Rooting for the boot
MICHALL. riENDERS(%
The Man Booker Prize came and went, as it does these days, because it has ceased to mean anything. The Turner Prize never meant anything in the first place, being a playground for pseuds and posers. It only goes to show that Charles Ives was right. Prizes', the composer said, 'are for little boys, and I'm a grown-up'.
But it doesn't stop people handing them over, and making a big song and dance about it. Not a week passes without some procession of mediocrities accepting gongs for something or other. Television, newspapers, magazines and radio are all complicit in this conspiracy to 'brighten' our lives, which, of course, ends up diminishing them.
Everything must be graded, compartmentalised and set in order. So, after the shambles of Great Britons, the BBC have kindly brought us the absurd Good Read, which aims to find the 'nation's favourite book', and comes up with TV fodder like Gone with the Wind? Then there is the 'nation's favourite poem', also on BBC 2 (oh, for a latter-day Huw Wheldon, to throw these moneylenders out of the temple), introduced by a woman who clearly imagines that Mr Kipling made exceedingly good cakes.
Even the Observer is at it, although we should expect no better from the paper that encourages readers to turn to the 'brilliant column' of that Jolly-Sooper de nos fours, Mariella Frostrup. They drew up a list of 100 great novels that came straight from the common room: no Fathers and Sons, no Buddenbrooks, no Radetzky March, no Doctor Zhivago, no Enigma of Arrival, and nothing by the most beautiful living writer of English prose, William Trevor. But the inky-fingered sixthformers found room for the Pinky and Perky of modern English letters, Martin Antis and Salman Rushdie. Never mind that Barry Unsworth and Penelope Fitzgerald, to name but two, tower above that unreadable pair. As Private Eye says, it really is grim up north London.
But, as the nights draw in, the BBC will be asking viewers to vote for another prize, the Sports Personality of the Year. As a rule this prize has more purpose than most, because it is based, or should be, on achievements that can actually be measured. The voters cannot always get it right. There was the year, 1971 I think, when Princess Anne topped the poll ahead of Barry John and George Best! A couple of years ago, David Beckham won, for no better reason than being famous.
The vote this time would normally go to Michael Schumacher, who, by virtue of winning an unprecedented sixth world championship in Formula One motor racing, has a strong claim to being the best driver of all. But he is foreign, and overseas personalities have their own prize, which is awarded at the corporation's discretion. So the field is clear for Jonny Wilkinson, the England rugby union team's outside-half. Wilkinson's boot was responsible for 20 points as England beat South Africa 25-6 in Perth last weekend, to set themselves up for a charge to the World Cup final on 22 November.
If England win the tournament, Wilkinson's precise kicking will surely play a major part. And if they return victorious, his stock will probably have risen high enough to make him the favourite for the BBC prize — not that he is a man for baubles. The England team have forged an admirable team character in the past few years, which sits nicely with Ives. Unlike some sportsmen we could mention, they're grown-ups.
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