked fish, and all of them talking over each other, loudly bitching and moaning about pretty much everything.

I remember that a rant would often end with the resigned, self-deprecating, seemingly rhetorical question, "Oh, well, who am I to complain?" Well, these many years later, it turns out it's not rhetorical.

And I now know the answer. This is my birth right.

I'm British, who am I if I don't complain?

… AND GUESS WHAT, IT DIDN'T !!

... yup, it's true. I binned it.

In fairness, it was snowing, I'd drunk a whole bottle of red wine, pretty much, and the Taxi Rank outside the ICC was non-existent, so I thought I could get one outside New Street instead.

No excuse though, I could have made a million and one other decisions, actions, and I'd have been sitting here moaning about having to drag my sorry ass back to work for another year instead of sitting here moaning about NOT being able to get back to work.

How it happened I still don't know. Other than suddenly finding my legs in the air, heading towards the solid concrete ground thinking: "Sh*t, this is going to bloody hurt ...".

And it did.

I felt my right foot almost detach itself from the rest of me immediately on impact, leaving it hanging off, bleeding rather profusely. Thankfully the bottle of Chablis I'd downed earlier was doing a pretty good job masking the immense pain that was waiting to hit me. A security guard from the building opposite, having witnessed my inglorious plunge, dashed over to assist. As did a number of passers-by. I could wiggle my toes, but my immediate thought was "That's buggered up Christmas ...".

At this stage I didn't know I'd NOT broken it, as it turned out this was a dislocation with an accompanying fracture, but lying there, on the floor, waiting for someone of a medical disposition to arrive, all I could think of was how I'd get my cards sent, can I get someone to finish my shopping for me, etc. Everything except my own situation in other words.

The last time I was in an ambulance, I was accompanying my Grandmother to hospital 10 years ago following a funny turn she'd had. The last time I was in hospital as a patient, it was in order for me to exit my mother's birth canal. My phone battery was down, having had no chance to charge it up previously, I remember asking the paramedic in my alcoholic fug if he had much contact with the British Transport Police and if I could call my mother. Except, as a result of the pomage I'd consumed earlier, it came out asking if I could call HIM mother, which caused a good deal of mirth amongst the ambulance crew.

I was annoyed at myself having had a pretty good evening at this point. And upset at myself for having buggered up my ankle, and not only my personal, work, social and comic-con lives, but having done so in the most idiotic way possible. My thoughts turned to writing this very post as I had an oxygen mask attached to my face and a needle shoved into my arm. Upon being lumped into the ambulance itself, I asked the lady paramedic if I was going to end up on Channel 4 being laughed at by some curly-haired millennial TV presenter. She laughed and said no, then radioed that we were on our way.

To Sandwell General Hospital ...

"SANDWELL ?! Hang on, that's bloody MILES away !!" I thought to myself in my best Richard Hammond-type internal voice as Chewie punched it. Why not the QE, or West Heath, or even where I took my Mother after her own infamous spill 5 years ago.

Being taken to Sandwell was like being taken into the heart of the Klingon Empire, not to mention that the anaesthetic effect of the booze was rapidly wearing off and I no one had any idea yet what I'd done to myself. Upon arrival at A&E, I had my most of my trouser leg destroyed and had to borrow one of the the staff's mobile chargers in order to maintain any hope of being able to communicate this monstrous mishap to everyone who I needed to. A Tweet and a Facebook post got the news out there, then came another dose of something, another needle in my other arm, and then another mask on my face which sent me off to Narnia for a quick kip.

On emerging from this mini-coma hoping it was all dream after all, I found myself in a plaster cast, having had my dislocated right foot shoved back into place, then after a few hours in what felt like the USS Enterprise's shuttle bay, I was wheeled off to a ward in what was the NHS equivalent of being told to go and stand in the naughty corner to realise what I'd done.

A young Caribbean nurse came and took my blood pressure and hook me up to a drip, she was friendly and seemed to take a rather reassuring half-maternal, half-sexual interest in me as I relayed to her in my best, Clarkson-esque way what a total prat I'd been. Sleep was out of the question, given I'd just been put under a few minutes earlier.

Having put my phone into siege mode, I sat there watching the snow fall. I was miles away from home, in discomfort, with an injury that was going to keep me off work and require having to use crutches, a zimmer frame, and having to learn to walk again and make getting up or down stairs a bigger challenge than Stephen Hawking trying to play the well-known Takeshi's Castle game of bridgeball.

The sun eventually broke. Messages of support started coming through on social media. My brother in law and my mother were on their way with a much-needed phone charger. I then faced the prospect of having to urinate in what looked like a cardboard slipper, which I somehow accomplished. My temporary mother/girlfriend/nurse calmly came a took it way with some reassurance/light flirting. Then I had the first chance to change into a hospital gown which had the unfortunate side effect of flashing my arse every time I wasn't lying down.

Will and Mum eventually arrived just as I was being taken up to the ward that would be home for the next few days, much to Nursie's dismay and reluctance. Despite my foot being locked into position I had been told that I would be in for surgery later that day for a Swiss army ankle and that I wouldn't be able to eat or drink anything until then. Next to me was a rather odd skinny, bearded chap who clearly was on other substances that were not prescribed by anyone resembling a Doctor and who kept pinching my TARDIS-screen type TV because his was broken. He then spent the entire afternoon staring at a synopsis of "Homes Under The Hammer" and wondering where his psychosis medication was.

It was quiet, calm, and having seen family made it easier, but my thoughts immediately turned to my imminent surgery. The surgeon came, ummed and ahhhed for a bit, poke my toes with a pencil and left, the matron then stuck another needle into my hand and gave me some paperwork stating that if by some reason I came out with my foot on back-to-front, or if they had to chop it off entirely, it was my own fault and I wouldn't sue them. They then came and wheeled me into what was the most yellow room in the world, then stuck yet another mask on my face, sending me back into Narnia for another round.

For some reason I dreamt I was was Thor, and as I came around, my foot was in another cast, my toes looked like they'd been basted in tandoori sauce and as I recognised my father standing over me, I knew exactly what had happened ...

... Birmingham City had lost again at home, to bloody Fulham.

After chomping down an NHS chicken mayo sandwich, I was told I'd suffered an open wound dislocation with an ORAF fracture of the bone that sat on the one my mum had broken herself. I'd had two metal rods and 8 screws put in there, making me the world's most minimal cyborg and setting me up for a lifetime of setting off airport security scanners.

The first night was not good. The Vietnamese chap opposite me kept pinching everyone's drinking water despite being nil by mouth and putting back his own operation as a result. "Geoff", as I'd nicknamed my mildly-psychotic new friend next to me, kept moaning about his meds, and it was now snowing heavily.

Over the next two days, with no possibility of visitors due to the very snow that put me in this mess in the first place, I began contemplating things like when I would walk again, when I'd be back at work, when I'd be able to go to my next Comic-Con. And all the while contemplating how on earth I was gong to be able to handle my next bowel movement without bothering the nurse too much given they were short-staffed thanks to God's dandruff settling. Another wee in another cardboard slipper later and I felt I was going to be permanently constipated as I yummed down the NHS fish and chips I'd been served that night.

It's funny, just how much for granted we take being able to empty our bladders and bowels whenever we like. Having not shat properly for two days solid I could finally take no more and after breakfast and another cocktail of drugs, I gave in and called for the wheelchair with the bottom cut out and, having accidentally flashed my bum and love spuds at another (rather goregous student) nurse, was wheeled into a room where I promptly missed my target. Although it was rather a happier reunion between fresh air and my testicles.

That night a wannabe gangsta was bought in with a police escort boasting how he'd been shot and after chomping his way through the McDonald's his family had bought and using the word 'n***a' every five minutes as he got in touch with his 'crew', I attempted to get some sleep despite the Vietnamese chap deciding this was a good time to demonstrate his ability to out-snore a jumbo jet carrying the Foo Fighters trying to land in a wind tunnel being amplified by Iron Madien's speaker stack system.

The following day, having managed to regain control over my lavatorial habits and washed and shaved for the first time in a while, a slim, blonde lady looking rather like my brother in law's mum arrived with my crutches and a zimmer frame, and after an hour or so hobbling about like an octopus on roller skates and looking for all the world like my own grandfather, I was given my Iron Man / RoboCop leg / moonboot and discharged.

Meanwhile, the Vietnamese chap was still seemingly competing in the World Snoring Championships, 50p was asking for more McDonald's, and a local chap had been brought in with EXACTLY the same injury as me, on the EXACT same foot having done EXACTLY the same thing digging his car out of the snow.

Karma, eh ??

Having finally gotten home, and mastered the art of hopping up and down the stairs, I've been able to see some friends, sent my cards into work, successfully hobbled to and from the cinema and back to see the new Star Wars film, and even been round to my sister's. Christmas and New Year have now come and gone, and now I'm just sitting here, writing this blog, wondering if I'm ever going to be my old self again.

I miss being at work. I miss being at the pub on a Friday night, I miss being able to walk and miss being able to just hop upstairs and downstairs whenever I like to watch football and listen to music. I miss the fresh air, I missed the enforced bonhomie of New Year's Eve, I miss being independent to the degree I was, despite not truly being so, and I miss society as a whole.

I'm bored, lonely, thirsty, and wish to God that I hadn't done this to myself. All I had to do was be patient, just wait where I was, go the other way, stay out and have some fun, stick around for the after-party, have not have drunk so much wine, called a private cab rather than stubbornly go looking for a black cab on my mother's orders.

And now I worry, not about my finances, but both short term and long; my social life, my romantic prospects (yeah, right ...), and my Comic-Con calendar for this year, how much I don't want to rely on other people's goodwill and just how to get back on my own damned two feet and be myself again, all in the face of NHS bureaucracy and my mother's increased nimbyism.

This is my own personal purgatory, for now. And no-one to blame but myself.

Happy f***ing New Year everyone …