There goes the legend again

Press, 6 October 1980, Page 14

There goes the legend again

’>r'. Review

John Collins

The Ali fight marked the end of a legend. Roger Gascoine said so. He looked at the camera with those great , big soulful eyes of his — he didn’t even do one teensy wink — and he said: “The end of a legend.” He looked a bit pleased with that remark — you can’t really blame him, it did sort of sum things up —•> end even Bob Jones, in his! matching day-glo, rescueblue Television New Zealand:, Commentating and Inter- j viewing Blazer, clearly knew*, Roger had hit it fair on the ■ j head. Later, Bob said: “It’si £ the end of a legend.” so it;] was obvious he was pre-',, pared to back Roger all theij way on that one. Ringside, the had said: “Well, what we’vejl seen here is the end of a.< legend.” Later, on the news:! we were told a legend had ’ ended that day. By then the{< word was out all over town I i find just about everybody l !

knew it was the end of s legend. Larry Holmes may have said it was the. end of < legend, too. The trouble was though the pictures shower him being interviewed, the sound track had Bob ant Roger droning on for whal seemed several hours abort the legend’s end and hov sad it all was. It was alsc sad that they weren’t t< know that, even as thej droned, all over New Zea land rooms full of boxing watchers were yelling abust at the television set, weep ing. wailing, trying to rent their Points of Viewing

brain - damage - viewing trusses (do .ble stitched on all seams, ideal for watching ends of legends), and crying out for some instant explanation as to exactly why Bob is wheeled out to nod lugubriously ail over the sound track whenever there is a gobbet of licensed brain damaging to be seen on the .tube. ’ The same person who has i turned the 6.30 news into ! the Kansas City regional i bulletin had been assigned to I seek out the worst commentary possible and had plumped, correctly, for the Mississippi version. Some plucked from a minor tion worker's role in “Gone ' With the Wind” helped out there. The main commentai tor occasionally said: “Oh I my, a left, a right, another I left, ooooohh, that hurt.” His I colleague from Mississipi inItemittently added: “He dun jgo shooin’ leffs n’rice tuh iOrlee’s hayd,” or words to {that effect.

Somewhere in the darkness Harry Carpenter, the 8.8. C. commentator, (or, as he was once introduced on an English boxing programme, Harry Commentajtor. your carpenter) would have been stringing off his I usual clean and clipped in-| formative stuff. It would have been nice to hear it. ; What was happening, for our entertainment, to those fighters’ brains, and -what had clearly happened to the; I commentators' brains, was! brought to mind again on: [Saturday morning when! Magnus Pyke, the Worzeli Gummidge of British tele-i science, showed on “Don’t | [Ask Me” (One) why and 1 how a jelly wobbles. It does! it. according to Magnus, be-j cause it wants to: all its molecules are set up like linked springs ready to have a good wobble whenever ciricumstances demand it. Very {well; but what makes Magnus wobble? Miriam Stoppard doesn’t

• I wobble, more’s the pity, but she does stay more or less ; still in an attractive way almost as if all her molecules were set up like linked springs designed for getting I along cheerily on interesting question-and-answer programmes. Though the. head of a big business and the ■wife of a brilliant and .'wealthy playwright. she .manages to remain eng-i iagingly ordinary, which is I extraordinary. ) She has a directness that {{must come near to reducing {some studio audience {{members to jelly. On Satur--[day someone 'wanted to; Jknow why people get bags! !{under their eyes. Some poor ; i boiler with marsupial cheeks was singled out: “I couldn’t . help noticing that you have; ; huge bags under your eyes.; Why is that, do you think?”, Possibly for hiding behind! when faced with questions] like that.