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I have been watching this relatively obscure sport on Eurosport at the moment which obviously sounds like a description of Hilda Ogden's hair - it seems to be a popular sport in Switzerland (hence the Swiss cheese sponsorship) and a lot of other selected countries, but for some reason, Scotland is the only nation of the United Kingdom which seems to take part.
The sport feels to me as if it is a cross between bowling (played ironically by elderly gentlemen on the local park green of a summer Saturday's afternoon), darts (because of the bullseye-circles which are the main target), and ice skating * considering the playing surface and some of the "curlers" (if that is the right word to describe the participants) sliding along, almost Torvill and Dean style. None of them seem to fall over however, and so we are not really going to see them in any outtake shows just yet.
I have been watching the women's tournaments (well, someone had to), and I have been amazed that some of the players have been involved in the sport since the age of seven or eight when mentioned onscreen. A lot of them are in their 20s and 30s - one of them in glasses looks as if she does part time modelling for Dolland and Aitchison, and so on. And of course we get to see them wobbling along like jellies as they do of course, using their elbow grease to scrub the ice to avoid friction and to make sure that the curling stone can reach its destination to the other end of the ice while using their brooms, making then look as if they are cleaners who want to intrude within the action taking place. (I must say that I enjoy seeing them do that for reasons that I won't go into on here).
Despite all this, I have very little knowledge of the sport, and had to look up the relevant page on Wikipedia as part research for this thread - I suppose that we used to see a bit of it in the days when Dickie Davies used to link into it on Saturday afternoons back then. I am certain that BBC Scotland and STV probably used to opt out and show Curling when most people (i.e. those south of the Border) were not noticing in the old days.
* I know that I should get out more, but I also saw the ice skating on Eurosport which was from Japan, and I just couldn't help sniggering at one of the names on the advertising hoardings which had a mild swear word contained within it.
The sport feels to me as if it is a cross between bowling (played ironically by elderly gentlemen on the local park green of a summer Saturday's afternoon), darts (because of the bullseye-circles which are the main target), and ice skating * considering the playing surface and some of the "curlers" (if that is the right word to describe the participants) sliding along, almost Torvill and Dean style. None of them seem to fall over however, and so we are not really going to see them in any outtake shows just yet.
I have been watching the women's tournaments (well, someone had to), and I have been amazed that some of the players have been involved in the sport since the age of seven or eight when mentioned onscreen. A lot of them are in their 20s and 30s - one of them in glasses looks as if she does part time modelling for Dolland and Aitchison, and so on. And of course we get to see them wobbling along like jellies as they do of course, using their elbow grease to scrub the ice to avoid friction and to make sure that the curling stone can reach its destination to the other end of the ice while using their brooms, making then look as if they are cleaners who want to intrude within the action taking place. (I must say that I enjoy seeing them do that for reasons that I won't go into on here).
Despite all this, I have very little knowledge of the sport, and had to look up the relevant page on Wikipedia as part research for this thread - I suppose that we used to see a bit of it in the days when Dickie Davies used to link into it on Saturday afternoons back then. I am certain that BBC Scotland and STV probably used to opt out and show Curling when most people (i.e. those south of the Border) were not noticing in the old days.
* I know that I should get out more, but I also saw the ice skating on Eurosport which was from Japan, and I just couldn't help sniggering at one of the names on the advertising hoardings which had a mild swear word contained within it.
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