A Question of Place
Canada is the largest state of the USA by area, but only the second largest by population, and the 53rd largest by electoral votes.
Calgary is a dusty, thrusty city at the edge of the edgeless prairie, populated mostly by jerks and misfortunates, with only one good place to eat, and ten thousand oillionaires who couldn’t care less.
My hotel is old by Western Canadian standards, and I get a little shock every time I hit the elevator button or the lightswitch.
In the evening the hotel is full of bozos: business boozers, beldames bearing hatboxes, gauche conference-goers guzzling canapes; I’ll leave it to you to divine which category encompasses me.
The bar is a large saloon whose furnishings aren’t as comfortable as they look. Every time I’ve been there I’ve been served impeccably by the same bartender, an East Asian (possibly Korean) woman of indeterminate age, with butch hair, and a Continental brusqueness.
The restaurant is ridiculously priced. I dined there once and the food wasn’t really worth the abuse my boss gave me when I gave him the expense. My boss is a weasel of a man, obsessed with probity.
On the wall of my room, directly in front of me as I type, hang two Victorian-looking watercolours signed George Wright, depicting scenes from an unidentified polo match, with the italicised titles A Question of Pace (two horses, sinews abulge, abreast, their moustachioed masters hoisting their mallets aloft) and A Backhander stops a rush (you get the idea). Only the English Indians could invent the sport of polo. Team golf on horseback, for cunts.
I’ve nothing against horses, but I don’t like golf, or cunts.
UPDATE: Disgruntled comments correctly that polo was in fact invented by the Indians, not the English. The English invented Polo mints, which according to this blurb are formed under the pressure of two elephants jumping on them. Whether Indian elephants or not, it doesn’t say.
This entry was posted on Tuesday, January 23rd, 2007 at 11:04 PM and filed under New stuff. Trackbacks are closed.
I liek the idea of moustachioed masters riding ontop of abreast. Sound like a sport I could invent
Posted on 24-Jan-07 at 12:22 am | PermalinkDid we invent it?
Posted on 24-Jan-07 at 3:17 am | PermalinkOh, the shame.
(Good job I’m 1/4 Dutch, 1/4 Irish, 1/2 we’re-really-not-sure-cos-Daddy-was-a-bastard, ay?)
You beldame, you.
Didn’t the Indian Maharajahs invent it and the Brits simply pinch it? Wouldn’t be the first time
Posted on 24-Jan-07 at 12:13 pm | PermalinkMany scholars believe that polo, in its antiquated form, originated among the Iranian tribes sometime before Darius I (521–485 BC) and his cavalry extended the Achaemenid rule to greater Persia. and some scholars believe that polo, originated in southern parts of Afghanistan (Paktia and Paktika), however this is all bollocks. Me and me mate Trev invented it one day when we bought a lot of dodgy horses of Joe “Fat Balls” The Greek. We had these horses right, and these malletts and some spare balls so we thought it’d be a right laugh to ride the horse whilt simultanesously wacking shit outta balls with malletts. At the time I was muching the mint Polo’s and Trev was scoffing a pack of Knix Knax,
nuff said right.
Posted on 24-Jan-07 at 12:53 pm | PermalinkIndeed, Menace, I believe we appropriated quite a lot from the Indians. What I haven’t worked out is how Argentina became a force in world polo. It just doesn’t figure!
Posted on 24-Jan-07 at 3:58 pm | PermalinkIt’s more like croquet than golf, now I think about it.
Posted on 29-Jan-07 at 10:56 am | PermalinkElephant polo.
Posted on 30-Jan-07 at 3:35 pm | Permalink…
Polo, but with elephants.
What about elephant polo? You must like it. Everyone does.
Elephant polo: alchemy, with the elephant as quicksilver - shit to gold.
….
Even better: Robo-Elephant Polo. With RPGs for tusks. And 100-megawatt lasers for eyes.
….
Excuse me, lay down, I, must until sleep better. Odd-feel.
Feel better now.
Posted on 30-Jan-07 at 3:35 pm | PermalinkIs Calgary really that bad? You make it sound like Deadwood.
Ummm.. Canada is NOT apart of the USA, nor is is a state. Any Canadian (myself included), would be rather upset to have that said.
Posted on 07-Feb-07 at 7:03 am | Permalink