The Olympics are over for me. No matter how fast, how high, the athletes go, none will match Ben Parkinson’s 300-yard walk carrying the Olympic torch.
Afghan veteran Ben was not expected to live when a bomb inflicted terrible wounds in 2006 – he lost both legs, broke his hips and suffered serious injuries to his brain and back.
But Ben, 27, is a soldier and the old-fashioned virtues of courage, tenacity and comradeship powered him through the 25 minutes it took to complete his 300 yards on metal legs through his home town of Doncaster, cheered by the crowds.
He doesn’t need a gold medal because his qualities are written right through him like Blackpool through a stick of rock.
A few days ago I tweeted about an ankle injury, whinging about the discomfort.
Now, I feel ashamed.
THUMBS UP FOR AIRPORT SECURITY: It’s a bit of a handicap for a travel writer but I hate travelling. Airports, with a handful of exceptions – Changi for its gardens, Schipol for its meatballs and smoking room – are soulless cathedrals to captive shopping.
And security is never the same twice.
I remember standing in a queue at a Greek airport. The guy in front carried a litre bottle of a green liquid that the security man didn’t like the look of.
Fiercely proud of mum’s olive oil, the passenger pulled a large clasp knife from his pocket, cut the tape around the bottle and held it up. The security man sniffed and nodded appreciatively. The passenger resealed his bottle, slipped the knife back in his pocket and was waved through.
It was different last month. At Athens airport they were speedy, polite and very thorough, even requiring large cameras, but not small ones, to accompany laptops through x-ray.
Having a security guy’s thumbs run round the inside of my belt while I was wearing it was a bit more of a wake-up than I wanted that early in the morning.
My wife was equally startled when the latex thumbs of his female colleague ploughed beneath her underwiring.
We’ve already faced exploding pants so I suppose any item of underwear is fair game in the war on terror.
PUBLISH AND BE DAMNED: Writing is not like baseball – you can build it but there’s no guarantee they will come.
It is difficult to stand out in the crowd. There are hundreds of thousands of ebooks floating in cyberspace in search of a home. Some people want to blow off steam, others to tell the world all about a much missed pet.
There are also a significant number of talented and innovative novelists treading water while waving their arms as they try to establish some sort of writing career.
I won’t apologise for another shameless plug for The Wreck Of The Margherita and Death Squad.
The darker side of this melting pot was revealed in the Sunday Times this week. An article by Kate Mansey and Tabby Kinder highlighted the fact that Amazon provide a platform for authors but are not the publisher and do not vet books.
Their research found titles on dog fighting, paedophilia, anti-Semitism, anti-Muslim texts, porn and bomb-making to name a few.
The ebook explosion has been a wonderful opportunity for writers unable, for whatever reason, to go down the conventional publishing route to see if they can find an audience.
Like everything else in life, it has its negative side and I have no solution. I shall keep treading water and waving while I think about it.
HALL OF FAME: Good to see major renovations are now underway to Wilton’s Music Hall in Wapping, East London. This fantastic old building, which featured in my crime-thriller Death Squad, has the history of London’s theatre and docks soaked into its crumbling brickwork. It is a national treasure that has struggled for funding but deserves a 21st century life.
… and finally, my daughter works for a popular clothes chain. Muggy day so she took off her jacket for a moment. Could whoever snapped up a rather moist bargain please return her asthma inhaler?