2 1GT Wednesday October 14 2020 | the times

times

I

wish to complain about the

Stanford University study that

found that working adults are

miserable old farts who start to

lose their sense of humour at

the age of 23, only recovering it

when they are retired. Rude.

I myself am a working adult

and have been for decades. OK, yes,

occasionally I may inch towards

miserable old fartery, but only when

someone has left the immersion

heater on all night again (am I Jeff

Bezos?) or when the younger members

of our household want to play music

and be happy when I’m tired and have

to be up early for work. “Some of us

don’t have time to be happy,” I tell

them for their own good. “Does

‘happy’ put a wash on? Does ‘happy’

bleach the toilets?” Oh, they’ll learn.

Yet it’s nonsense to suggest, as the

academics do, that workers fall off a

“humour cliff” and trade laughter for

“ties and pantsuits” for most

of their wretched lives.

Me — no mirth?

Ridiculous. Why,

only the other

day I fell about

laughing in

my pantsuit

when I saw

a young

person

wexting

(texting while

walking),

then wander

directly into a

concrete bollard

at testicle height.

Ha ha. Made my day,

that did. Maybe swollen

gonads will teach you to look

where you’re going, young man. What

was so urgent, eh? It’s not as if you’re

always time-pressed like me, a busy,

knackered shadow of my former self

who peers through windows at

pensioners enjoying the early bird

menu in gastropubs and thinks:

“Jammy bastards.”

So I assure you that people like

me still find plenty of jollity and

satisfaction in life, thank you. It’s

just that often it’s at the expense

of others because we haven’t the

energy for much else. For instance,

I felt very happy this summer

when everyone was dashing back

R

acing a yacht single-

handed and nonstop

around the world is

probably the most

insanely arduous

sporting event ever

devised, with much

of the action taking

place in the endless inhospitable seas

at the bottom of the world.

The competitors in the Vendée

Globe race leave Les Sables d’Olonne

in western France, zip down the

length of Africa, then head clockwise

around Antarctica, via the Capes of

Good Hope, Leeuwin and Horn,

before re-entering the South Atlantic

and heading back to France.

For most sailors the moment when

they turn left at the Cape of Good

Hope and meet the high winds and

mountainous waves of the desolate

South Atlantic is a daunting one. Alex

Thomson is not most sailors.

“I can’t wait to get there. It’s that

fabled place where sailors want to go,”

he says, grinning like a man fondly

recalling a favoured old haunt. “The

waves are big and spaced apart. When

you’re at the top of a wave you’re

looking down what we call the runway,

and you’re going to go down at

30-plus knots. It’s very exhilarating —

for a few hours.” His smile fades and

he turns serious, while still talking in

his disarmingly matter-of-fact way.

“And then it becomes relentless and

you’re down there for five weeks. I get

a real big dose of my own mortality.”

Fewer people have ever sailed solo,

nonstop around the world than have

climbed Everest this year. Thomson

is preparing to take part in his fifth

Vendée Globe. In 2012-13 he came

third. In the most recent race, in

2016-17, he came second, finishing

a few hours behind the winner, Armel

Le Cléac’h. Most people believe

he would have become the first

non-French winner if he hadn’t hit

something in the South Atlantic and

damaged his boat while in the lead.

Today he will leave Gosport to sail

his £6 million Imoca 60 yacht, Hugo

Boss, to France ready for the start of

the race on November 8. Thomson,

46, plays down the danger. “I feel as

safe on my boat as I do going for a

drive in my car. It’s just a shame no

one else thinks that.”

Modern yachts complete the race in

less than a quarter of the time it took

Robin Knox-Johnston to finish the

first solo nonstop circumnavigation in

1969. Thomson’s new 60ft monohull
      has hydrofoils sticking out of the sides
      that partially lift the boat out of the
      water so that it “flies”. However, these
      boats, which brings the sport as close
      to Formula One as it is to traditional
      sailing, slow right down in very big
      waves. It makes sense to stay at a more
      northerly latitude and travel farther,
      faster, in less treacherous waters. The
      forecasting is good enough that he can
      see bad weather days ahead and avoid

it. Nevertheless: “It’s harsh conditions.

It’s the most extreme sport in the

world. Nothing really comes close.”

In 2006, Thomson was plucked from

a liferaft in the Southern Ocean by a

fellow competitor in the Velux 5

Oceans race after his yacht capsized

because of a problem with the keel. In

2015, he and his racing partner in a

transatlantic race were rescued when

a rogue wave capsized their boat. He

admits to being briefly scared. “I was

asleep. I woke upside down, water

pouring in. I remember fear and

thinking: ‘Oh shit!’ You don’t know

what’s going on, but then very quickly

that turns into: how am I going to

survive? And the fear has gone. The

fear for me is not performing.”

With long-distance yacht racing,

“the real hard part is the mental side

of it”. When you are looking for the

ideal single-handed round-the-world

sailor you want a certain type. “You

wouldn’t really want an emotional

person. I’m emotional. My heart’s on

my sleeve. It’s something I work very

hard on with a sports psychologist.”

That person, Ken Way, previously

advised Leicester City football club

when they won the Premier League

title. “He sympathises with my team,

who have to work with somebody who

can be ridiculously happy and ten

seconds later ridiculously miserable. If

a position report comes in and I’m

doing well, I’m happy. If I’ve lost miles,

I’m not happy.”

He has been taught by Way to smile

and look happy when something bad

happens and now is convinced that

this really does make him feel better.

But it’s all relative. His mood on board

generally varies “between miserable

and f***ing miserable”.

For his circumnavigation of more

than 27,000 nautical miles he will

plaster the cabin with pictures of his

family and friends. With Way he has

worked on separating loneliness from

isolation. “I know that I’m loved and I

only have to look at [the pictures of]

them and I don’t feel lonely. When I

do feel isolated, I go: ‘Yeah, I feel really

isolated, but it’s not too bad. I can deal

with that.’ Three months isn’t a long

time. It will be gone like that.” Satellite

communications keep him in touch

with family and his team, but the

only advice he can accept is how to fix

broken equipment.

Before his 2016-17 attempt to win

the Vendée he agreed with his wife,

Kate, that it would be his last. After his

boat was damaged in the race he fell

Knickers

to mask

hygiene

Did you see Siobhain

McDonagh MP sitting

in the Commons giving

her spectacles a

vigorous old rub with

her surgical facemask?

Eww. Don’t tell Chris

Whitty about this

smear-athon or he

might have to treat us

to another of his slides.

Twitter was grossed

out, but then people

routinely use their

hankies to clean their

specs and everyone’s

mother spat on a tissue

and washed their child’s

face with it. (Yes, they

did — just as everyone’s

mother at some point

held them over a grate

to wee. Mine stopped

that when I went to

college, though. Joke.)

But then this is a

pandemic and officials

have urged us all to

treat our masks like

our knickers, washing

them every day, not

lending them to others,

not whipping them

off in Tesco, not

leaving them lying

soiled on the kitchen

worktop while we

make our dinner.

But what about using

your knickers to clean

your glasses? Is that

OK? Professor Whitty,

I know you’ve got quite

a lot on, but if you

could advise we’d be

much obliged.

There’s a

Python in

my drink

Python co-star, was

a fantasist whom he

didn’t entirely trust.

Cleese gave a eulogy

at Chapman’s memorial

service in 1989 when

he said Chapman

loved to shock and

abhorred “mindless

good taste” (imagine

what he’d think if he

were alive today).

I’m concerned,

though, that this will

undermine the veracity

of the greatest Python

anecdote. Namely that

Chapman, who had a

drinking problem, had

a favourite table at his

local boozer, the Angel

Inn in Highgate. If

anyone else sat at it he

would be furious, but

knew how to make

them leave. He would

walk over, unzip his fly

and plonk his penis in

their drink.

Say what you like,

but that’s an infallible

shock-and-awe

strategy. And with the

added merit that it’s

more eco-friendly than

a plastic stirrer.

John Cleese saddened

me this week when he

said that Graham

Chapman, his Monty

early from their foreign holidays to

beat the quarantine rules and I wasn’t,

because I had never got round to

booking anything in the first place.

(How I chuckled. I win again!)

Schadenfreude is underrated, I tell

you. It’s the warm glow you get on

discovering that your neighbour did

not secure the same fixed-tariff gas

and electricity deal that you did, with

estimated yearly savings of £

(immersion heaters aside). Yes, I might

not have been enjoying LOLs and

wine with friends in a Tuscan villa, but

tell me, does your fixed energy plan

include boiler and controls breakdown

cover at no extra cost? I think it’s clear

who’s having the last laugh here.

Small sparks of happinesses can be

found everywhere. Did you see how

much glee it brought the nation when

Boris Johnson turned up to parliament

on Monday looking as if someone had

tipped a tub of Saxa salt over his head?

There was so much dandruff

and loose hair on his

navy suit that

someone said he

looked as if he’d

had a fight

with a cat.

People who

had been

feeling self-

conscious

about the

snowscape

on their

shoulders

suddenly

felt a million

dollars, saying:

“Well at least I don’t

look that bad.” (Buy Head

& Shoulders, prime minister.

And consider wearing beige, the

dandruff sufferer’s friend).

Even the busy, knackered and

joyless can always take a moment to

laugh at a stranger walking into a glass

door (harsh, but never not funny),

a drunk trying to walk straight (ditto)

and an angelic-looking three-year-old

child saying loudly in public: “Oh, for

f***’s sake, Mother.” (I may have been

said mother on this occasion.)

However, if you are seeking

merriment and laughter from, say,

Radio 4 comedy or the new Spitting

Image I will say only this. Look

elsewhere, my friend, look elsewhere.

Carol Midgley

I still have reasons to

laugh — anyone else see

the snowscape on Boris?

‘I woke upside

Rogue waves, icebergs, whales — when

racing alone around the globe, says

Alex Thomson, you don’t know what

might hit you. By Damian Whitworth

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