A turn-up for the books

With COVID-19 preventing adventures overseas for now, Blue Zulu loses himself in tales of sport in exotic places from the comfort of his library

- Blue Zulu

I never thought I’d miss the fragrant ladies flogging perfumes, the grossly overpriced sandwiches and the security man glaring at the forgotten toothpaste in my hand luggage as if it were smuggled Semtex. But now I yearn for them, along with the 6in-too-short seats, the life jacket demo and my small bottle of varnish0removing Rioja.

Domestic lockdown may almost be over, allowing us to freeze over a pint at the local, but skipping abroad seems ever distant. Argentina’s doves will be able to multiply unmolested thanks to the Brazilian variant and even the hardy Icelandic salmon might be spared my efforts to annoy them in August.

Yet a form of safe travel does still exist: sitting quietlyin my library. What’s more, it’s pretty luxurious, a reminder of how privileged we were when a third of the world atlas was coloured pink and your passport guaranteed your protection by His or Her Britannic Majesty.

Egyptian ducks

Open Wentworth Day’s Sport in Egypt, for example, and you’re back in 1937 when chaps wore panamas, ladies carried parasols and Poirot was trying to solve Death on the Nile. But while Hercule was busy moustache waxing, Wentworth Day was being roused at 4am, having retired to bed at 2.30am “having drunk far too much champagne and danced with far too many Syrian, Greek, French, Hungarian and Smyrenese forms of beauty”. Any hangover is soon dispelled, of course, with a cold bath and boiled egg before he clambers into “suitably English shooting clothes — thick Scotch tweed plus-fours, hobnail boots and a waterproof hat” before driving out of Cairo to meet his host, Major Bather of the Frontiers Administration, for morning flight at Tel-el-Kebir.