Turkey reveals Button's secret
Halfway through yesterday’s Turkish Grand Prix, the television camera swung round the Istanbul Park and I saw something that caused me to sit bolt upright, place Arabella on the floor and think hard. A tired looking fellow of indeterminate racial origin was sitting on a grass verge swigging thirstily from a bottle of water. To his right was his jacket – there was nothing unusual about this as temperatures were very high at the Istanbul Park yesterday – and to his left a six pack of Efes Pilsen. Looking carefully at the man’s jacket, I noticed that it was concealing some sort of object. Later on, when replaying the highlights of the race, which I had recorded, I paused the picture at this point and looked more closely at the man’s jacket. Poking out of the side of the jacket were the unmistakeable gaudy feathers of a mask I had seen somewhere before.
In the days before English and European football clubs like Arsenal, Manchester United and Barcelona became global religions and caused youngsters in a vast Nairobi slum like Kibera to kill themselves when things went awry for their teams, some local football teams actually mattered. I have in mind the days when it was dangerous to wander through certain parts of Nairobi in anything other than a lime-green Gor Mahia (a Kenyan football club) jersey. I remember getting into the spirit of the thing and queueing for many hours in 1987 for tickets for the biggest football match ever played on Kenyan soil. The final of the African Cup Winners Cup was to be played on a Saturday in November of that year between Gor Mahia and Espérance Sportive de Tunis at the Moi International Sports Centre, Kasarani and I was damned if I was going to miss the game.
On the fateful Saturday I was in amongst the crowd singing “Gor, Gor Mahia, Gor, timbedutoywakni!” (which, I am told, translates as follows: “Gor, Gor Mahia. Gor, all the teams are crying!”) when I noticed a rather disturbing, (or reassuring, depending on your disposition) sight. Running round the corridors of the stadium and dancing down the steps of each stand when he came to it, was a chap dressed like a peacock.
Apart from lots of lime-green being in evidence about his body and several jingly bits wrapped round his ankles, he had on a massive mask covered in feathers of every possible shape and colour and waved an elaborate fly-whisk over the heads of the chanting fans as he ran up and down the stand steps. The chap was perspiring so profusely that he left a little puddle of sweat on the steps of the stand in which I was sitting before moving on to bless the remainder of the stadium. He looked every bit like a member of the welcoming committee at the gates of hell. I was assured by better informed Gor Mahia fans than me that he was anything but bad news. In his absence, they said, Gor Mahia was assured of defeat, for the Tunisians were formidable opponents. The fans were right. I will never forget the faces of the Tunisians as the final whistle was blown and they had slowly to trudge to their dressing room in the knowledge that they had been humiliated by a team which, outside Kenya, was not known for its ability to do much more than kick its way out of a paper bag.
I was reminded of these scenes yesterday as Jenson Button easily got past the distracted pole-sitter Sebastian Vettel at turn 10 of the first lap and then went on to lead the Turkish Grand Prix for the rest of the afternoon and take the chequered flag as only the fifth man in history ever to achieve six wins out of the first seven races in a Formula One season. A man who had been written off as a has-been at the end of last year had now joined the exalted ranks of Alberto Ascari, Juan Manuel Fangio, Jim Clark and Michael Schumacher. I feel certain that the feathers being inexpertly concealed on that grass verge at the Istanbul Park have something to do with this. Button is doing better than anybody could ever have dreamed because he is the beneficiary of very powerful muti.
“Surely you jest, Gitau,” I hear you smirk. Well, here’s how it happened. The perspiring chappie at the football match in 1987 was also wearing a black tunic covered in white, lime-green and red buttons (bear with me, my friends, because this is significant).
Not long after the end of last season, Jenson Button was lying on his bed in a hotel room in a foreign city with a bottle of scotch and a revolver by his side. He had received word that Honda were quitting Formula One and each of the girls in his little notebook in that city had claimed “prior engagements” as an excuse for not seeing him that evening. He thought it a good idea to take a last look at the world – through the eyes of the television – see how awful it really was and then do the evil deed. The pictures from channel to channel were dominated by a grinning black man with a funny name. The black man was waving at vast crowds in acknowledgment of a significant moment in human history. “O-what?” Button thought in his state of befuddlement. “That can’t be right.” Than he saw pictures of the village where the father of the new American president was born. Among the dancing crowds was a gaudily dressed man in a black button-covered tunic, a feather-covered mask and jingly bits round his ankles. Button thought twice about the revolver and phoned his father in Somerset, England. “Get that bloke, Dad,” he whispered.
The colours of the Brawn GP car are white, lime-green, black and red. The Brawn pit crew wear black overalls. Now do you see it?
Jenson Button is going to be world champion in 2009. If you fancy your chances, offer me a decent wager against this not-so-bold statement. I promise to cooperate.
Gitau
8 June 2009
In the days before English and European football clubs like Arsenal, Manchester United and Barcelona became global religions and caused youngsters in a vast Nairobi slum like Kibera to kill themselves when things went awry for their teams, some local football teams actually mattered. I have in mind the days when it was dangerous to wander through certain parts of Nairobi in anything other than a lime-green Gor Mahia (a Kenyan football club) jersey. I remember getting into the spirit of the thing and queueing for many hours in 1987 for tickets for the biggest football match ever played on Kenyan soil. The final of the African Cup Winners Cup was to be played on a Saturday in November of that year between Gor Mahia and Espérance Sportive de Tunis at the Moi International Sports Centre, Kasarani and I was damned if I was going to miss the game.
On the fateful Saturday I was in amongst the crowd singing “Gor, Gor Mahia, Gor, timbedutoywakni!” (which, I am told, translates as follows: “Gor, Gor Mahia. Gor, all the teams are crying!”) when I noticed a rather disturbing, (or reassuring, depending on your disposition) sight. Running round the corridors of the stadium and dancing down the steps of each stand when he came to it, was a chap dressed like a peacock.
Apart from lots of lime-green being in evidence about his body and several jingly bits wrapped round his ankles, he had on a massive mask covered in feathers of every possible shape and colour and waved an elaborate fly-whisk over the heads of the chanting fans as he ran up and down the stand steps. The chap was perspiring so profusely that he left a little puddle of sweat on the steps of the stand in which I was sitting before moving on to bless the remainder of the stadium. He looked every bit like a member of the welcoming committee at the gates of hell. I was assured by better informed Gor Mahia fans than me that he was anything but bad news. In his absence, they said, Gor Mahia was assured of defeat, for the Tunisians were formidable opponents. The fans were right. I will never forget the faces of the Tunisians as the final whistle was blown and they had slowly to trudge to their dressing room in the knowledge that they had been humiliated by a team which, outside Kenya, was not known for its ability to do much more than kick its way out of a paper bag.
I was reminded of these scenes yesterday as Jenson Button easily got past the distracted pole-sitter Sebastian Vettel at turn 10 of the first lap and then went on to lead the Turkish Grand Prix for the rest of the afternoon and take the chequered flag as only the fifth man in history ever to achieve six wins out of the first seven races in a Formula One season. A man who had been written off as a has-been at the end of last year had now joined the exalted ranks of Alberto Ascari, Juan Manuel Fangio, Jim Clark and Michael Schumacher. I feel certain that the feathers being inexpertly concealed on that grass verge at the Istanbul Park have something to do with this. Button is doing better than anybody could ever have dreamed because he is the beneficiary of very powerful muti.
“Surely you jest, Gitau,” I hear you smirk. Well, here’s how it happened. The perspiring chappie at the football match in 1987 was also wearing a black tunic covered in white, lime-green and red buttons (bear with me, my friends, because this is significant).
Not long after the end of last season, Jenson Button was lying on his bed in a hotel room in a foreign city with a bottle of scotch and a revolver by his side. He had received word that Honda were quitting Formula One and each of the girls in his little notebook in that city had claimed “prior engagements” as an excuse for not seeing him that evening. He thought it a good idea to take a last look at the world – through the eyes of the television – see how awful it really was and then do the evil deed. The pictures from channel to channel were dominated by a grinning black man with a funny name. The black man was waving at vast crowds in acknowledgment of a significant moment in human history. “O-what?” Button thought in his state of befuddlement. “That can’t be right.” Than he saw pictures of the village where the father of the new American president was born. Among the dancing crowds was a gaudily dressed man in a black button-covered tunic, a feather-covered mask and jingly bits round his ankles. Button thought twice about the revolver and phoned his father in Somerset, England. “Get that bloke, Dad,” he whispered.
The colours of the Brawn GP car are white, lime-green, black and red. The Brawn pit crew wear black overalls. Now do you see it?
Jenson Button is going to be world champion in 2009. If you fancy your chances, offer me a decent wager against this not-so-bold statement. I promise to cooperate.
Gitau
8 June 2009
posted by Gitau at 4:44 pm
1 Comments:
Button can only hope that the mask remains favourably disposed to him for the rest of the season. There is no free lunch, so I wonder what the quid pro quo is?
Noeth
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