Nigel Owen’s coming out story

 This morning’s piece in the Guardian G2 about now openly gay rugby referee Nigel Owens made for refreshing reading this morning.

His story is dramatic. One of those stories I instantly connect with.

Owens, had a girlfriend. He wanted to be married. The only son wanted to provide grandchildren for his parents. But there was a problem. He also realised he was attracted to men. Usher in a big problem and an overwhelming sense of internal conflict. It’s enough to push a man over the edge and it nearly did. He tried to commit suicide writing a note and taking a dose of sleeping pills before positioning himself high on a hill where noone could find him.

It didn’t work. Someone found him. The emergency services airlifted him to hospital and now he’s come out. Not only that, he’s written a book about it.

I understand that pain. I’ve been in the situation myself. Total conflict, total confusion, total fear. It’s the most hideous experience. Time stands still. Appetite goes. Personal cleanliness requires additional effort and is fundamentally pointless. Everything weighs down on your shoulders like a ton of bricks. You need a release. You want someone or something to lead you away from under the dark clouds.

His subsequent experience coming out to his rugby union bosses and colleagues was a brave one. It was also successful. Everyone was supportive. By all accounts no-one gave him a negative response.

When I read the piece in the Guardian G2 this morning I felt refreshed and enthused. I’d happened on something as I jostled for foot room on the 0816 from Hither Green. I’d read an uplifting story even though my early rise (5am on account of an over-insistent cat requiring food) meant I desperately wanted to drop off.

His experiences were positive and exactly what the gay community needs. Here was a normal looking bloke, doing a reasonably normal job with a vitally positive story to tell to the rest of the otherwise closeted gay community. His brush-off of the “banter” from the stands the cherry on the top:

“”Hand on heart,” he declares, he has not heard any homophobic abuse from rugby crowds either. “I’ve heard the odd comment like ‘We’ve got the bent referee today’ and everybody laughs because they think the referee is bent because he’s going to award tries to the home side. That’s a joke and banter. You laugh about it and that’s the best way to deal with it.”

It’s this kind of skilfully contextualising of what some regard as unforgivable gay taunts which sends out a powerful message, a message which communicates exactly what being gay is all about. It’s about nothing.

London 2012: It’s our responsibility now

I could have gone to the Notting Hill Carnival. I could have even gone to see my parents for a Sunday roast this Bank Holiday weekend. Instead I chose to stay home, get my haircut by a good friend (she’s a smasher with the clippers) and get my head around taking some decent pictures with my digital SLR.

Thus, our TV brought us images of Beijing’s closing Olympic ceremony. Thousands of performers convened on the Birds’ Nest who, along with countless thousand others, witnessed Boris Johnson shuffle forward and wave the Olympic flag from side to side for a while. Visual displays indulged the viewer. Fireworks fired off seemingly all over Beijing. One or two were definitely superimposed over images of the Birds’ Nest. I know. I could tell.

Then the pace changed when London got it’s corner of the stadium to tempt a global audience with what we could offer in 2012. A big red double decker bus moved it’s way around the stadium. Some of us back home winced.

Leona Lewis rose majestically above the assembled British dance troups and then, as if by magic, David Beckham appears and kicks a football which inadvertently lands on the head of one of the Chinese Olympic volunteers standing somewhere on the other side of the stadium. This doesn’t bode well.

Now, outside Buckingham Palace, thousands of excited people wave their Visa London 2012 flags as London celebrates its’ new identity: The Olympic City.

God help us.

Shitting, buggery bollocks

Three blog postings in the time I’d normally devote to listening to the Archers omnibus. The blogging addiction is taking over.

I’d wanted to comment on what I’d heard on the radio just now. In a bid to try and engage the radio listeners across the capital, this morning’s discussion topic was constructed to provoke comment on whether we thought Team GB (I hate the way we now apparently have to refer to the British Olympic team as “Team GB”) should have done better in the medals table than we have (can’t we just be pleased and proud of our team’s efforts instead of constantly banging on about higher expectations?).

There I am, poised at the laptop for the third time in two hours, ready to rant and then I discover that there’s an incoming link to a blog from a Facebook application which promotes this blog.

Not having an incredibly deep understanding of how the various applications work on Facebook, I’m now wondering whether every single blog posting on this wordpress blog does, in fact, get promoted in people’s news feeds on Facebook.

If it is the case that this is how the Blog Networks application on Facebook works, then please accept my apologies for the relatively constant bombardment of news feed updates this morning. It’s not that I think I’m really important or have something stunning to impart with the world. I just rather like writing and do get quite swept away by it all.

Olympics: Smashing effort

I was thinking about a colleague on the way home today. He dropped a comment which was almost certainly harmless in intent but prompted to obsess between London Charing Cross and Hither Green. He’d joked that because the olympics didn’t feature “classical music” in it, then I wasn’t interested.

It’s true. I have, perhaps, been a little too focussed on the Proms.

It’s a habit. I have a few habits.

However, I am very pleased to announce that I have spent the past ten minutes clicking around various information sources on the internet with the word “research” playing very heavily on my mind.

I am therefore proud to confidently impart something which I suspect everyone knows already.

Great Britain has at the time of writing secured three Olympic medals. One in cycling and two in the same swimming race. Nicole Cooke is responsible for cycling (gold). Rebecca Adlington (gold) and Jo Jackson (bronze) must have swum quite fast in the 400m freestyle thing.

Well done all.

More exciting, up-to-the-minute Olympics news tomorrow (maybe).

Olympics opening ceremony

Somewhere behind me, as I sit at my desk at work, I can hear a massive crowd cheer and applaud. Oriental sounding music echoes around the building.

“What is going on?” I think to myself as I try to forget the past 24 hours and look forward to the weekend.

Of course, it’s the opening ceremony for the 2008 Beijing Olympics. And just a few short minutes stood watching a massive HD screen relaying events live from the Birds Nest stadium in Beijing and already I’m wondering what it is London will offer the world when it’s our turn.

I shudder to think about it. So I won’t .. for now.