So
I decided to take some waterskiing lessons, not because I wanted to waterski,
but because I wanted to prove to myself how easy and therefore pointless it
was. The only problem was the potential for public humiliation, but by booking
a lesson first thing in the morning, I reckoned I could get it all over before
people began arriving on the beach. Except that on the appointed day the water
was too rough, so I had to wait three hours for it to become calm enough, and
by the time I was eventually able to start, the throngs had arrived.
?
I
was now acutely aware that I was the only visible entertainment, but had the
idea that if I could convey the impression that I had previously suffered an
injury, spectators might, out of a sense of tact, not watch me too closely. I
therefore acquired a sudden limp, which rather puzzled my instructors (though
they might later have thought that it explained my subsequent performance). I
donned the skis, sat down into them, grasped the ring by which I was to be
towed, obeyed the instruction to sit up as the motorboat accelerated away, but
then failed to lean back enough, with the result that I simply disappeared head
first into the water in front of me, having gained about two feet. When I'd
finished expelling the surprisingly large amount of seawater that my body had
acquired during this first trip, I tried again, but because I was now
consciously trying to lean back more as the boat surged forward, my skis shot
straight up in front of me, and I spun backwards, landing with an enormous
splash. By the time I was ready for my third effort, every eye on the beach
(except one of Marty's) was focused on me. This time, as I steeled myself for
my third and final attempt (a lesson, thank God, consisted of only three goes),
I cleared my mind, remembered to pull on the ring and lean back, but not too
far, and to stand up, keeping my back straight and my arms half-braced, not at
full stretch, as the boat pulled away, and to relax, above all to relax, and to
try to take the full weight of my body on my thighs, and to keep my head up.
And the boat surged and I was up, up, UP for about a yard when I let go of the
ring, toppled sideways with my arms flailing, and produced the biggest splash
of that summer. As I staggered to the shore, believing that my misery was at an
end, I became aware of the crowd, who were standing applauding and laughing,
with several of them offering my instructors money to buy more lessons for me.
?
Connie
was very sweet to me when I got back, but Marty, Graham and Tim drifted away
almost as though they didn't want to be seen with me. I suspect they were
envious of the laughs I'd got.
?
Marty,
who was always amused by my painful politeness and inability to shake off
people who were being a pest, had developed an annoying habit since his
arrival. Every morning, after we arrived at the beach, he would wander off on
his own, chatting to people at random, until he came across someone - always a
man - whom he judged to be outstandingly boring. He would talk to him until he
had ferreted out his pet subject - or better, hobbyhorse - and would then say,
"What a coincidence! I'm here with my best friend, John, and he's also
just crazy about badgers/garden sheds/postage stamps/ potholing/model
railways/plastic forks. You simply must meet him!" Then he would bring the
megabore over and introduce him to me. "You're both crazy about brass rubbing/moths/flying
saucers/ Tranmere Rovers/folk music/bestiality. You'll have so much to talk
about!" And then he'd retire to a safe distance, and snigger. On one
occasion, to his delight, the only way I could escape from a Scrabble fanatic
was by swimming further out to sea than he could.
?
I
asked Marty to stop, but unsuccessfully. He passionately believed that the
highest form of practical joking was to waste someone's time. Years later, it
occurred to me how many of his sketches involved an annoying man (usually
called Mr. Pest) doing exactly that. ?
?
?
John
Cleese "So Anyway" (2014)
