WIMBLEDON, SCOTTISHOSSERTY, SPONSORRUPTION

WIMBLEDON TENNIS

BBC SCOTTISHOSSERTY  

THE SPONSORRUPTION OF SPORT

             Following my most obsessive compulsive enjoyment of this year’s two week festival of Wimbledon tennis, I now have time to write about some aspects of the tournament and other related subjects.

A spokesman for the Lawn Tennis Association and the All England Club has scotched allegations of match fixing at Wimbledon.  He said there is 'absolutely' no truth in rumours about a fat black unmarried lineswoman, 53 from Streatham, being paid £17.60 (twice the London living hourly wage) for every ‘out’ call she screamed on Andrew Murray’s service games against Grigor Dimitrov in the quarter finals.  However, she was carried off to hospital with a sore throat – Murray ran out of challenges – and Hawk Eye broke down due to an overload of line-call replays. 

            During a violent thunderstorm ‘with hailstones the size of’ World Cup testicles, which had been predicted by the Meteorological Office, both players refused to carry on playing when their balls got stuck in the mud behind the base line.  After much confusion amongst court officials and the umpire with walkie talkie technology and a Met Office hotline, the tournament referee eventually decided to close the new high-speed rolling roof on Centre Court. 

            No-one knows if Murray went off in a huff blaming the women in his life (some of whom fancy Lopez, Dimitrov and Nadal) and then smashing up his champion’s dressing room like a drug crazed rock star – or disappeared for another shorter-than-short haircut given by a scissor-happy hairdresser eager for even a short hair from Andy’s head in exchange for some energising and perhaps homo-erotic tittle tattle. 

            After the not unexpected 30 minute rain delay, play was resumed by seamlessly replacing the hoarse lineswoman with a fat white twice-divorced linesman, 66 from Aberdeen, sporting an aggressive voice and a high sporran count, who is said to be the father of an undisclosed number of BBC programme presenters. 

 

            Murray’s defeat in the quarter finals is rumoured amongst tennis pundits and muscle-bound Centre Court bouncers to be due to a before-the-match argument with his girlfriend about their pet dog baring its teeth like a horse and punching the air with both front paws since becoming addicted to single malt wee whisky flavoured dog biscuits – rather than a strict diet of raw haggis and mummy-knows-best discipline. 

            These and other post-match speculations have also been 'robustly' scotched –   this time by Murray’s new tough looking French female coach who suggested that his pre-match caber tossing exercises may have been interrupted by the dog chewing and puncturing Andy’s best set of balls and then vomiting over 10 highly-strung Head racquets.  After trying to get its nose inside the tight restricting nylon knickers stitched into Murray’s penis-picking long baggy shorts, the dog rolled over and fell asleep in front of the video of Murray’s 2013 Wimbledon win.  No wonder Andy had a bad hair of the dog day. 

            Early in the morning after Murray’s Britottish defeat and all-night angry racist bigoted ‘offensive’ Scotsaphobia in the twittersphere, a spokesperson for the BBC Board of Governors (a short fat bloated red in the face, blue in the nose, long in the tie, hot under the collar, middle-aged beige man of no known origin, wearing an unconvincing comb-over) suddenly woke up and stepped up to the smell of a plate of coffee spilled over his smartphone, and seized the opportunity for a television interview in Parliament Square.

            The first question hit him right between his bloodshot eyes – “Is the BBC to blame for the rapid rise of Scottishism over the last 20 years virally infecting British society?”  With customary bluster plus the gift of the gab, he defensively deflected this and supplementary questions concerning the BBC’s dangerously dis-proportionate positive discrimination towards Scottish accents.   And, undeterred by the camera crew’s raised eyebrows, he said it would be 'absolutely' genuinely dis-ingenuous for anyone to suggest that the Scottish are fast becoming England’s new mafia, particularly because they are not yet running London’s waste disposal operations.  He went further by saying that the BBC positively welcomes Scottish immigrants because of their indispensable contribution to British Broadcasting, the House of Commons, the House of Lords, the Civil Service, the British economy and the City of London banking system – and indeed the well being of all political commercial cultural and sporting life on the planet. 

            Some might wonder if the so-called United Kingdom would be a spent nation without Scottishism, multi-ghettoism and European dis-Unionism.

            Anyway, after clearing his throat and adjusting the fall of his tie, the male spokesperson, being of well polished political correctosserty, was nevertheless somewhat embarrassed and understandably reluctant to answer probing questions about the BBC being far better at ‘social engineering’ than politicians in Westminster and permanent secretaries and senior civil servants in Whitehall.  He would only say ‘at the end of the day going forward’, that the special relationship between the BBC, the government and the civil service should not be accused of the exponential Scottishalisation of the UK – nor of ruthlessly using aspirational Scottish immigrants as a ‘human shield’ to stop Islamical Jihadist insurgents making a global laughing stock out of world famous British liberal tolerance.  Further questions about a British post-colonial guilt-ridden identity crisis contaminating 21st century British society were swiftly dismissed as being ‘beyond his pay grade’.

            Having neptly side-stepped the rogue ‘kangaroo in the room’ questions with the verbosity of a lesbian lawyer, he went on to console scotsophrenic tough-love-game lovers by saying that if Andy Murray can continue to lose big matches, the BBC will offer him a lucrative contract to become a TV tennis commentator.  The commercially correct implication here is, that dear sweet lovable ah-bless-him well dressed national treasure ‘come-on’ Tim Henman on the Hill, is not altogether adept at public speaking with a dour grousy Scottish accent.  But he is on ‘the committee’.

There is some talk amongst tennis afficionados that although the BBC have recently recruited a Scottish male TV tennis commentator – one Scottish accent, however hard heavy rough tough and supposedly sexy and strong, cannot possibly cover the 80 or so televised matches played in Wimbledon’s 2 week tournament – it’s just too much work for one lone homesick Scotsman ‘voicing-up’ tennis way down south of the chip-on-the-boulder.  Therefore the BBC will need to find another dozen ‘rough sexy’ voices in order to provide the British public and worldwide audiences with the maximum Scottish verbal coverage of the All England Club Ladies and Gentlemens Tennis at Wimbledon in 2015.

Moreover, it has been mooted ‘off the record’ by covert political crossdressers, that in order to promote equality of opportunity for women in the workplace, plus equal pay, powder rooms, maternity leave and nappy changing facilities, the BBC may be forced to employ several more Scottish female broadcasters with aggressive accents to provide strong ‘authoritative’ commentary over the Ladies Tennis screaming matches.  However, this extra employment of Angusesses for only 2 weeks at Wimbledon is expected to be not nearly enough to meet the aching demand coming from 40 million English, Welsh, Irish and Channel Island ‘hard-working families’ for hundreds more Scottish voices in British broadcasting.

Some say the BBC is not guilty, when questioned about ‘grooming’ innocent British people for scotchual gratification.  But in the old school tradition of “it wasn’t me sir – it was him sir”, they sheepishly point a pointy finger at the puritannical Presbyterian adulterous long dead despotic Scottish founding father of the BBC in 1923 – who is still, somehow from the grave, fiercely eye-browing and Director Generalling BBC programmes in 2014.  

Such is the nature of the Reithian beast in the 21st century.

Verily, the BBC may sayeth unto its flock of humble licence fee payers – “the corporation is justly proud of its totally open-minded well balanced un-biased liberal impartiality, and strongly scotches any accusation of dis-proportionate negative discrimination against the rich variety of other British regional accents”. 

In the wonderful world of corporatosserty – does anyone shive a git?

Powered by even more Scottish Energy over the last 20 years, scotchaholic BBC executives and producers in London have gone 499 ‘extra miles’ to provide at least one Scottish voice in every 5 minutes of radio and television broadcasting.  But sadly they have so far failed.  With all their recruitment incentives, pay scales and pension plans to entice young ‘up-skilled’ Media Studies graduates down south to London’s warm, sunny, affluent, multi-ghettoural society – ‘the supply side’ is still not meeting ‘the demand side’. 

This situation could cause serious problems for Radio 4 and BBC television, both of which depend heavily on a continuous supply of Scottish voices – particularly those belonging to female presenters, newsreaders, weather women, journalists, reporters, voice overists and various correspondents – most of whom at various points in their careers will claim their ‘human rights’ to maternity leave.  If a number of them become pregnant at the same time (which does happen when women live and work closely together in confined spaces) the BBC will suffer a colossal loss of Scottish accents, leading to a possible 9 month collapse of programmes across the entire schedule.

The BBC has however, curmudgeonly acknowledged its duty to licence pee fayers and the need to ‘re-kickstart’ its recruitment of both male and female Scottish voices by all means possible including double salary contracts – not only as replacements for simultaneous pregnancies and maternity leaves, but also because the British people, and millions of Commonwealth listeners to the BBC World Service in their far-away homes and un-globalised villages, are crying out for the sound of well masticated words in their ears.

So the ‘big questions’ remain unanswered, namely – can the BBC in concert with other broadcasting companies keep on sustainably fracking hundreds more voices from Scotland on the Rocks?  And, can a cold wet windy, yet picturesque region containing urban areas not much bigger than a thousand or so ‘full size football pitches’ support a small population, almost half of whom are children and old people, with only a few women of child bearing age to give birth to and raise the required number of ambitious accents willing to migrate south?  But not too far south as having to learn French as a foreign language? 

Alex Salmond and his wee Scottish National Party needs to hang on to all the old highland broadcasters he can get to promote his and Nicola Sturgeon’s personal ambition for Scottish independence.  But can the raucous tribal call of Salmond and Sturgeon bagpipes prevent hungry young kilt-clad broadcasters from climbing over the Great Wall of Scotland and leaping onto the back of lorries to escape from the fish farm fumes of the ‘gas fired’ Scottish Nutty Party?   And will these refugees from torture, seeking asylum in London on Thames, be embraced by the BBC eager to fly the flag of Scottish National Pride high up on Broadcasting House?

Due to great British submissive ‘tolerance’, the Scottishalisation of British Broadcasting may never reach a point of refusal.

Returning to the more civilised subject of match fixing at Wimbledon - without a whiff of digressmentalitis - no-one from Downing Street or Buckingham Palace was available for interview because they were all well strawberried and creamed in the Royal Box, turning their noses up at the stench of anglo-indian Stiff Pilchard pop corn with extra cheese.  But the Minister for Independent Reviews and Public Enquiries will say in his or her speech today that he or she is setting up a Full Scale Overarching Independent Public Enquiry ‘headed-up’ by Lord Chief Justice Cohenberg, plus a parallel Police Investigation to gently look into tennis match fixing and insider betting – the ‘outcomes’ of which could be published as soon as 2029. 

This 'Full Scale Overarching Independent Public Enquiry' is expected to be extended to cover various other sporting practices (but not FGM) including –

·     Sports men and women holding hands with innocent children as they enter sports stadiums.

·     Live TV camera-carrying motorcycles pumping toxic exhaust fumes into the faces and lungs of the world’s fittest and fastest London Marathon runners.

·     FIFA’s failure to insist on separate showers and closets for distressed homosexual footballers playing in the 2014 World Cup

·     The controversial decision by the International Olympic Committee to exclude granny baiting, dwarf tossing, gut barging, neck stretching, queer bashing and razor-wire wrestling from the 2016 Olympic Games.

·     TV sports news presenters grimacing and baring both sets of ultra-white porcelain teeth as they race through the Autocue with artificially emphasised monotonal turbo-talk.

·     The kissing, fondling, cuddling and stroking of cups, plates, saucers, teaspoons and trophies by champion sports persons of indeterminate sexual orientation.

·     Ladies Tennis players screaming like foreign fishwives at 100 decibels to intimidate their opponents, distract the umpire and confuse line judge ‘out’ calls.

·     Scandalous allegations of bribery and corruption causing FIFA officials’ decision to award Qatar as the best host country for the 2022 Football World Cup.

·     Qatar Football Club’s indecision about building a not-for-profit 100,000 seater stadium with a refrigerated roof, spit buckets and foul odour sprinklers to ensure that England’s match-fit world team will not have to play like squabbling toddlers in a hot oily sandpit.

·     International indoor and outdoor tennis arenas covered in roving spotlights, plastered in corporate advertising, populated by intimidating in-your-face TV cameramen and bombarded with ear-splitting pop music between sets and matches.

·     Formula One two-way contra flow motor racing circuits with no underpasses for frogs and hedgehogs.

·     Tour de France lycra-tight men cyclists shaving their legs while free wheeling down steep twisting mountain passes.

·     100 metre women sprinters knocking out their smouldering smoky pipes on the starting blocks and lane hopping before a photo finish.

·     Golf caddies to top golfers being paid huge bonuses for swallowing the lost balls of competing golfers before the 19th hole.

·     The Archbishoprics Association for the Preservation of Cathedral Roofs applying for a licence to sell alcohol at same-sex couples only, all-night marathon Roof Dancing on Roller Skates competitions during the Christmas holidays.

·     Bishopesses and cardinalesses being threatened with dis-qualification if not fully de-frocked before competing in the 2016 Olympic Pole Vaulting Championships.

·     Corporate hospitality ticket touting and match fixing of synchronised team Missile Throwing in the North Korean Nuclear Games.

·     Crowd control and crash barriers at mixed doubles Speed Humping on Ice rallies.

·     English gentleman cricketers with cock and bollock boxes aggressively ‘sledging’ about the sexual habits of the other team’s batsman’s grandmother across slippery wickets in World Series Test Matches.

·     Regular monthly dope testing of women runners wearing gas masks and flippers in the 3 minute mile.

·     Yellow cards shown to religious fundamentalist footballers rag-heading the ball, using explosives to move the goal posts and leaving a dishevelled playing field.

·     Accusations of unfair advantage taken by the British Mens Downhill Lawnmower Racing team for wearing sock suspenders and riding side-saddle in the Dutch Grand Prix.

·     Corporate sponsored amateur Planetathon runners sniffing rocket fuel in the Race to the Sun finals.

·     Traces of performance enhancing drugs found on the remains of blood stained bikinis belonging to the British Womens Chain Saw Wrestling team after their collapse in the French Open quarter finals.

·     Young short distance runners heavily handicapped by blinkers and bomb belts in World Religion Racing.

·     Members of the London Ladies Fire Hose Swallowing team bending the Code of Conduct in the qualifying laps for pole position.

·     Gentlemens Tennis players picking at their penises and rectums through tight nylon knickers and long baggy shorts during ‘love’ service games.

·     The sexual discriminatory ban on Ladies Tennis players picking at their nipples, noo-noos and back bottoms through tight sports underbras, big thick knickers and flying pussy pelmets during ‘love’ service games.

            Nevertheless, despite the Full Scale Overarching Independent Public Enquiry into the well established sponsorruption of sport – even more noo sports noos (American pronunciation) will be coming up at the bottom of the hour, half an hour after the weather news before the top stories at the top of the hour have been repeated at the bottom of the hour just after the sports news – just in case you’ve just switched on or you’ve forgotten the top stories at the top of the hour being repeated at the bottom of the hour just after the sports news is repeated half an hour before the top stories at the top of the hour have been repeated just after the weather news, half an hour before the sports news is repeated at the bottom of the hour just before the……...

Meanwhile, Match Fixing, BBC Scottishosserty and the Sponsorruption of Sport continue to flourish – and yet magically disappear from the news, as if they have been surreptitiously swept under the carpet by the big stiff brush of vested interests therein invested. 

            “Well, blow my whistle!”

AN INCIDENT AT THE OFFICE

AN INCIDENT AT THE OFFICE

 

Sir Charles Siddeley Armstrong CEO, Capital Investment Corporation

London, New York, Dubai, Singapore

 

Sir Charles talking to Stanton Burke, wealthy entrepreneur, at the Cadogan Club.

 

            “Had a spot of bother the other day while quietly totting up the current value of CIC’s art collection.  Some young shaver in a waxy jacket managed to get past security, through reception and into my office while my secretary Monica, I call her Jane, had popped out to buy something for me to give my wife on her birthday.  He said he belonged to one of those wretched god-bothering NGOs collecting money for World Peace.  As I was thinking about putting a shilling in his tin, he went well beyond his station and began bleating on about the benefits of open-door immigration and why we should take tea with Johnny foreigner.  So I shot him. 

            “Jolly good job I had grandmother’s old service revolver in my desk – keep it for sentimental reasons, a memento of her military campaigns in Burma.  Anyway, this chap was lucky the gun’s got a sticky trigger and hell of a kickback – so not accurate even for short range shooting in the office.  The bullet must have missed his todger by a whisker and gone clean through his sack of nuts before lodging itself in the leg of one of my finest Queen Anne chairs – not lucky for me.  He made a damn awful fuss about it and a bloody mess on the carpet.  I tried to cheer him up by saying it was probably only a flesh wound and his todger had been saved by Goddo being on the right side of his trousers that day, but he didn’t seem to see the funny side of it. 

            “While he was doubled-up on the floor clutching his crotch with both hands, I extracted £832 from his collection tins and jacket pockets to cover the cost of chair repairs and carpet cleaning.  I then called our chaps in Security who eventually got up to the 14th floor and dragged him back down to the grand hall.  After a bit more bother getting his legs through the revolving doors, they threw him out on the street.  Looking down from my office window I must admit I admired this chap’s stoicism, staggering around on the pavement rattling his empty tins harassing passing bankers, who we know are very careful with their own money.  I prefer to put my spare cash into the cost-effective collection tins of well dressed political fund raisers standing on the steps of the House of Lords. 

            “Later that day I got a call from the boys in blue who said they’d received a complaint from the charity chap.  I invited them over and up to my office, and after a few questions they were happy with my assurance that I would have a quiet word with their Commanding Officer and the Commissioner.  They then went back down to take tea, not with Johnny foreigner but with their ex-police chums in our security suite.  From anonymous reports, I hear that much raucous laughter and swivelling of chairs went on until one of them accidentally hit a fire alarm button.        

“Anyway, I did think it right and proper to reward our security chaps with a big cash bonus for being called away from their professional tasks of watching the CCTV screens automatically switching from one camera to another and checking the zoom lens controls.  They also go on patrol to police their cap angles and check the symmetry of their well groomed short goatee beards in the grand hall mirrors.  Their sartorial elegance is second to none.  They’ve won 1st prize three years running for the City of London Best Kept Security Force.  But due to their badly blood stained uniforms they were worried about winning this year.  Therefore we’ve had to quickly commission and foot the bill for brand new bespoke uniforms with full regalia bearing the corporation logo in 24 carat platinum braid.

            “Of course HR and Accounts have been dealing with this but it’s ultimately my responsibility for office security – so I’ve told my secretary to carry a gun.  No idea where she keeps it – certainly haven’t seen it bulging under her tight clothes.  She said she’d rather not be seen wearing a shoulder holster because they’re not in fashion and it wouldn’t look right under or over her silk blouses.  I suggested a concealed thigh holster, but she said it would chafe on her stockings when crossing her legs.  So I suppose she keeps the weapon in her handbag – probably more ladylike.  Some women are fussy.

            “Trouble is, reading between the lines of an HR fe-mail, the chaps in security are just as fussy about wearing guns and holsters that would chafe on their legs, nipples and armpits, and distress the smooth lines of their well pressed uniforms. I do hope they’re not going girly and start asking for handbags.  HR also tells me they don’t want to soil their uniforms by getting sweaty chasing fleet-footed goody-two-shoes mercenary die-hards up to the 14th floor.  So for ultra tight belt and braces security I’ve given strict instructions to Jane, or is it Monica, to stay on guard at her desk and shoot these bloody tin-rattling bastards before they get to my door.  She’ll just have to get someone else to buy presents for my wife.  Can’t have bullets flying around my office damaging the furniture and the art works. 

            “Since the incident, the Commissioner and the CPS have quite rightly tossed aside all allegations against me, including armed robbery and attempted murder.  They will however be charging the charity chap with unauthorised entry, trespass and demanding money with menaces.  When he’s out of A&E and had his unexpected vasectomy reversed, he’ll have his day in court.  If he’s found guilty I’ll instruct our legal eagles to sue him and his World Peace wallers for all costs and sizeable damages for disturbing the peace and well-being of our sensitive security staff who, according to HR, say they now have nightmares when napping on the night shift.

            “This doesn’t surprise me.  When I first saw this chap in my office, wearing a bum-freezer jacket too tight and too short to keep a brass monkey’s balls warm, I thought he was queer – or wearing his sister’s clothes.  But I just didn’t have enough time to tell which side his buttons were buttoned before grabbing the gun. 

            “Stanton dear fellow, you’re known as a man of many parts, a man of the world – do you think these young shavers enjoy certain psycho-sexual pleasures from various forms of uncertain mild or indeed wild masochism by being ignored, abused or shot for their passive guilt-instilling beggardom?  Did this charity chap really want me to send him on his way with only a flea in his ear and a penny in his pot?  Or was he auguring my ire about nicey-nicey PC immigration perverts to the point of refusal and a spontaneous response via the rusty barrel of grandma’s gun?  If he was getting turned on by masochistic martyrdom, he certainly came close to getting it.

            “It reminds me of the long gone days of yore when that self proclaimed young gun-of-a-sod went wandering about in the Middle East looking for a cross to bear – so what’s new about seducing someone in authority to assist in super-egotistical suicide? 

            “Actually, I could feel quite sorry for those post-modern rabid religiosos with a bomb belt, hell bent on instant induction to heaven with 78 virgins.  My wife is demanding enough – whenever I get a day off.  But she’s a good old fruit.  She’s completely refurbished our New York apartment, commissioned a new virile crew to man our yacht in the Bahamas and sent our two boys, James and Jeremy, off with Prince Harry for what she calls ‘man-up stuff’ trekking across the South Pole, albeit with film crews, helicopters and catering vans. 

            “I wanted our boys to sign on for Sandhurst – get stuck in with real men – learn how to get measured for tailor-made top brass uniforms – take command and order their chaps to shoot the enemy.  But James tells me the MOD is cutting back on khaki cloth and foreign tours in sweaty theatres.  And if he and his brother were to join the army, the only world they’d see is Salisbury Plain when sent out to play with their weapons. 

            “Heard from our friend the Brigadier the other day, and he said the MOD has now cut back on all new recruiting, except for a few young high-tech computer geeks with delicate hands and sensitive fingers.  Apparently, they’ve got a gentle touch on the remote controls that drive drones and press buttons to make surgical strikes on long distance targets – without too much collateral damage of course.  If this carries on, our brave boys in boots-on-the-ground won’t have any shooting to do – they’ll just be left with twitchy trigger fingers – no use to man nor beast.  I think the army’s gone soft. 

            “Sadly, my sons also seem to be going soft.  Instead of a man’s career in the army, or high risk hedge funds, or commando selling in shadow banking operations – they’re both going to go with the girls and study Media Studies – whatever they are.  Seems to me the whole country’s gone soft in the head with new-fangled software – let alone women bishops and queer weddings.  I can’t even get the Bentley out of the garage without some sat nav harridan telling me what to do.

            “Where was I – ah yes, the little wife.  Well, not so little these days and she certainly hasn’t gone soft – got tougher actually.  What with her acting as Clerk of Works for the construction of a new subterranean Olympic size swimming pool with a deeper than deep deep-end and high diving board underneath our Pimlico house, she’s dealing with hostilities from our new neighbours – Russian and Arab oilygarchs planning to build helicopter pads on their roofs.  If that’s not enough to cope with, she’s also hosting long lunches with the wives of Chinese billionaires in order to promote her sissy brother’s company’s new range of luxurious English lingerie for the little Eastern lady.  While I admire my wife’s sisterly loyalty to her younger brother, I’m not entirely convinced that a few decorative undergarments will prevent rich little husbands from getting entangled between the long legs of white Western supermodels. 

            “But if those cheeky Chinese chappies are here to dump their dirty money into building British nuclear power stations and fracking gas from the undisturbed depths of England’s green and pleasant land, I’ll use more than grandma’s gun to remove whatever surpluses of financial sperm they may currently possess.  World peace, my arse – more like a politically correct World War three waged by nouveau riche insurgents.  Wouldn’t surprise me if they put in an offer to buy Buck House, but Liz will never sell – and Phil can shoot them down with some colourful remarks about their national characteristics.  Let’s face it, we’re thousands of years away from living in a cosy global village. 

            “By the way, Reg Fortescue from the FSA rang the other day saying he’d like his team to have a routine look at our books.  But I think he was really looking for another 18 holes – so I’ve invited him up to the club.  He’s got a lazy eye, a dicky hip and a stiff swing but if I happen to get stuck in the rough, he’ll win and go home happy.  Better get him some Royal Box tickets for Ascot and Wimbledon.  We didn’t get to where we are today without getting to where we are. 

            “I must say Stanton old chap, I’ll be a lot happier when Jane, Monica whatever her name is, gets back from three days compassionate leave to visit her elderly mother in New Zealand. These young temp secs may be top notch typists but they haven’t got a clue about buying presents and handling guns.

            “Just bought another Matisse – must say it looks a lot better in the boardroom than the Pollock.”

 

            Meanwhile the wind howled high up on the Himalayas and low down in London between tall buildings.