24th August 1991 Day 35

The Diary
Up bright and early to catch the first round of the 100m. Zut Alors. We were seated next to the French. Anglo-French relations could deteriorate over the next few days. At dinner time we walked over to the trendy punk/young people's shopping area. There seems to be a real obsession with things British or American and there were loads of shops selling flags. I purchased a large Union Jack in the hope it would get us on the BBC but we'll probably need a British winner first.

Back at the stadium by the warm-up track a chinese-type from Reuters took photos of us in the mistaken belief that we were British athletes. We were tempted to sign our names as Roger Black and Tom McKean though I'm glad I didn't admit to being the accident prone Scot. The Japanese have a lot of marketing giveaways to advertise their products and by the end of the day we'd had more freebies than Nick Faldo. Cough mixture, sweets, fans, drinks, m+ms and balloons.

In the evening we escaped from the main group, along with Glenn, to go for a drink. We discovered a quiet bar and settled down. Suddenly we discovered it had a karaoke machine when a couple in the bar got up to sing. It's taken a bit more seriously here. Glenn decided to join in and treated us to the worst version of My Way in history. The machine should adjust the voice to make it bearable but it gave up the ghost with Glenn. Then a couple of cynical Irish lads came in and one of them did a rendition of Danny Boy accompanied by the landlord on electric guitar. A veritable Elic Crapton. 

I won't mention the mouse on the stove top as we didn't eat.


2011
The trendy area in Tokyo was almost certainly Harajuku. 


I was still referring to lunch time as dinner time back in those days.


I still have the flag and it's served me well at other events particularly the Sydney 2000 Olympics.


Graham was convinced he was Roger Black incarnate. He was more like this famous Roger.