It’s a mystery to me. Remember “It’s A Mystery” sung by Toyah back in 1981? What she actually sang was “It’s A Myth-tery” due to her pronounced lisp – which is pronounced ‘lisp’.
Why someone with a lisp would choose to sing a song with ‘s’ in the title is itself a mystery and the world loves a mystery. Want evidence?
Most weeks, the Number One best-selling paperback is a crime novel and we’re all gripped by films like “Gone Girl” and TV shows like Broadchurch, Happy Valley and the long-running Midsomer Murders, which is sold to more than 200 countries.
As I said, the world loves a mystery.
‘Real life’ mysteries also intrigue us, like UFOs, the Loch Ness Monster, The Abominable Snowman and why the BBC continue to inflict The One Show on us five nights a week when they could replace it with something more entertaining. May I suggest a blank screen?
But the mystery that’s had me baffled for decades, is the continuing popularity of….golf!
I just don’t get it.
I meet people all the time who say “We must have a game of golf some time, Phil. What’s your handicap?” *
When I tell them I don’t play, it’s obvious from the look of pity in their eyes they think I’m missing out on one of the world’s greatest pastimes.
* For those of you who, like me, have no interest in golf, a handicap is a numerical measure of a golfer’s potential playing ability based on the tees played for a given course.
I almost fell asleep from boredom just typing that paragraph.
I can’t imagine how mind-numbingly tedious it would be to spend hours traipsing around an 18-hole golf course, dressed in pastel-coloured clothes carrying a leather bag full of metal sticks, pausing every now and then to try and hit a small white ball from one green to the next in the hope it might drop into a hole.
If I want a healthy walk, without the burden of a golf bag and a cerise polo shirt, give me a five-mile saunter along the Llanelli’s coastal path every time.
Then there’s the all-male ‘golfing’ trips that use the smokescreen of ‘superb golf courses‘ to visit exotic destinations like Thailand.
Ladies, if you think your husbands/partners are going there purely for the golf, have a quiet word with them…
I also have a problem with golf clubs which are so ‘exclusive’, they require your entire family history going back to Ethelred The Unsteady (Ethelred The Unready’s drunken brother), medical records and PIN number before you’re accepted as a member.
As I’m typing this, I’m being distracted by a football match on the telly, so I need to adjust the sound and vision to the standard I require.
Job done.
I switched it off.
Don’t get me started about football….!