Torch It!
The Torch came through Brentwood via Ingrave and Herongate, so having escaped work early, I walked down to Ingrave to inspect the route beforehand. Not much was going on. Plastic chairs had been set out in a few gardens and the decrepit former Peugeot garages had been painted white; occasionally, someone in a high-vis jacket might hand you a flyer, if you weren't on your guard.
In Herongate everyone was gathering at the cricket common, only to disperse again to line the streets as it got closer to the time. The relentless rain from earlier had actually cleared up, which was an unending source of amazement. As we stood there, numerous police vehicles went past, though I doubted if this was anything unusual - just preparations for a normal Friday night on Brentwood High Street.
Eventually, standing there gazing at a deserted road and hearing sirens in the distance, I began to lose track of just what we were waiting for - was it something 'good' or something more ambiguous, like, say, the end of the world? The appearance of a woman dressed as a white rabbit, just by the school, did not really resolve the question, one way or the other. Neither did the gleaming buses of the sponsors as they came rushing past, bearing hyped-up disco-dancing people handing out bottles of a substance called 'Coke' - because surely the Apocalypse too will be 'brought to you' by someone (probably a bank).
Meanwhile a conversation of some complexity had arisen between my Aunt Doreen and Rita from across the road about Doreen's late brother's name and a woman called 'Joan Cross' ('Did she know my brother?' 'No, she knows you.') and there began to be a feeling that the question over the identity of 'Joan Cross' might even overwhelm the bigger picture of the Olympics. Then a woman ran past bearing a torch as promised, and we could all go home.
Further on down the road, according to witnesses, the woman with the torch had become an Oriental gentleman after a mysterious process known as 'the changeover'. Then the whole thing moved on towards the Amy Childs salon, never to be heard of again, as far as I am aware.
In Herongate everyone was gathering at the cricket common, only to disperse again to line the streets as it got closer to the time. The relentless rain from earlier had actually cleared up, which was an unending source of amazement. As we stood there, numerous police vehicles went past, though I doubted if this was anything unusual - just preparations for a normal Friday night on Brentwood High Street.
Eventually, standing there gazing at a deserted road and hearing sirens in the distance, I began to lose track of just what we were waiting for - was it something 'good' or something more ambiguous, like, say, the end of the world? The appearance of a woman dressed as a white rabbit, just by the school, did not really resolve the question, one way or the other. Neither did the gleaming buses of the sponsors as they came rushing past, bearing hyped-up disco-dancing people handing out bottles of a substance called 'Coke' - because surely the Apocalypse too will be 'brought to you' by someone (probably a bank).
Meanwhile a conversation of some complexity had arisen between my Aunt Doreen and Rita from across the road about Doreen's late brother's name and a woman called 'Joan Cross' ('Did she know my brother?' 'No, she knows you.') and there began to be a feeling that the question over the identity of 'Joan Cross' might even overwhelm the bigger picture of the Olympics. Then a woman ran past bearing a torch as promised, and we could all go home.
Further on down the road, according to witnesses, the woman with the torch had become an Oriental gentleman after a mysterious process known as 'the changeover'. Then the whole thing moved on towards the Amy Childs salon, never to be heard of again, as far as I am aware.
posted by martin at 11:44 AM
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