I also deserve a Fifa Peace Prize, and I’ll thump anyone who says I don’t.
All of my friends want a Fifa Peace Prize, too. We were in the pub the other night. We sat around talking about the Fifa Peace Prize and Doug said that he was the most deserving because it’s been three years since he’d last hit someone over the head with a coffee table. I told him that such an aversion to violence was commendable. But I deserved it more because, for me, it was five years since I had last coffee tabled someone.
That’s how it is with friends, you can be open about such matters. It really does pay to talk. Mumbling John said that he had given all of his relatives Fifa Peace Prizes. Apparently, they made pretty good door stops. You can wedge a fire exit open with a Fifa Peace Prize, he opined, especially those with a spring-loaded hinge mechanism. Doug then told him that there were probably knock-off Fifa Peace Prizes out there, made of cheap metals and available widely on the counterfeit goods market. And they almost came to blows, the two of them.
‘Stop it, lads’, I said, ‘there’s no reason to fight’.
They then accused me of saying this just so that I could be in contention for a Fifa Peace Prize.
Mumbling John then pointed out that his sister Vocal Sue sold items online and made a living from it, that her garden shed was stocked full of the latest fads, trends and crazes. The deeper she goes into her shed, the different layers of such trends she comes across. The most recent layer is Labubus. If she goes further back, then it’s Tickle Me Elmos. Right at the back of her shed is where you find her tamagotchis. Soon, she reckons, another layer will be added of Fifa Peace Prizes. She calls herself an archeologist of the present moment, which is quite literary for someone who once said, ‘I’d give my right arm to be ambidextrous’.
I then suddenly remembered that I hadn’t checked in on my tamagotchi for about fifteen years, which made me feel both guilty and undeserving of a Fifa Peace Prize.
We started talking about what we wanted for our next birthday presents. We always buy each other gifts. Mumbling John said that he would be okay with socks, or some cheap after shave, or a Fifa Peace Prize. Doug said that he didn’t want anything too special, perhaps just an Amazon voucher, or a Labubu, or a Fifa Peace Prize. But before they could ask me what I wanted for my next birthday, Doug suddenly felt it necessary to yell at the man at the next table, ‘What the bloody hell are you staring at, mate?’, which was his traditional precursor to a punch-up.
‘Come on, lads’, I said, ‘no need to fight’.
‘You’re only saying that to get a Fifa Peace Prize’, Doug replied.
‘No I’m not’.
‘You bloody are!’
‘Want to fight about it?’
‘That’s more like it’.
The old reverse psychology. Tensions lifted. We’d half-raised ourselves out of our seats, but then sat back down again. Neither of us could be arsed. Which got me wondering if the ultimate deterrent for world conflict is genuine and widespread apathy.
And this might well have been the case on this occasion, were it not for the fact that I felt obliged, at that moment, to flick the end of his nose.
The man on the next table threw back his head in laughter. So at least I was bringing joy to the world.
It was Mumbling John who calmed us down. ‘Hey lads’, he said. ‘Watch this’.
He picked up a plastic straw and placed it in a glass of lemonade. An optical illusion made it appear as if the end of the straw was disjointed.
‘See that?’, he said. ‘That’s a demonstration of light refraction.’
‘Fascinating’, Doug said.
‘Remarkable’, I replied.
We both looked at the straw in the glass of lemonade and neither of us felt like escalating our violence. Even the man on the next table was interested.
At that moment, the door opened and some representatives of Fifa entered the pub. They approached our table, and Mumbling John’s face lit up.
Could it be? Were they about to . . .
A fanfare sounded and a silence fell across the boozer. Every head swivelled in our direction. The horse brasses hanging from the old oak beams glistened in the glare of the mobile phones recording the impromptu ceremony.
‘Congratulations’, one of the officials said, lifting up a huge trophy and placing it on the table in front of Mumbling John.
‘What is it?’
‘The Fifa Physics Prize’.
He looked at it, a little sadly.
‘Thanks’, he said.
Robert Garnham 