the times | Wednesday October 14 2020 1GT 3
times
In the mood for a fright?
No thanks. I’ve had my fair share of
existential terror this year, thank you.But it’s Halloween soon!
Sorry, I don’t do Halloween. It’s just a
lame excuse for shops to flog us
cheap tat. Anyway, there’s no way
trick or treating is Covid-secure.No?
Taking sweets from strangers when
you don’t know where their hands
have been? Are you out of your
mind? And don’t even get me started
on apple bobbing — that’s a super-
spreading event waiting to happen.OK, but don’t blame me if you can’t
keep up with conversations about
Netflix’s new so-bad-it’s-good show.Emily in Paris? Seen it. Not scary,
though. Apart from the acting.Harsh. But fair. And no — I’m
talking about The Haunting of
Bly Manor, a nine-episode series
loosely based on Henry James’s
novella The Turn of the Screw.Henry James? Sounds like my cup
of tea.I said “loosely”. While James’s book
was written in 1898, The Haunting
of Bly Manor fast-forwards to 1987
and follows an American governess,
Dani, who arrives at Bly House in
Essex to look after two children. It’s
not long before she suspects that
not everything is as it should be...Funnily enough, that sounds pretty
much like every scary movie or TV
show I’ve watched in my life. What’s
so special about this one?To judge from the reaction online,
it’s not just the plot that’s giving
people the chills. There’s also some
of the cast members’ accents.What kind of accent?
English. Although possibly not as
you or I know it. Watching it is said
to be like listening to “nails down a
chalkboard’’. The narrator’s voice
has been described as “like a
Londoner with a Yorkshireman
living in her throat’’.That does sound truly horrifying.
Don’t say I didn’t warn you.
So why exactly would I watch it?
Because who doesn’t
want a mindless,
atmospheric drama
that requires not an
iota of brainpower,
all while giving
you something to
snigger about
(those accents)?
Plus, it can’t
be any more
horrifying than
the news.Actually, sounds
perfect. Count
me in.Alice-Azania
JarvisThe lowdown
Bly Manor
esn’t
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ama
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wer,o
land, then you suddenly get a good
understanding of where we sit in life;
the insignificance of a human being on
the ocean. I love the feeling of being
humbled. You won’t find any Vendée
Globe skipper with a huge chip on his
shoulder because mother nature kicks
it off. You just don’t know what’s going
to happen next: a rogue wave, icebergs,
whales, albatrosses.”
Thomson’s father was a helicopter
search-and-rescue pilot and the family
lived in Wales, Ireland, Oman and the
Shetland Islands before moving when
Thomson was 14 to Gosport, where we
are talking in his team headquarters
by the marina.
He attended 11 different schools and
his disrupted education yielded five
GCSEs and no A levels. His mother
died after being ill for a long time with
cancer when he was 16.
A squint disqualified him from
joining the navy, but he learnt to sail
in Gosport and after a stint in a plastic
factory worked on yachts before trying
racing. Knox-Johnston spotted his
talent, took him on an expedition to
Greenland and allowed him to become
the youngest skipper of a yacht on the
Clipper round-the-world race, which
Knox-Johnston founded.
Thomson is in awe of his mentor. “I
couldn’t have done what he did, to go
around the world for 312 days when no
one even knew if it was possible. It’s
hard for me to compute what he did.”
The Hugo Boss is very different
from Knox-Johnston’s Suhaili. “That’s
a £6 million machine down there that
hasn’t got a toilet [he will use a self-
righting bucket], that is built for me,
for my philosophy, for my size, for my
weight. I love the speed. It’s like being
a pilot rather than a skipper.”
These days is it the fastest boat or
the best sailor who wins?
“Generally the fastest, most reliable
boat should win. The game is really to
produce the right package, which
includes the skipper, on the start.”
In the sleek black boat he has
helped to design, the cabin, which has
a neon-pink roof the same colour as
the Hugo Boss hoodie he is wearing, is
much further forward than is usual. It
is enclosed and he will only go outside
to change sails. He will be able to sit in
the cabin in shorts and a T-shirt rather
than oilskins, and the reduced
exposure to cold and wet conditions
means not only will there be no
windburn, he will have to take vitamin
D supplements to compensate for the
lack of sun on his skin.
Covid-19 has disrupted preparations.
There were initially doubts that it
would happen, then Thomson lost
three months of practice sailing, but
he says that is the same for all the
teams. He hopes that winning will be
a “Bradley Wiggins moment” for
sailing in the UK.
This year the crowds at the start will
be much reduced, but the boats will
still depart one at a time through the
channel from the dock. “It’s a very
powerful feeling. There are all those
people there, and they view you like
you’re a gladiator about to go into the
ring and there’s a question: will he
come back? It’s very rewarding to go
down that channel and have all those
people there and it’s emotional.”
alexthomsonracing.comparticularly good that what I do is
affecting them in that way.
“It’s very selfish to my wife and my
kids. I put them through hell. I feel
guilty about that, but this is what I
love doing and strangely I’m good at it
and a lot of people enjoy watching it
and are inspired, and it’s my job.”
Way is helping him to try to beat
complacency. “You get high and you
think you’re God’s gift. And then
suddenly you’re doing something
you’ve never done before.” To avoid
making mistakes at such times he
visualises a near-miss car crash to give
himself an adrenaline shot and refocus.
Last year he went to sleep just a few
hours from the finish of the Route du
Rhum transatlantic race when he was
leading and crashed into Guadeloupe.
He limped to the finish line with a
hole in his boat and was awarded a
time penalty that cost him the race.
This was not complacency, he says,
just a failure to charge the electric-
shock watch that wakes him from his
dozes. “That was one of the worst
experiences of my life. I don’t think I’d
ever felt so embarrassed before. I’m
working now to teach my unconscious
mind never to oversleep the alarm.”
On the Vendée he will expect to
sleep three and a half hours a day, in
20 to 40-minute sessions every two to
four hours. Way has encouraged him
to download Game of Thrones and his
favourite Bernard Cornwell novels to
consume in ten-minute breaks.
All those months at sea have given
him time to think. “The French talk
about the beauty of the ocean. I think
what they mean is that when you
go on a boat and you go outsideFrom top: Alex
Thomson; his yacht,
Hugo Bossv
more than 800 nautical miles behind
Le Cléac’h, but hauled himself back
into contention, closing the gap at one
stage to just 33 miles and setting the
24-hour world solo distance record by
covering 536.81 miles in one blistering
stint of pursuit in the Atlantic.
Eventually, the Frenchman finished in
a record time of 74 days and three
hours, 16 hours ahead of Thomson.
Even as he was sailing into port
Thomson and Kate agreed that he had
unfinished business. “She said: ‘If you
want to go again I’ll support you all
the way.’ She’s fantastic support.”
Nevertheless, she hates him
competing in the Vendée. “She
struggles with that one. A short dash
across the Atlantic’s not too hard, or
the double-handed stuff.” The couple
have two children, Oscar, nine, and
Georgia, six. “I thought naively that it
would be easier as they got older, but
they understand more about time and
the perceived danger. Their behaviour
is affected and their sleep’s affected a
bit and it doesn’t make me feel