The Horror of Leaving for Rio
A bit late, sez you, considering the rest of the nation’s students were already grappling with Keano and Heano as early as last Wednesday. Even later than that, sez I, considering I actually went through The Horror as far back as (gulp) 1976, my default expression as I turned over each new exam paper more or less the same as the look you might expect to find on a dog’s face if you showed it a card trick.
Picture me, for example, sitting the Biology exam, grappling with the life cycle of the earthworm. (How right my old colleague Liam Fay was when he once attested that he did indeed attend school but was educated elsewhere). The one thing I remember about all those wasted hours learning about the slippery critter is that it is a hermaphrodite, a fact of absolutely no consequence to anyone, surely, but a great get-out-of-jail card for harassed teachers who could tick off the ‘sexual reproduction’ box in the biology syllabus without ever having to speak to a classroom full of hormonally-charged teenage boys about actual sex between two separate creatures, never mind two consenting adults.
All of which is by way of making the fanciful observation that if, as the sun poured through the windows of that hated exam hall, a kindly fairy godmother had suddenly materialised and offered me the choice of staying where I was for another two weeks OR flying straight to Rio to see the finals of a World Cup, well, suffice to say my considered opinion would have been that the earthworms could just go and...do what hermaphrodites do to themselves.
That it’s taken 38 years for the fantasy to come true, I can now afford to dismiss as a minor irritation since, lo and behold, The Leaving is almost upon me — this coming Wednesday night I will be ensconced in the belly of the great silver bird, winging my way to Rio and beyond.
But — and, being that I’m a jammy, whining, never-satisfied football hack who has a hobby not a job, you just knew there had to be a but — my joy unconfined has been tempered somewhat by the untimely arrival by email of a document entitled ‘Brazil 2014: A Reporter’s Guide To Safety’, thoughtfully put together by colleagues in the Football Writers’ Association of England.
The pithy intro, balanced but punchy, gets straight to the point, I feel, so permit me to quote it in full: “There is no doubt Brazil is a beautiful country but it is a country with a dark side. We all know it has wonderful beaches, samba music and a fantastic football tradition but they will count for little if you are held up by some knife-wielding, wild-eyed, scumbag lowlife demanding your wallet, mobile phone and laptop.”
And, no, I haven’t just made that up. Happily, we then get some helpful tips to put the nervous traveller’s mind at rest. Among them:
“Do not resist a robbery attempt. Turn over your valuables quickly and without comment...
“Keep your wits about you. Do not relax on the street...
“Be very careful when withdrawing money from ATM machines. Avoid ATMs in the airports, many have been tampered with...
“Be careful about using public wi-fi, Brazil has the world’s second highest incidence of on-line banking fraud...
“Do not walk on beaches or in parks after dark...
“Do not use a laptop, iPad or iPhone in the back of a taxi, thieves on motorbike habitually weave through traffic jams looking for robbery opportunities...”
There’s a good deal more in that vein, but one particular piece of advice, I think, is worth quoting in full: “Don’t open your hotel room door until you positively confirm who is on the other side. Regarding hotels: you can ask whom you like back to your room, and without being silly or sexist about it, watch out for this scam. You may meet a very attractive person and invite her back to your room. What you don’t know is that she is working in league with a gang, texts your room number to her accomplices downstairs and she lets them in to your room, so you end up with rather more than you bargained for.”
My first reaction to this document was to observe that, while there are a lot of don’ts in the list, there’s aren’t too many dos. One I would immediately propose: “Having digested this guide, DO look in the mirror to see if your hair has turned completely white.”
My second reaction was to accept that I might just have a few more things to worry about over five weeks in Brazil than the threat of various exotic maladies against which, like a pin-cushion, I have already been subjected to shots for hepatitis, typhoid, tetanus and diptheria, not forgetting my course of anti-malaria tablets and industrial strength mosquito repellent, all of which should ensure that, even when in hot and humid Manaus, gateway to the Amazon, I am immune to just about everything, except cliché.
Ah, well. At least there’s been no mention of a plague of sexually frustrated, flesh-eating earthworms.
So far.
