06 July 2017

Elvis Is Dead

And a victory for Thames Rowing Club.

By Chin Chin

There is no question but that things are serious.  Until recently one could rely on the regularity of British life.  Labour governments, Conservative governments, coalitions, etc; they all came and went, changing things a bit on the surface of course, but the fundamentals always remaining the same.  Now that certainty is shattered.  Time and place have moved into a new pattern.  This year Wimbledon did not begin until Henley Royal Regatta had actually ended.

Traditionally Henley is the end of the summer season and shares a final weekend with Wimbledon and the Lord’s Test.  Whatever your summer sport, this was the climax.  Well, no longer.  If you were at Henley on Saturday there was little to distract you from the racing.  And indeed very good it was too, with a cornucopia of foreign crews, lots of high-quality rowing and also a new pub quiz question.  “How is it that Thames Rowing Club managed to secure the Thames Cup on Saturday although the final was rowed the next day?”  A bit of a puzzle that, eh?  Well, I’m not going to make you run through a series of answers of the “the other side were poisoned by a hot curry/were arrested as members of Isis/were kidnapped by aliens ” variety.  No, the answer is that each of the two semi-finals was won by a Thames crew so that all that remained to be decided on Sunday was which of the two crews would get the trophy (it was Thames A, as it happened).  Altogether a rather splendid result.  What more could a Thames member want?

Glorious as the day was, though, there was something we could have done without.  Periodically, a boatful of Elvis impersonators motored slowly past the enclosures inflicting their reproductions of his music on innocent and captive spectators.  It is, I suppose, the one way they can hold an audience but it is all a little irritating.  Why do they think that this intrusion on the peaceful Thames Valley landscape and the gentle swish of oars is somehow acceptable?  What are they trying to prove?  It cannot be that Elvis is still alive because there were half a dozen impersonators on the boat and as far as I can recall there was only one Elvis.  Do they hope that somewhere deep in a regatta armchair there is a theatrical producer who will be struck by the commercial opportunities afforded by their act?  Will a Cameron Mackintosh or a Lloyd Webber rise, cheque-book in hand, from the somnolence of the Bridge Bar like a trout rising to a well-cast fly.  Probably not.  It is more likely that they are just showing off.

And here, there is another mystery.  This group of Elvis impersonators has been appearing at Henley for many years.  The normal rules of human wastage mean that from time to time they must replenish their ranks.  How long will it go on?  Presumably some members of the group must be too young to remember Elvis, or a least that will soon be the case.  Does there come a point when the icon itself has to be replaced, or is the same formula to be beaten out year after year, like The Mousetrap, long after anyone can quite remember who Elvis was?

“Some sort of King” you can imagine a rowing supporter saying to his Pimms-soaked neighbour, fifty years on.

“King of where, exactly?”

“Oh I don’t know, one of those splodges on the map that used to be red and is now owned by the sheikhs.”

“Was he an Arab, then?”

“Yes, or a Kurd.  It is all in the name if you listen carefully.  ‘El Vis’ as in ‘El Alamein’, a sure sign of the Middle East.  Followed by ‘vis’, the Latin for force.  There you are, that proves it!  A Middle Eastern strongman, a sort of second Saladin.”

“But why are they singing then?”

“In those days great warriors were taught to sing.  Think of Richard the Lionheart singing to Blondel to tell him where he was imprisoned.  Think of Roland singing his song at Roncesvalles.  Many a great victory was won in the choir of the castle chapel.”

“Are you sure? I thought that ‘El’ had a South American feel.  Some sort of Latin drug dealer perhaps?  There seems to be a lot about a hound dog, perhaps a reference to the guard dogs which surrounded his villa.  Also that stuff about blue suede shoes?  Do you think he used them to smuggle cocaine past customs?”

“Maybe.  Or perhaps the origin of the songs has simply got lost over the centuries, so people have attributed them to a mythical figure, rather in the way that they have attributed Greensleeves to Henry VIII.”

“But Henry VIII isn’t mythical.”

“How do you know?  You weren’t there.  You are just relying on Wikipedia like everybody else and we all know how much that is adjusted by the ministry of information.”

“All right, be as sceptical as you like. Just what sources are you prepared to accept, then?”

“Well, the programme of the Henley Royal Regatta for one.”  They look down.

“Hmm, not much about Elvis here but a jolly good quiz question.  ‘How was it that in 2017 Thames Rowing Club secured the Thames Cup on the Saturday even though the final wasn’t until next day?’”

 

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