Bunkering Down

1. Wimbledon coincides this year with the World Cup, providing sports fans with a glut of entertainment. For someone like me, who lives with a fan but is not interested, these are trying times. Media coverage seems endless: tennis matches can go on for a whole day, football matches often run into extra time and, even when they're over, there is post-contest analysis to be endured. Fans appear to be incurably addicted: the more they get, the more they want.

   On the other hand my lack of interest in sport is also incurable. School did its best to introduce me to its benefits and - to be fair - made allowance for the fact that it doesn't work for everyone: after a while we were given the choice on Wednesday afternoons of training either as sportsmen or soldiers. I chose to join the Army Cadet Force. The authorities' real agenda - that of recruitment - was never made explicit, nevertheless I was happy to swap the sweaty rugby kit for the smart military one whenever I could.

   Last Monday, driven out of the apartment by tennis on the telly, I took refuge in a nuclear bunker. Deep in the Cheshire countryside there is a building which, having started life as a radar station, was later adapted to serve as the command centre for regional government in the event of nuclear war with the USSR. It is a museum now - perhaps there is a new bunker elsewhere - and I was amused to see a military uniform just like the one I wore as a cadet. Otherwise I was appalled by the realisation that nuclear war had seemed at the time to be almost inevitable - and that I might have been called upon to do my duty. It was clear from the displays that the effects of such a war had not been underestimated but it was also evident that no amount of preparation would have saved us from its effects. A screening of Peter Watkins' award-winning 1965 film The War Game demonstrated this but, although it had been commissioned by the BBC, they declined to show it until twenty years later. A notice on the wall towards the exit gives a clue as to why: "If the next war is fought with nuclear weapons, the one after that will be fought with bows and arrows." Albert Einstein.

   But not all my anti-sport outings turn out to be profound. Yesterday I spent a few hours in that part of town where the shabby old buildings have been revived by a new generation of tenancies: the shops, bars, tea-rooms and restaurants of the youthful 'alternative' culture, the independent, under-capitalised, hopeful businesses mostly doomed to a brief flourishing. One of these, a little place where chocolate is made and sold, I patronise occasionally to satisfy my craving for the serious stuff. Inside there are three tiny tables for those who want to sit and sip hot chocolate in a setting which could be described as either intimate or claustrophobic, depending on circumstance.

   I usually buy chocolate-to-go but, in order to draw out the time, I ordered a drink and took a seat. Almost immediately I realised I had put myself in that classic Hammer horror movie scene where a hopeful stranger walks into a bar and is made to feel like an unwanted intruder. The three people at the other table were obviously on familiar terms with the proprietor and my arrival had interrupted their conversation. After a while they resumed, making no attempt to include me and, since there was no quiet corner for me to retreat to, I was faced with either imposing my presence or pretending not to listen.

   I arrived home unexpectedly early that day - and with a feeling that I was interrupting something. 

Plan A. (There was no Plan B).