You don't have to cry...

Nobody likes to see a grown man cry and when angry, homegrown hero Andy Murray lost in the final of a local tennis comp last week, defeated by some dashingly smug, Mr Darcy-type with nice hair and a slappable face, the whole nation turned away in disgust.
"What a big fucking girl!" we said, in embarrassed unison.
Naysayers then went on to say that the man simply 'doesn't have what it takes' and has 'about as much chance of bringing home an Olympic gold at the end of the month as Stephen Hawking has of winning the triple jump'.

But naysayers always say things like that. They are, by nature, very negative people. I, however, am a yaysayer and I think Murray can triumph at the Olympics much like I did all those years ago in Atlanta.

Now, I know what it is like to ride the emotional rollercoaster that is competitive sport at the highest level better than anyone and I know how it feels to carry the hopes and expectations of an entire nation on your shoulders. It is a well known and often cited fact that during my twenty odd years at the top of the cut-throat, dog-eat-dog world of professional air hockey, I cried on no fewer than forty occasions. I cried after matches, before matches, even during matches when things weren't going my way, and I too had to listen to people calling me a 'big fucking girl' and a 'dickhead'.

The time that sticks in my mind the most was before my first World Air Hockey Championship Final when my opponent, Brad 'The Lionheart' Donovan (a man who I have the utmost respect for but also consider to be a total bastard) intimidated me with an unnecessarily firm handshake. On that occasion I wept solidly for a good twenty minutes - caught in a perfect storm of pressure, exhaustion, inexperience and terror - and the start of the final had to be delayed until I'd calmed down a bit. Unsurprisingly, I never really recovered from that and, though I was merely whimpering by the time we pucked off, the final was a terribly one sided affair (the most one sided since 336 BC, in fact) and I could do nothing to prevent Donovan from cruising to his 38th straight world title.
Looking back now, I can't help but feel that all that crying and screaming did me no favours. I must have looked like a beaten man before we'd even begun and it's hardly surprising that Donovan, a man of such legendary killer instinct, sensed blood. Indeed, he admitted as much afterwards in a rather big headed and, at times, nasty post-match interview, when he implied, and then simply stated, that I was 'there for the taking'.

The whole thing was very hard for me, at the tender age of 19, to take. I had been a warm favourite going into that match - 9 of my 10 opponents en route to the final had been forced to withdraw with various wrist, shoulder and eyelash injuries (that didn't bother me. As I always say, it's the winning that counts, not the taking part) and that had led me to believe I was invincible. I even remember arrogantly proclaiming before the match that all I had to do was turn up and I would win. So, to be swatted aside so comprehensively with the whole world watching was a bitter pill to swallow and it's hardly surprising, bearing all that in mind, that I started crying again during the trophy presentation. Nor is it surprising that I refused to officially acknowledge my opponent's victory for a full two years and spent many months trying to prove that what had happened to me during that match wasn't fair.

Of course, all this weeping and sour grapes led to suggestions from the press and my fellow pros that I was mentally weak - a bottler; a man who fell to pieces under pressure and was easily derailed by even the slightest setback; a man, they said, who had 'about as much chance of bringing home an Olympic gold at the upcoming Games as Ironside has of winning the triple jump'.
As you can imagine, this really wound me up and (after a quick cry) I made it my spiteful mission to prove them all wrong. Together with my coach, the great Willie Thorne, I set to work on a rigorous mind and body enhancement programme. I would do running, swimming and weightlifting in the mornings and crosswords, word searches and fiendishly difficult riddles (composed by none other than Willie himself) in the afternoons. In the evenings I would alternate between meditation and masturbation.
After three months of this I felt just about ready for anything and my detractors were already starting to eat humble pie. Before I had been the Big Baby (a nickname I never liked), now I was the Ice Man, Mr Unflappable, The Grinder, The Rock, The Robot, The Force, The Immovable Object. All of my nicknames now hinted at strength (and boredom).

At the Olympics I fought my way bravely to the final where I again came up against that cunt Donovan... only this time I was ready for him. This, I reminded myself, was what all the training was for, all those lung-busting, early morning runs and brain-busting, late afternoon riddles, it was inevitable that it would all lead to this: the moment when I would defeat my arch nemesis, Brad Donovan, on the biggest stage of them all.

Of course, you all know what happened next! That legendary final is burned into the memories of billions and I won't recount it all here. Indeed, most of that match is little more than a blur to me now anyway but one thing I know I will never forget is the way I felt at the end. The sheer elation of knowing that I had done it, I had achieved the thing I was put on this Earth to achieve, it had driven me close to madness and almost killed me on a number of occasions but I had done it! I had reached the very pinnacle of my sport - Olympic silver.

It felt like a dream. I remember shaking Donovan's hand warmly, saying 'better luck next time, pal' as he looked at me oddly and then just wandering off in some strange kind of trance. After this I remember very little but it is a fact that I wasn't seen again for over three weeks.

Breaking down, briefly, during the Olympic Final
after Donovan scored a lucky goal that went in
off the back of my puck.

My coach, the great Willie Thorne, spent the night of the
final dancing with this local prostitute.

Call out the instigators...

I know you're too reticent to actually say it but you've all been wondering why I haven't posted anything in such a long time.
There are two reasons for this, the first of which, the smartest amongst you will have already figured out: I have been in Alice Springs, Australia, competing at the 48th World Air Hockey Championships. There, after six weeks of gruelling matchplay, I successfully defended my title as undisputed king of the floating baize, beating that cocky left-handed Australian 'prodigy', Shane 'Bombshell' Brannigan 1099-1087 in a memorable final.

Brannigan, of course, was the people's champion. He had confidently swaggered through the first 48 rounds of the tournament like he didn’t have a care in the world, but the pressure of being on home turf and carrying the hopes of a nation on his young shoulders proved too much for him in the end and his flashy, crowd-pleasing game of power-serving and audacious shot-making disintegrated in the face of my steady and determined grinding. Indeed, Brannigan was so disappointed in himself by the end that he lashed out at me, claiming that I had sucked all the joy out of the game for him. Poor lad. He had cracked under the weight of everyone else's dreams.

I knew just how he felt. I had to deal with similarly high expectations when the Championships came to Bognor in '98, and came close to a meltdown of my own in the semi-finals when I accused my opponent Pedro Remigio, the Great Portuguese Man O'War, of striking a non-oscillating or 'dead' puck. Later on in the game, when he repeatedly bamboozled me with his mesmerising use of the angles, I called him a cunt.

So, you see, I know how it feels to be in that pressure-cooker situation, and I know how it feels to be taught a lesson from a more experienced player. What Brannigan mustn't do is 'give up and get a job watching paint dry' as he rashly declared he would after the match, but learn from it, as I did, and come back stronger.

A poster from the final. I was affectionately known as The Slimy Limey.

The unorthodox 'Eastern grip' as demonstrated (badly) by Westerner, Phil Michigan. He was whitewashed in the first round, ironically, by a Chinese player using the more natural, and better, 'Western grip'.

Pre-qualifying in Adelaide. Over 80 million people from across the globe entered the tournament.

My triumph in Alice Springs, however, was soon forgotten when I learned of the terrible events back home. I had been out of the loop for over a month in Oz (due to a sudden and unexpected Southern Hemisphere newspaper shortage) and heard no news from Westminster until I arrived in Tibet for a meeting with the Dalai Lama. The meeting was intended to be little more than a quick photo-op, a chance for the World Air Hockey Champion to have his picture taken with the Dalai Lama and a chance for the Dalai Lama to have his picture taken with the World Air Hockey Champion (air hockey and Buddhism having gone hand in hand for over two thousand years). But the look on Mr Lama's face immediately told me that something was wrong. I soon discovered that the Tories had seen my temporary absence from the political arena as the perfect opportunity to strike. They had launched Phase One of their dastardly plan: Blame The Poor For What The Rich Fucked Up.
And knowing that, even if news had reached me, I was in no position to respond (I was, at the time, locked in a titanic quarter-final struggle with Jurgen 'BrickWall' Mertesacker, which had already been going on for 94 hours) they immediately ploughed into Phase Two: Punish The Poor For What The Rich Fucked Up.
'Tighten your belts, folks,' Mr Lama read from The Times. 'These could be the biggest cunts since the Great Depression.'

As always, the Tories had moved to protect their fellow Normans and decided to heap the blame for the current recession onto the shoulders of honest benefit cheats and scoundrels.

A little perspective: the amount of money that Norman Overlord Philip Green (a man who actually 'works' for the government) 'avoided' in tax on one single payment in 2005 would be enough to keep one of these 'benefit cheats' in fags and drink and crack and whatever else they choose to spend their money on for 180,000 years (roughly the same amount of time that the human race has existed).

A little benefit swindling is a drop in the ocean. The state of the economy is fuck all to do with the poor. The poor don’t have the power to fuck up the economy any more than we have the power to fuck up the sun. It was solely the work of Norman fat cats.

People like this:

I took my leave of the Lama and returned to Westminster post-haste. There, at Reticent Party HQ, I announced that the revolution had been moved forward from July next year to tomorrow. I reminded my fellow peasants: 'Scum are not your enemy. We are all scum and we are scum because they make us scum. We have endured a thousand years of being stomped into the ground by these lizards and still they lord it over us with their castles of stone and crowns of gold. Why do we stand for it? We outnumber them thousands to one! It’s time for the workers and drug dealers and benefit cheats and all other Angles, Saxons and Jutes, to stand united and send these fucking Normans back home!'
A muted cheer was faintly heard. We Reticents are uncomfortable with cheering. 'Now let’s show them we mean business by smashing this window in…'
And so this brings me neatly on to the second reason for my lengthy absence: prison.

The Establishment, fearful of further unrest, decided to make an example of me by locking me in the Tower for 4 days and 4 nights without bread, water or pornography.

But I endured and now, a free man once more, I am here to tell you that the Reticent Party will not be silenced! Or, rather, we will be silenced but only because that is our wont. This is just the tip of the iceberg, my friends. In a few months parliament will fall and the monarchy with it and a golden age of Reticence will begin where everyone will be encouraged to shut up and be quiet.

One last thing:
During my time in Tibet, the Lama and I decided to write down Every Problem In The World on a big piece of parchment and then solve them all. This we did. In one big, amphetamine-fuelled orgy of problem solving, and by the end of the evening we held in our hands the document that would shortly become The Reticent Party Manifesto, which will be posted here next week.

Write this in your diaries, folks: this time next week all the world’s problems will be solved.