Description
The Chap Olympiad was one of London’s finest Summer events, playing host to some of the most bizarre sports ever devised, from Hop, Skip and G&T to Ironing Board Surfing. This book recounts the evolution of the Chap Olympiad from 15 people in a corner of Regent’s Park to a 1,500-strong spectacle in Bloomsbury, as well as the Olympiad’s grand tour of the nation’s festivals, concluding with an appearance at the actual London Olympic Games in 2012. It is a tale of spilled gin, trouser gymnastics, ten-yard saunters, vintage hobbyhorses, lost cucumber sandwiches and hurdles made of Corby Trouser Presses. This is a brand-new hardback copy.
Edward Marlowe –
My copy of this weighty tome arrived on Friday morning, and has now been devoured. I laughed, I cried, I laughed again…. then gazed in wonder as I turned to a page featuring a photograph of oneself wearing a Mexican wrestler’s mask and engaged in an event that had fallen entirely without my hazy recollection. The photographs throughout wholly capture the spirit of the event, from the early days to the glorious organised chaos of the peak Bedford Square Gardens years. A marvellous history, engagingly retold; and if, here and there, your remembrance of the order of events is somewhat different, well… blame the cocktails and allow this to fill in the gaps, or, better yet, just accept it as part of the wondrous mythology of the events retold (after all, do not even the Gospels themselves present different angles on a story for the ages?). Essential reading for those of us who need to prove to ourselves we were there. For those of you to whom this is all new, devour it as Important History, even as the wonder makes you weep for a time when you could have seen those tweed titans of Olympian chaps displaying themselves in all their finery on the field of sporting unendeavour. Yet, caution: do not be too despondent at the notion of missing this gilded age! This authoritative work closes with the promise that the Chap Olympiad shall rise again, phoenix-like, from the dottle of the ancestral Olympic Pipe, and we shall all again have the opportunity to be one as Olympians, smoking of the one true tobacco. Bravo!
In sum, a literary triumph: purchase with haste!
Ben G –
Well, a welcome and unexpected gift from Chap HQ . I suspect that this was sent post-meridian. I received two copies of said book and can only conclude that whoever works in the post-room had returned to work after imbibing a little too much of a post-prandial libation.
A saunter through 20 years of the Chap Olympiad, having never attended I was delighted to have the opportunity to review the plethora of events trialled by those courageous enough to venture into the arena. Handbag jousting, ironing board surfing anyone?
Alan Budgen (verified owner) –
My copy got lost in the festive post. The rosy cheeked Postie no doubt waylaid by Messrs stilton and port – and then realising “I’ve missed the bleedin’ mail coach!” Not to worry it turned up in January, and what a joy it is. The clothes, the games, and prizes – anyone for Not Playing Tennis? It is a superbly illustrated book full of memories of the great times we had. Sigh… to do it all over again.