When Rowing Ideas are Running Dry....

NEW FASHION FOR LONDON ROWING CLUB

As you readers know, here at HTBS we are interested in both rowing and 'style', so we cannot help posting this film about a London RC crew who, in 1967, goes from an outing to the gentleman shop Moss Bros. for morning suits as one member of the crew is getting married.

Not everyone knows the rules for when to wear a morning suit, but at least a few of us are aware that it can (should?) be worn by a groom at his daytime wedding. Some ill-advised fellows are trying to get away by wearing a 'tux' for their daytime wedding. Read what GQ magazine's 'Style Guy' says about that here. If you wonder, yes, I wore morning dress for my wedding, however I did not wear my school tie, but I did have a boutonnière.

Regarding formal dress, read also this.

A Footnote: A HTBS Top Six!

Today it happened again (for the second time in the history of HTBS), a little 'unique' event: for six days all six of HTBS's contributors had a blog entry posted. Today Louis Petrin of Australia had a post (see below), yesterday HTBS's own Rowing Poet Laureate Philip Kuepper graced these pages with a new poem, the day before that Hélène Rémond of France wrote about a Belgian rowing club's anniversary, and the day before that Irishman Greg Denieffe wrote about an interesting footnote of the 1936 Olympic Games, on last Tuesday Tim Koch gave a report about this year's GRR, and yours truly had a short piece about the most famous professional oarsmen, Ned Hanlan, on Monday. A week with what we call a HTBS Top Six!

HTBS on Twitter

Two weeks ago I accidentally dropped my cell phone on the floor and it went to pieces. To be honest, it did not make me that sad because it was an old phone. With it, I had been able to make phone calls (of course!) and I could send text messages, but that was more or less it. I could not browse the internet, or watch films on YouTube, or take pictures (regarding the latter, I was always afraid I was going to inadvertently take pictures of my ear when I was chatting on the phone and then send pictures of my ear to people...). Now, I being without a cell phone, both Mrs B. and our daughter, who is not yet a teenager, began lobbying for a more advanced cell phone, and eventually I agreed to buy a smart phone. This happened a week ago, and I am almost getting the hang of it. Then Mrs. B. launches a second 'attack' - with the right tool (read: a smart phone), HTBS could have a Twitter account, she said. And earlier today, it happened. HTBS now has a Twitter account: @boatsing (sorry folks, someone had already filched HTBS, yes, annoying, is it not?). Nevertheless, I have to warn you, it is a soft launch, please, do not expect too much from it...

A Paradelle: Blazing Oars

A Paradelle*: Blazing Oars

They come from near and far, for glory on the water.
They come from near and far, for glory on the water.
In rain or blazing sun, the weather doesn’t matter.
In rain or blazing sun, the weather doesn’t matter.
Far from glory, the rain on water doesn’t matter,
And in the sun, or near, they come for blazing weather.

The rowers’ beauty and their glimmering, pulling oars,
The rowers’ beauty and their glimmering, pulling oars,
That stroke takes the boat to eternal victory.
That stroke takes the boat to eternal victory.
To their glimmering stroke and victory,
The boat takes that eternal beauty, the rowers’ oars pulling.

The famous oarsman’s song rings clear from the sky,
The famous oarsman’s song rings clear from the sky:
‘I have rowed my last race, and I step from the ranks’,
‘I have rowed my last race, and I step from the ranks’.
My famous race rings from the song: I – I have rowed.
And the oarsman’s last clear step ranks from the sky.

The rowers’ rowed on the water – to race,
Their oars blazing for beauty and glory and victory.
In the sky, clear rings, glimmering, the sun takes
From the rain.  That oarsman’s boat pulling near
My eternal I.  They step from the famous last stroke song,
And I have come far from ranks, or doesn’t the weather matter?

G.R.B.
(11 May, 2013)

*American poet Billy Collins wrote about this poet form: “The paradelle is one of the more demanding French fixed forms, first appearing in the langue d’oc love poetry of the eleventh century. It is a poem of four six-line stanzas in which the first and second lines, as well as the third and fourth lines of the first three stanzas, must be identical. The fifth and sixth lines, which traditionally resolve these stanzas, must use all the words from the preceding lines and only those words. Similarly, the final stanza must use every word from all the preceding stanzas and only these words.” However, read this.

Relax – A Third Degree is Enough!

Today, the Daily Telegraph is publishing an article by Robert Peston and Lynda La Plante about degrees and the value of getting a First, a 2:2 or a Third…. They write, ‘In the eyes of TV presenter and scientist Lord Winston, a first-class degree indicates such a narrow approach to life that he says he would never employ a graduate with one. So does the class of your degree really shape the person you become?’

Several people – mostly writers and TV presenters – have being interviewed, and among them are a rower and one who slept with them…. Curious about the article, click here.

Exhibitionist At HRR

This lady has nothing to do with HRR.

Almost every year when the Henley Royal Regatta has begun, you come across an article in one of the British tabloids about a poor lady who has been stopped from entering the Stewards’ Enclosure because her dress did not have a hemline below the knee, or she broke the strict – some say ‘stuffy’ – dress code in another way. The ‘teary’ article always goes on saying that poor Chloe (or whatever her name is) had come all the way from ……… (you fill in a village name far away from Henley) and she had paid £xxx (you fill in a high amount, but not too high) for her dress, and not only that, she actually wore this very same dress (is that not a fashion faux pas?) at Ascots, and there she did not have any problem coming in….

So, this year it is the Daily Express which has an article about a lady who actually came in to the Stewards’ Enclosure it seems, but ‘shocked the rowing fraternity on the first day of the rowing meeting on the River Thames in the posh Oxfordshire town.’ Why, you might ask? Because she has tattoos – well, actually, her whole body seems to be covered from head to toe, ‘and fingers’ in ‘ink’. Excuse me, but if you have your whole entire body covered with flowers and birds and gardens and ships, obviously you are an exhibitionist and want people to stare at you! Read the terribly silly article here. And then watch this!

If you would like to read an article about ‘Henley fashion’, The Daily Mail actually had a nice article about that – here.

Staying In Tents Is The Solution!

It seems the British Olympic organisers are in a pickle since the leading rowing nations Germany, Australia, The Netherlands, and the U.S. have complained loudly to the International Rowing Federation, FISA, and the International Olympic Committee about unfairness in getting to the race course on Lake Dorney.

In an interview with a Daily Telegraph’s sport journalist, the Australian rowing team manager Ray Ebert expresses his concerns as, from the beginning it was said that, it would be a 30-minute travel to Lake Dorney, but now it is suddenly close to an hour. As most of the travelling is going to be on the M25 and the A4 with its bad traffic, it can even take longer.

An Australian newspaper wrote the other day that the British are really bending the rules “to ‘breaking point’ as they look to gain an edge on other competitors.” The British rowing team has secured a residence by the Thames to be able to voyage on the waterway for easy access to practise on the Olympic course. Read the article in the Daily Telegraph here.

Reading this hullabaloo, I remembered that for the first Olympic regatta in England, at Henley in 1908, foreign crews were not allowed to enter the 1908 Henley Royal Regatta as they otherwise would get an advantage, knowing the course. This did not apply to any of the British crews of course. There was an outcry in the British press, as many of the journalists took this as an unsportsmanlike way to stop the Royal Club Nautique de Gand from taking its third straight victory in the Grand. When the gentlemen at the Belgian club in Ghent told some British papers that they would not dream of going to Henley Royal so close to the Olympics, the air went out of the whole thing. In the Olympic final of the eights, the Leander boat, ‘The Old Crocks’, became Olympic champions and the Royal Club Nautique de Gand took the silver medal.

But I think that HTBS has a solution to the problem with transportation to Lake Dorney this summer. Instead of having the rowers reside in the Olympic Village, why can't they just stay in tents close to the course? That is what we had to do when I was rowing for a championship. Of course, that was almost three decades ago and the ‘championships’ was the Junior Swedish Championships. Ahh, well never mind…

Coaches' Meeting...?

Reading Tim Koch's report from yesterday, Molesey BC gave Cambridge a good match last Sunday. And Molesey did very well at the Head of the River Race where they came in third.

Talking about Molesey BC, it seems someone sneaked in a camera at one of their coaches' meetings... Or, it could be any club coaches meeting, really...

(HTBS takes no responsibility for this video's content...)

Rowing Scholars Going Across The Pond

It seldom happens that the sport of rowing gets any coverage in the non-rowing media unless a small newspaper writes about a local rowing hero’s success on the river or the race course, or some of the major British newspapers, for example the Daily Telegraph where HTBS sometimes gets some stories, writes about the British National Rowing Team. I was therefore pleasantly surprised when I came across a rowing article in the renowned magazine The Economist on 7 January.

But let me get this straight from the start, because while I find the topic of the article, the transatlantic traffic of rowing scholars, mainly between American universities and British universities, very interesting, it was sad to read the unsigned article in The Economist. Without doubt is was fairly well written, as one might expect of this magazine, but the research for the article was terribly poor.

To give you some examples: I do not understand why the author of the article compares The Boat Race and its crews on the River Thames in London with the Head of the Charles’s competitors, instead of the oarsmen racing against each other on the Thames River in New London? Surely, it is fairer to compare the Oxbridge boats with those of Yale and Harvard? Although, when the Oxbridge coaches have four boats to fill, two A-teams and then Isis and Goldie, the coaches at Yale and Harvard have each three boats to spread their oarsmen in.

The author’s statement that “A small country [Great Britain] is pulling well above its weight” sounds odd as he (let’s presume it is a man!) then writes that “British rowing is not up to much.” Right now, “the small country” actually has some of the best oarsmen and -women in the world! The American male rowers’ poor performance at the Olympics (and the latest World Championships), that the author brings up in his article, is not mainly because their programme lacks money, I believe there are bigger problems than that! The inadequate description of American crews and British crews performances at Henley which the author offers in The Economist article I will not comment upon, but I beg you readers of HTBS to not only read the article in The Economist, but also to read some of the intelligent comments made by others, all rowers without doubt...

You will find the article here.

HTBS Celebrity News

Who says that the Daily Telegraph is not like any other tabloid paper in the U.K.? The paper’s section ‘Celebrity News’ is spreading the rumour that Pippa Middleton, ‘Her Royal Hotness’, is back dating her old chum, George Percy, the eldest son to the Duke of Northumberland. Well, who actually cares? I for sure do not, but I had to come up with some text to go with the photograph on the left. It is really only the odd looking fixed pins for the oars that I find interesting….

'Row' - Such A Simple Word...

Well, here is another one of those silly commercials using 'rowing' to get the message out. And, of course, there is an app for that! If you want to try your hand at racing the guinea pigs, please click here.

Famous Rowing Brothers Go Nuts

I know, I know,.... this is terribly silly. Read what The Independent in London wrote on 14 September about the twins going nuts - click here!

HTBS Quiz: Which PM?

Rowing historian Tom Weil sent me a question the other day.

Let’s turn this into a HTBS quiz! Here is Tom's question:

“Which Prime Minister wrote a pamphlet on rowing technique?”

(Sorry, you can not really win anything, but if you guessed right, you will at least walk away with your head high and feel the satisfaction of having been right. Tomorrow, you will find the right answer here on HTBS!)

I Like Pink...

I like the colour pink. I sometimes wear a pink shirt, or a pink tie, and socks with a dash of pink. I know that some of you might think that it’s a really girlish colour. But, I would like to ask you then, how come some of the most prestigious rowing clubs in England are using pink as their club colour? The men of Leander Club, Auriol Kensington RC, Westminster School, and Abingdon School are all having pink on the oar blades, racing kits, etc. This question is brought up by the good ‘Doctor Rowing’ (Andy Anderson) in the current issue of the magazine Rowing News (September, 2011).

Doctor Rowing writes in his article (p. 61) that, although Leander calls its colour ‘cerise’, “it’s not a cherry color at all. It is pink.” I would not like to offend Leander Club in any way, but I would like to call it ‘Leander pink’. Well, anyway, Doctor Rowing explains why pink is actually for men. He writes, “Since Victorian times, the color pink has been a manly color associated with friendship. Even here in the U.S., a clothing trade magazine was counseling in 1918 that, ‘The generally accepted rule is pink for the boys and blue for the girls. The reason is that pink, being a more decided and stronger color, is more suitable for the boy, while blue, which is more delicate and dainty, is prettier for the girl.’”

There, you see, it’s blue that is the girlish colour!

...And We Are Off!

Today, HTBS is on it's way to Scandinavia! We will land in Copenhagen in the early afternoon and then take the train across the strait (over the bridge) to Malmö. There, we will have limited access to a computer (after all, we are on holiday!), but hopefully some small entries will find their way to HTBS. My dear friend Per Ekström, editor of the Swedish rowing magazine, Svensk Rodd, and I will later next week fly to London to visit the Henley Royal Regatta, and to meet fellow HTBS-arians Hélène Rémond and Tim Koch. We have hopes that the blogging will resume while we are at Henley.

Watch Out For Smiling Ladies...

Working with a small magazine means that I, as the editor, get a lot of other magazines landing on my desk. Although, I love magazines, I seldom have the time to read, or even go through, them all. So, I really do not know why I began flipping through the pages of the latest issue of Arrive, May/June 2011. For those of you who do not know, Arrive is a publication published by AMTRAK (a blend of ‘America’ and ‘track’), which in other words is the National Railroad Passenger Corporation in the USA.

So, I started to read Arrive, maybe because of the smiling First Lady on the front cover; she caught my eyes and lured me into the magazine. And what do you know, on pages 50-55 I actually found an article about rowing on the Charles River in Boston, “River Bound”.

How very exciting, I thought – at first…. Then I read the first sentence and I sort of knew that reading this article could become a trying experience for a lover of rowing: “Boston’s Charles River is home to the Harvard crew team and….” stop, stop, and stop!!! To say "crew team" is redundant (read rowing historian Bill Miller’s explanations here, especially No. 2).

I continued to read the article. Just some sentences after the first one, I stopped reading again, because: “Every 15 seconds, another boater starts his 3-mile race.” Yes, I do know that “boater” can mean someone being out boating, but I cannot help thinking of my nice boater, the hat that I lost many years ago and which I wrote about the other day. The next sentence in the article reads: “I spot single and double sculls, two-, three [I say, very unlikely!], four- and eight-oared crews, many of them elite paddlers…” No, I would not dare to say that any “elite” oarsmen and –women would be “paddlers”. You paddle in a kayak or a canoe, and if you are doing it in a shell, you are probably not rowing or sculling very seriously.

Now I was feeling a little uneasy, where was this fellow, writing this piece, going to take me? On the next page was a major blunder: “Home to the 1852 Harvard-Yale [of course, a yalie would write ‘Yale-Harvard’] crew race, the first intercollegiate sporting event of any kind in America, the Charles….” – now, we all know that the first race between these universities was not on the Charles, but on Lake Winnipesaukee in New Hampshire!

Let me stop here, because the article just continues the same way: “paddlers”, “racing sculls” [he means “shells”; “sculls” are the oars], “crew teams”, etc.

Well, now you are warned, if you still would like to read this article, click on “River Bound”.

A New Hat For Henley?

Well, 15th of May has passed, and I have not yet taken out my straw hat from the wardrobe. Here in America many people think that 'straw hat season' started already at Easter, while others think it starts at Memorial Day. Both are wrong, it's 15th of May, gentlemen! That is, if the weather allows you to wear a straw hat, and sadly, here in the south-eastern corner of Connecticut, it has been pouring for days...

Although, the hat that illustrates this little entry is a 'Boater', that is not what I have anymore. My nice, old vintage Boater was filched at a summer party many years ago, so now I have a rather regular straw hat.

However, I just might buy myself a new hat for Henley Royal this year...

For Pete's Sake, Gant!

Tomorrow, Saturday, 14 of May, it is time for the 2nd annual Gant Boat Race on Djurgårdsbrunnsviken in Stockholm. As the name of the races says, the clothing company Gant is sponsoring these races between the Swedish "prep schools" Sigtuna and Lundsberg. The regatta area opens at 11 a.m. and the opening ceremony is at 12:30 p.m., and the first race starts at 1 p.m.

Last year's races seem to have been very successful and I do think it is great that the sport of rowing is getting attention in Sweden; I even believe that the Swedish Rowing Association gave the organisers of the regatta a helping hand when it came to safety on the water, etc.

Reading the clothing company's special web site about the rowing races - it's in Swedish, but click here if you would like to have a look - it is embarrassing to read the "Swinglish", because not only is the company unaware what the boat types are called in Swedish, it's a mismatch in English, too - what on earth is, for example, "quad sweep"? I don't know, but I would have loved to be in Stockholm to see this boat class!

Can someone from the Swedish Rowing Association, please help the ignorant organisers. This is, you see, the second year Gant is making the same mistakes. I understand that the rowing communities all over the world, whether it is a small rowing nation like Sweden, or a larger one like the USA, is dying to get all the attention it can, but don't be afraid to tell clothing companies like Gant and Brooks Brothers, and other sponsors to please do things right...

Among Chavs And Yobbos At HRR?

As the ladies on the left are not following the HRR dress code "with a hemline below the knee", they will not be admitted to the Stewards' Enclosure. They just have to get drunk with the chavs and yobbos along the riverbank.

Previous years there have been some problems with chavs during the days of the Henley Royal Regatta, if I understand an article right in yesterday’s Henley Standard. The Thames Valley Police would like to have increased powers to crackdown on these unruly elements, take the liquor away from them and fine them a hefty 500 quid. Not that I can work out where the yobbos would get that kind of money, unless they are stealing it from the poor people they are harassing. Although, I do, of course, applaud and support law enforcement’s eagerness to keep the regatta spectators safe, I am twisting my brain to see what the chavers have to do with the Henley Royal Regatta. Any person showing ill-behaviour and acting in a disorderly way is doing so outside the regatta’s enclosures and after the regatta has ended for the day, it seems. Therefore calling the article “Clampdown on regatta drunks” is more than a little misleading. Read the article in Henley Standard here.

I do remember reading something in The Daily Telegraph a couple of years ago that the Henley Stewards’ decided to ditch the fireworks at the end of the very last day of the regatta due to drunkenness and pugnaciousness among the crowd. It seems not to have helped, I am sorry to say. (By the way, I found the article in the Telegraph, so click here to read it.)

So, all of you who are going to this year’s Henley Royal, do all your drinking inside the regatta’s different areas, away from the mob! I have decided, that now, when I am actually going to Henley this year, I will keep my drinking to the bar in the Press Tent. If you are looking for me, I will be under the third table on the left.

From Rowing To Bowling!

To the readers of HTBS, this might come as a big surprise to you, but I am very interested in bowling! As a matter of fact, I am seriously considering stop blogging about the history of rowing to be able to start a bowling blog instead! It is such a graceful sport. I have not yet come up with a name, but it has to be something 'catchy', Keep Those Balls Rolling, Famous Bowlers, Ten-Pin Stories, or something of that kind.

The young lady in the picture has promised to give me private lessons in this noble sport. For more information about her and my bowling, please click here.