Oars-de-combat

‘Are you ready …’ The winds skim and frisk like a well-thrown flat pebble across the chop and chill of the mucky water. So do two slim, sleek boats carrying 16 broad and beefy men. Ships, towers, domes rip by …temples, wharves, jetties, tower blocks, bandstands, gullies; the Middlesex wall, the Surrey station, Harrods depository, Craven Cottage, the Riverside theatre; bikes on the towpath, daffs on the banks, pubs to the left of you, pubs to the right …and ‘hurrah! hurrah!’ from Hammersmith Bridge.

Boat Race day tomorrow, so truly spring has sprung at last. Did I say 16 hulking he-man hearties, each in a boat for eight? Each man heaving, hurting, symmetrically straining to turn perfect harmony into uncatchable speed? They call it an eight but, in fact, there are nine bodies in a boat. In their headlong propulsion backwards, these bulked-up eightsome reelers cannot remotely see where they are going.