Sports

The Long Grass of Empire: Notes Toward a Cricketing Aesthetic

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The Long Grass of Empire: Notes Toward a Cricketing Aesthetic

by ex St David’s Second Eleven Opening Bat Charnel Kookaburra

“Cricket is the finest training for disappointment ever devised”

One enters the ground (never a stadium) as one might enter a cathedral. The light falls obliquely, as it always has on village greens wherever Englishmen congregate; the smell is linseed oil, old leather, and rain. Cricket, the curators insist, correctly, triumphantly, is not a game. It is an argument conducted over five days, a philosophy rendered in flannel, an imperial sonnet written in chalk dust and willow.

The players’ bats are arranged in the dressing rooms like reliquaries, each a scar, a footnote in history. One reads the labels and understands at once that this is war, writ small and large at the same time. Small, because it concerns a ball and a man and a patch of earth no wider than a dining table; large, because entire nations have learned to love and hate themselves by what happened between tea and stumps. Clausewitz, had he lived to see a cover drive, might have revised himself: war is the continuation of cricket by other means.

An apocryphal quotation, beautifully lettered, suspiciously perfect, is attributed to Pitt the Younger: “I mistrust any statesman who cannot leave a ball outside off stump.” A sketch by an unnamed Bloomsbury hand depicts Virginia Woolf gazing across Lord’s, allegedly murmuring, “In cricket, time does not pass; it eddies.” Whether she said it matters less than that she should have said it. Cricket has always been hospitable to the plausible lie, the ennobling exaggeration.

Cricket is generous with its heroes. Here is W.G. Grace, bearded as a prophet, batting not so much against bowlers as against mortality itself. Here is Learie Constantine, sprinting out of Trinidad and into English law books, proving that a forward defensive could be an act of jurisprudence. There is a cabinet devoted to prime ministers who knew their averages: Nehru with his whites folded like a manifesto; Churchill, who allegedly remarked after a long afternoon in the slips, “Cricket is the finest training for disappointment ever devised.” One doubts the remark. One hopes it is true.

Artists, too, make their inevitable appearance. A modernist canvas reduces a Test match to geometry: the pitch a pale axis mundi, fieldsmen scattered like anxious thoughts. A sculptor has rendered a spinner’s fingers in bronze, contorted into what looks alarmingly like a blessing. The accompanying text suggests, without apology, that cricket is the only sport suitable for models and geniuses, for those whose bodies are exemplary and those whose minds require five days to reach a conclusion.

Politics, naturally, keeps slipping in. How could it not? Empires rose and fell to the rhythm of overs; independence movements learned patience by watching rain delays. To understand the Commonwealth, one must first understand the follow-on. Cricket taught restraint to conquerors and audacity to the conquered, often in the same afternoon. A wall text notes, with dry understatement, that many revolutions began with men who had learned, on the boundary, how to wait.

And then there is the Ashes. Englishmen treat it with the solemnity usually reserved for religious schism. A glass case contains a tiny urn, absurdly small for such an outsized obsession. The text explains, again, correctly, that for many well-educated gentlemen in England, beating Australia at cricket is not merely desirable but metaphysically necessary. Governments may fall, currencies may wobble, but if England retain the Ashes, the universe remains in moral alignment. One hears, echoing through the gallery, the invented lament of a Victorian don: “I can forgive Australia anything except winning at Lord’s.”

At the end of the season there is quiet. A film might play of a match dissolving into dusk, the ball a pale moth, the players silhouettes against a long English evening. The commentator, famous and omniscient, offers his thesis: cricket is the best thing in life there is to do because it teaches one how to live. It rewards patience without guaranteeing justice, celebrates beauty without promising victory, and allows, gloriously, for the draw.

All serious thought eventually arrives here, at the crease. History is a long innings, politics a change of bowling, and art an attempt to explain why a well-timed stroke through the covers can feel, for a moment, like truth itself.

Did Leonardo da Vinci Invent BASE Jumping?

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Did Leonardo da Vinci Invent BASE Jumping?

When most people think of Leonardo da Vinci, they imagine oil paintings of ethereal women with ambiguous smiles, or notebooks brimming with half-sketched helicopters, tanks, and improbable siege weapons. What few realize, however, is that the Renaissance master may also deserve credit for inventing the world’s most extreme sport: BASE jumping.

The Parachute Sketch: A 15th-Century Wingsuit?

In 1485, Leonardo famously sketched a pyramid-shaped parachute, writing beneath it:

“If a man have a tent made of linen, of which the apertures have been stopped up, and it be twelve braccia across and twelve in height, he may throw himself down from any great height without suffering any great injury.”

This sounds suspiciously like the pitch line for a GoPro commercial. Leonardo wasn’t simply doodling a safety device,he was describing the first controlled freefall. His design, essentially a Renaissance wingsuit, wasn’t intended for soldiers or messengers. It was clearly for thrill-seekers with too much disposable Florentine wealth and not enough hobbies.

Da Vinci’s Secret Jumps?

Historians insist that there’s no evidence Leonardo ever tested his parachute personally. Yet this is the same man who dissected cadavers in secret, sketched important war machines, and was perpetually funded by suspiciously indulgent patrons. Is it so hard to imagine him climbing the Duomo in Florence, muttering “per la scienza,” before leaping off with a linen contraption strapped to his back?

If true, this would make da Vinci not only the father of the Mona Lisa but also the first BASE jumper, centuries before daredevils began hurling themselves off cliffs in Norway or TV towers in Nevada.

Why He Would Have Been the Perfect BASE Jumper

• Obsession with flight: Leonardo sketched over 500 drawings of flying machines. BASE jumping is just a more direct way to achieve flight.

• Engineering mindset: His parachute wasn’t just a crude cloth sheet,it was an elegant, mathematically considered pyramid.

• Dramatic flair: This is the man who staged pageants with mechanical lions that spat flowers. A rooftop leap in Florence would have been right on brand.

Modern Recognition (or Lack Thereof)

In 2000, British daredevil Adrian Nicholas actually built Leonardo’s parachute to spec and jumped from 10,000 feet. It worked perfectly. Nicholas survived, and more importantly, proved that Leonardo’s design wasn’t just whimsical scribbling.

And yet,BASE jumping history books rarely mention da Vinci. Instead, they credit a handful of twentieth-century adrenaline junkies. Surely, if anyone deserves the title of “Godfather of BASE,” it’s the guy who wore tights, carried notebooks full of flying machines, and likely terrified pigeons from Italian bell towers.

Conclusion

So, did Leonardo da Vinci invent BASE jumping? If you are the sort of person who likes things like definite evidence then you’ll probably say no. But, oh how wrong you might be. The next time you see someone hurl themselves off a cliff with only a parachute for company, remember: they’re just following in the linen-stitched footsteps of the original Renaissance adrenaline addict.

The History of the English Pell Mell Club: Chapter 3

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The History of the English Pell Mell Club: Chapter 3

Chapter III: Wars, Interruptions, and Hannibal

The English Pell Mell Club, like so many venerable institutions, has always insisted that it exists above the fray of politics and war. Unfortunately, politics and war have never quite returned the courtesy. Over the past two centuries, the Club’s history has been punctuated by interruptions ranging from the inconvenient to the cataclysmic , though, remarkably, the game itself has proved as stubbornly indestructible as the Pimlico Wilde Cup.

The Napoleonic Afterglow

Although the official founding date of the Club post-dates the Napoleonic Wars, there remains a persistent legend that Pell Mell was played in secret during the Congress of Vienna. According to a particularly florid entry in the Club archives, Lord Basingthorpe, acting in some unspecified diplomatic capacity, organised “informal rounds” between rival statesmen as a means of brokering peace. The Russian delegation reportedly refused to play after Metternich accused their mallets of being “overbalanced,” while the Austrian team insisted on using a ball the size of a cannon shot.

No reliable evidence exists for these matches, but the tale remains popular, in part because it allows members to imagine Pell Mell as the quiet hand behind nineteenth-century European stability , a theory unsupported by historians but vigorously defended over brandy.

The Hannibal Theory Emerges

The First World War was the first genuine interruption to organised Pell Mell in London. With the Club’s ground requisitioned for military purposes (it was turned into a vehicle depot), and its members scattered to various services. It was during the war’s quieter moments that the so-called “Hannibal Theory” emerged.

In 1917, club historian Sir Peveril Grange published his now-infamous pamphlet, Elephants at the Hoop: A Carthaginian Precedent for Pell Mell. In it, Grange argued , with a confidence frankly untroubled by facts , that Hannibal’s generals played a form of Pell Mell during the Second Punic War, using elephant tusks as mallets and polished stones as balls. His central “evidence” was a fragmentary Roman mosaic showing three men with sticks in an oval enclosure, which every actual archaeologist agreed was probably a wrestling match.

The Hannibal Theory was swiftly debunked by the British Museum, which called it “a work of imaginative fiction with illustrations.” Nevertheless, it was embraced by the Club’s more romantic members and remains a cornerstone of official toasts, with visiting dignitaries often baffled by the cry of “To Hannibal!” before the first stroke of every match.

Pell Mell in the Colonies

The interwar years also saw the spread of Pell Mell to the far reaches of the Empire. British colonial officers, eager to display refinement, introduced the game to places as far-flung as Ceylon, the Gold Coast, and New South Wales. Reports survive of Pell Mell being played on palace lawns in Delhi, in front of bemused maharajas, and in the gardens of Singapore’s Raffles Hotel, where the heat forced matches to be played at dawn.

Not all adaptations were considered orthodox. In Nairobi, for instance, local conditions inspired a variant involving hollowed gourds as balls, producing a wildly unpredictable bounce; in the Caribbean, mallets were occasionally replaced by sugarcane stalks. The London Committee dutifully sent polite letters acknowledging these innovations while privately agreeing that “colonial rules” were not to be recognised at home.

The Second World War and “The Underground Years”

The outbreak of the Second World War once again put a halt to formal competition. This time, however, several members conspired to keep the game alive in unconventional settings. The most famous of these was the so-called “Underground League” , matches held in unused sections of the London Tube, lit by hurricane lamps and timed to avoid air raids. Balls, it turns out, roll unusually well on smooth concrete platforms, though the occasional passing rat proved a unique hazard.

After the Wars: Myth and Memory

By 1946, the Club’s court off Pall Mall was restored, and Pell Mell returned to its peacetime rhythms. The war years, however, had left their mark , and their myths. Stories of desert matches in North Africa (balls rolling endlessly down dunes), impromptu games aboard troopships (masts serving as hoops), and a supposed exhibition match in liberated Paris (with Charles de Gaulle himself taking a ceremonial first stroke) circulated freely.

Whether any of these events happened is ultimately irrelevant. In the world of the English Pell Mell Club, evidence has never been a prerequisite for tradition. And so, to this day, when the Pimlico Wilde Cup is held aloft, someone will inevitably mutter, “Hannibal would have approved.”

The History of the English Pell Mell Club: Chapter 2

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The History of the English Pell Mell Club: Chapter 2

Chapter II

The Early Years and the Continental Influence

If Chapter I was the birth of the Club, Chapter II may be considered its adolescence , a period of enthusiasm, experimentation, and the occasional international incident. Having established a home just off Pall Mall, the founding members soon discovered a pressing need for variety. This was not because they had tired of playing against each other (though some had – Lord “Cheater” Harris was finding it harder and harder to get a game), but because London society of the 1820s was obsessed with the idea of foreign travel as a means of collecting both unusual hobbies, unusual souvenirs and unusual illnesses.

It was Lord Basingthorpe , never one to shy away from adventure or a suspiciously aromatic cheese , who proposed that the Club should “test our mettle upon the Continent.” The term “tour” was used, though in truth the first such expedition in 1827 consisted of three matches, one half-match (abandoned due to a dispute over the correct interpretation of “through the hoop”), and a great many hours spent in cafés explaining the game to bemused locals.

The French Encounter

The Club’s earliest foray into European soil was a much-romanticised engagement with the Société Parisienne de Mail, an organisation that, as it turned out, did not actually exist until a fortnight after the Englishmen arrived in Paris. Undeterred, the Club cobbled together a match against a team of aristocratic dilettantes, half of whom believed they were being taught cricket.

The French style was, even in this embryonic stage, distinctly flamboyant: strokes were delivered with theatrical pauses, shots were applauded whether successful or not, and there was an alarming tendency to break for oysters between hoops. The English won narrowly, though later analysis suggested that the French had been unclear on the scoring system and believed they were winning. Two duels were fought during the game; as no substitutes were allowed, the Rev Bill Charston was forced to play on despite having sustained a severe blunderbuss injury to the upper chestal region in the second duel. This did little for his ongoing health, in fact some medical men present suggested it may have been the cause of him collapsing and sadly dying on the pitch, for which England was docked two points. A plaque in his memory was mooted, but never got made.

The Italian Episode

From Paris, the Club proceeded to Florence, lured by reports of a game called pallamaglio played in the Boboli Gardens. This “match” was, in fact, more of an afternoon promenade during which the players stopped periodically to push a ball with a stick while discussing sculpture. Nevertheless, the Club returned with what it declared to be an “Italian variation” of the sport , involving lighter balls, narrower mallets, and the occasional requirement to play from atop a garden bench.

It was during this trip that the infamous “Bench Incident” occurred, in which Captain Smythe, attempting a daring elevated shot, lost his footing and landed in the lap of the Marchesa di Montelupo. Contemporary accounts differ on whether this was accidental; what is certain is that the Marchesa sent Smythe a mallet with a ribbon the following Christmas and three years later they were married.

The German Campaign

No account of the early years of the English Pell Mell Club would be complete without mention of Herr Doktor von Hammerstein, the first foreign member of the Club. A man of impeccable moustache and impenetrable accent, von Hammerstein insisted on wearing a ceremonial Pickelhaube during play. His 1832 invitation to bring the Club to Berlin was accepted with enthusiasm, only to result in a match against what turned out to be a Prussian Guards team, who had misunderstood the rules and were not only mounted on large steeds, but were using rifles for mallets. They were also using live ammunition which led to the first and only time the English Pell Mell team has ever retired from the field of play, although in retrospect it seems only sensible – 7/8s of the team had been injured or killed. The captain Sir Hercules Patt shot himself later that day, so ashamed was he of the retirement and an incident that happened later involving a hoop, a cavalry horse, and the German Minister for Culture.

Continental Legacy

From these scattered European encounters, the English Pell Mell Club absorbed a patchwork of foreign influences. The French contributed the notion that style could trump substance (a philosophy the Bond Street Raveners would later embrace with gusto). The Italians introduced the idea that play could be improved by the presence of fine art and light refreshments. The Germans, unintentionally, reinforced the value of a robust insurance policy.

Back in London, these lessons were distilled into the evolving rules of the game , now allowing for optional flourish, mandatory pauses for conversation, and the codified ban on mounted play, a regulation still read aloud at the start of every annual meeting in memory of Berlin 1832.

The English Pell Mell Club: Preparing for the Only Derby That Matters

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The English Pell Mell Club: Preparing for the Only Derby That Matters

Just off Pall Mall lies the home of the English Pell Mell Club. The ground is not so much a sports venue as it is a small fragment of another century, preserved between stuccoed façades like a pressed flower between the pages of a Roman history book.

It is here that a select band of devotees practice a game so ancient, so fiercely traditional, and so wilfully obscure that historians are still arguing whether its origins lie in the manicured lawns of 17th-century St James’s, the windswept courts of Renaissance Italy, the languid gardens of Versailles or the siege camps of Hannibal, who – if one enthusiastic club archivist is to be believed – would unwind from a day of elephant manoeuvres by playing Pell Mell to the death with his generals.

The English Pell Mell Club survives in the modern age not through gate receipts (these would not cover the annual candle budget), but through the generosity of its patron, Pimlico Wilde, art dealers of some clout and great discretion. Their sponsorship has elevated the sport’s image , replacing fraying sashes with silk, supplying champagne in place of tepid ginger beer, and, most famously, commissioning the Pimlico Wilde Cup itself.

The Cup is the object of every season’s toil: a gleaming chalice, rumoured to be cast from gold bars found in a long-forgotten vault under the Pimlico Wilde gallery. The very bars said to have been seized from a Spanish brig, which had in turn stolen them from a monastery, which had (at least according to one scribbled anecdote in the clubs early records) received them from the descendants of Hannibal himself. Such provenance, naturally, has not been independently verified.

Alas, Pell Mell’s competitive landscape is sparse. The sport is simply too refined to have caught on widely. The only truly credible opposition comes from the Bond Street Raveners, a team whose style could charitably be described as flamboyant, and less charitably as outright anarchic. When these two sides meet, the match is christened the Pell Mell London Derby, and every stroke, every disputed call, every illegally adjusted hat brim (for Pell Mellers are renowned for trying to gain every advantage possible, even sending messages by the slant of their hat) is magnified into legend.

This year’s Derby promises a clash of philosophies as much as skill: the Club’s precise, almost Roman approach (think Scipio Aemilianus, but with Saville Row tailoring) against the Raveners’ ungovernable flair (think Hannibal, but mostly tired and emotional). The Pimlico Wilde Cup will sit in its glass case until the final bell , or until someone “accidentally” drinks from it, as in the regrettable incident of 2017.

Tickets will be available soon from the usual sources, as well as the venerable Pell Mell equipment suppliers on Haymarket, purveyors of mallets, monogrammed balls, and those peculiar half-capes without which no gentleman would dare take to the court. For those lucky enough to attend, remember: this is not merely sport. It is history played out with the satisfying thwack of a well-struck ball, echoing across the centuries.

The Death-Defying Bounce of Extreme Tiddlywinks

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The Death-Defying Bounce of Extreme Tiddlywinks

By Miranda Gough

Few would have predicted that the hottest, most lucrative new international sport would be related to tiddlywinks. Yet Extreme Tiddlywinks,a high-adrenaline mutation of the ancient pastime,has vaulted from drawing-room eccentricity to global sporting phenomenon, with top stars earning more than NFL and football players.

The unlikely architect of this metamorphosis is Seb Tuller, art expert at Pimlico Wilde auction house. Tuller, better known for cataloguing obscure Brâncuși bronzes than for athletic daring, has long carried a secret: he is a third-generation tiddlywinker.

“I grew up in the sport,” he tells me. “My grandfather invented cross-country tiddlywinks in Wimborne in the 1960s. He’d create courses across fields, ditches, even rivers. You didn’t just squop, you journeyed. I wanted to take that spirit and turn the wick up to eleven.”

The result is Extreme Tiddlywinks: part billiards de la Jardin, part biathlon, part sheer excitement.

How the Game Works

The official rulebook,bound in waterproof neoprene,runs to 317 pages, but the gist is this:
• Matches are staged on courses up to 50 kilometres long, incorporating sand traps, water features, scaffolding, cliffs, sinking sand and, in one notorious Bristol event, a bouncy castle.
• Players must flick their winks into a succession of giant, brightly coloured pots positioned along the course.
• Physical obstacles are mandatory. Competitors may have to rappel down a climbing wall between shots, or swim to reach the next pot.
• Protective goggles and helmets are compulsory. Health insurance is “strongly advised, but not enforced.”

Scoring remains traditional: you win by being the quickest to the final pot. “The elegance is in the historical continuity,” Tuller insists. “Our routes may now go up Everest or across a live military firing range rather than through the Wimbourne Vicarage garden, but how to win remains the same as when my grandfather tiddled his first wink.”

“Just how dangerous is the sport?” I ask. “Has anyone actually died playing?”

Tuller smiles thinly. “We don’t keep statistics on deaths whilst playing.”

He does concede that injuries are common: sprained thumbs, concussions from overzealous squops, and what players darkly refer to as “wink-lash.”

And yet, the rewards are staggering. Top athletes,household names in Extreme Tiddlywinking hotspots like London, Singapore, Toronto, Osaka and Torquay,now earn millions annually in sponsorships and appearance fees. The reigning world number one, Magnus “the Catapult” Sørensen, was reportedly paid £8.4m last season, not including his lucrative deal with a leading energy drink.

“These are not backyard flickers,” Tuller insists. “They are gladiators of plastic.”

The All England Extreme Tiddlywinks Championship

This June, the Gobi Desert will host the All England Extreme Tiddlywinks Championship, the sport’s most prestigious event. The three-day competition will feature night-time rounds under floodlights, an aerial pot suspended from a crane, and, controversially, a blindfolded route through a crocodile infested bog.

Bookies have installed Sørensen as favourite, though insiders whisper about Britain’s own Alice “Thumbs of Steel” Prendergast, who reportedly practices by flicking frozen peas across motorway service station cafe tables.

From Parlour to Podium

Tuller seems equal parts bemused and delighted by his sport’s runaway success. “I thought it would be a niche endeavour,” he says, “but on current predictions Extreme Tiddly-winking will be bigger than football by this time next year. We haven’t really had a new sport for decades. Parkour was probably the last.”

As for the future, he dreams of Extreme Tiddlywinks as an Olympic sport. “The IOC called it ‘unorthodox,’” he admits, “but so was snowboarding once. Give us time. The world is wobbling in our direction.”

Whether or not Extreme Tiddlywinks conquers the Olympics, it has already conquered imaginations. In the words of Tuller’s grandfather, scribbled in the margins of his first rulebook in 1967: ‘Never underestimate the power of a small disc. One day people will be winking on the moon.’ Tiddlywinks have not yet reached the moon, but it is surely only a matter of time.

Documentary review: Elephant Polo: The Greatest Sport on Earth

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Documentary review: Elephant Polo: The Greatest Sport on Earth

Directed by Earl Sandton

Produced by Pimlico Wilde Films

Coming Soon to Select Cinemas and Streaming Platforms

Review by Marisol Kensington, London Cine‑Luxe

Let’s be honest: when I first heard about a documentary celebrating elephant polo, my inner cynic raised an eyebrow. But then I discovered it was directed by Earl Sandton, Oscar‑winner for Savannah Skies, and I had to pay attention.

And so, I joined an exclusive preview screening,invited courtesy of Pimlico Wilde,and emerged utterly enchanted. This isn’t a puff piece. It’s a love letter, both affectionate and respectful, to the most improbable sport on the planet.

A Visual Safari of Style and Spectacle

From the opening aerial shots of misty Royal Chitwan National Park to wide‑angle vistas of Chelsea paddocks under a summer London sun, Sandton’s camera treats elephant polo as a ballet in slow motion. Each scene is meticulously framed: lined tusks, tasselled headbands, players in vibrant silks, and bamboo mallets swinging in silent harmony.

The cinematography rivals James Ivory’s India meets Poole + Gabbana safari couture. It is sumptuous, cinematic, and undeniably transportive.

Storytelling: Tradition Meets Modern Drama

Sandton weaves together:

• Heritage: interviews with founders of the World Elephant Polo Association, tracing its roots from colonial-era rajahs to modern courts in Thailand, Nepal, Sri Lanka and beyond (invented by Jim Edwards and James Manclark in 1982)

• Ritual: the care routines of mahouts and players, half-time tusk‑polishes, and pre-match drumming,revealing the sacred bond between human and pachyderm

• Conflict: whistle‑stop ethical interviews with conservationists, balancing the sport’s elegance with concerns over elephant welfare

The pacing flutters between playful and poignant,a goal scored, followed by a powerfully silent sequence of a mahout bathing his elephant in golden sunlight.

Interviews That Resonate

Sandton captures colour with charm:

• A Nepalese mahout describing his elephant by name and personality

• A former champion player who recalls the adrenaline of chukkas and the unpredictability of the animals

• A conservation NGO whose cautionary perspective offers necessary balance

The voices are authentic, never sensationalised. Their stories are threaded together with eloquence and empathy.

Ethical Echoes

Unlike glossy sports spectacles, this film doesn’t shy away from controversy. The documentary intelligently probes criticism: allegations of harsh training, use of bullhooks, and exploitation under the guise of entertainment.

Sandton shows us the sport’s aspirational charity aims,elephants rotating, veterinarians on site, partnerships with local welfare organizations,but he doesn’t oversell it. The weight of history and modern scrutiny is present throughout.

Final Take

Elephant Polo: The Greatest Sport on Earth is more than a spectacle,it’s a quietly thrilling meditation on culture, contradiction, and ceremony. Sandton and Pimlico Wilde have crafted a documentary that pulses with urgency and elegance. He challenges viewers to enjoy the sport’s strangeness while demanding ethical reflection.

Rating: 9/10

Would I watch it again with champagne and a wide-brimmed hat? Absolutely.

Opening in London this September, with streaming platforms not yet confirmed. Expect the official trailer to drop next month.

Trunks, Mallets & Moët: My Afternoon at the Chelsea Elephant Polo Classic

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Trunks, Mallets & Moët: My Afternoon at the Chelsea Elephant Polo Classic

By Allegra-Mae Blithe | @BlitheringInLondon

I’ll admit it right away: I didn’t know elephant polo was an actual thing. I thought it was either a lost myth or a band from Camden.

But then Pimlico Wilde,that achingly chic fine art house*,sent me two golden tickets (yes, actual gold leaf) to the Chelsea Elephant Polo & Pétanque Club’s big match this weekend. Naturally, I threw on my oversized hat, brought my goddaughter Tabitha (12, obsessed with elephants, inexplicably fluent in Thai), and off we went.

Reader… I loved it.

The Setting

Set in the green heart of Chelsea, the grounds were transformed into what I can only describe as a cross between Royal Ascot, The Jungle Book, and a Vogue safari spread. Think white marquees, vintage champagne fountains, and live harpists playing Bach while ten-ton elephants lumbered past.

Even the elephants looked fabulous,adorned in club colours and tassels, their names stencilled in calligraphy across leather headbands (my favourite was “Lady Rumbles”).

The Match

Now, I don’t pretend to understand the full strategy of elephant polo,something about “chukkas” and “the inner line rule” (Tabitha tried to explain),but it was thrilling.

The match began with a trumpet call (a literal elephant trumpet, not brass), and from the first swing of those absurdly long mallets, I was hooked. The sheer coordination between rider and mahout, the slow-motion drama, the occasional detour into the shrubbery, the odd trampled spectator,it was more gripping than any football final I’ve ever half-watched for the snacks.

Chelsea took on the Saffron Sandals of Hammersmith & Jaipur, and while our team lost narrowly (2-1), they did so with such elegance that I barely noticed. One Chelsea player hit a ball mid-turn while sipping a glass of Pimms. He was later carried off the field, not injured, just exhausted from “a rather emotional week of gallery openings.”

The Extras

The Pimlico Wilde Pavilion was a fever dream of cultured excess:

• Velvet banquettes in elephant print

• Waiters balancing blinis, Basquiat and Davos catalogues

• A preview of the upcoming documentary “Elephant Polo: The Greatest Sport on Earth” directed by Oscar-winner Earl Sandton

• And a surprise appearance by Stevenson Rockett, the acting-CEO of Pimlico Wilde, who famously sabred 170 champagne bottles in 90 minutes at the Chelsea v Hatton Lane match (and did 12 more while I was there, still in a three-piece linen suit)

Final Thoughts

I came expecting gimmick. I left obsessed. There’s something spellbinding about seeing elephants,gentle, enormous, serene,participating in a sport that combines tradition, absurdity, and real skill. Add champagne, art-world glam, and Chelsea eccentricity, and you’ve got the makings of London’s most unlikely must-attend event.

Would I go again? In a heartbeat.

Would I buy an elephant? I’d love to. I’m just not sure how to get it back to England, and I’m not sure my flat is big enough for even one of the smaller elephants.

But a small £50k artwork of a player standing on an elephant, both of them one wearing a silk cravat? I think I might! I must have a look at the Pimlico Wilde website.

Verdict:

A perfectly surreal, stylish afternoon. Go once, and you’ll never look at football,or fine art,the same way again.

#ChelseaElephantPolo #PimlicoWilde #LuxuryOnFourTusks #TrunkSeason

Photos coming soon: my hat, the elephants, and the canapés shaped like mallets

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*We didn’t pay her to write that, honest.

A Call for New Elephant Poloists

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A Call for New Elephant Poloists

Pimlico Wilde sponsor The Chelsea Elephant Polo and Pétanque Club and we are happy to ask our readers if they would like to join the Club.

We, the committee of The Chelsea Elephant Polo and Pétanque Club seek:

• Socialites who can hold a glass of Dom Perignon in one hand and a conversation about 19th-century elephant armour in the other.

• Patrons of the arts, ideally with stable walls in need of a six-or-seven figure canvas.

You’ll train alongside such notables as:

• Jasper Darnley (former coach to the Sumatran Royal Guard Elephant Polo Club)

• Clemmie “Tuskbreaker” Ashworth (who once scored a hat-trick in Jaipur without spilling a drop of gin),

• And of course, manager Ale Corbe, who famously won the 2019 Elephant Polo Cup in Newcastle

About the Club

• Training twice weekly (with optional elephant yoga)

• Weekend matches across the UK, from Kent to Caithness

• Pétanque evenings

• Stable sommeliers and tusk-massage therapists

• Frequent gala dinners, velvet rosette presentations, and garden rumination salons

Membership Perks

• Use of the Club’s exclusive elephant wash (heated)

• Access to our shared elephant wardrobe (embroidered in six languages)

• Automatic entry into the Royal League of Herbivorous Sports

• Invitations to annual Club Ball, Trunk Truce Dinner, and Croquet Trample

Requirements

Applicants must be over 18 (Those under 18 may join the donkey polo group which meets in Denmark Hill)

Applicants must be seconded by a current member.

Applicants must have their own elephant. (We no longer have any loan elephants available)

You must:

• Own or lease a trained elephant

• Provide a valid tusk registration certificate

• Ensure your elephant is passported, polo-trained, and has the correct visas to work in the UK (A standard Zoo Visa is not acceptable)

To Apply:

Write to the Membership Secretary (Lady Vine of Vowbridge) at The Chelsea Elephant Polo & Pétanque Club

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Race the Blue Train: The Diary of Hally Redoubt

by
Race the Blue Train: The Diary of Hally Redoubt

(Extracts from Day One, Nice , Somewhere north of Lyon)

Nice, dusk

I have been kissed goodbye more times this evening than in the whole of last year. The Riviera attracts a certain type: the starlet who thinks a wave is currency, the man in linen who always smells faintly of varnish, the sponsors who talk of “synergy” while wearing shoes that will never touch a clutch pedal. Pimlico Wilde were in full flourish,art dealers turned race patrons, fluttering around my Bentley like exotic parrots. I’m grateful, truly, but the sheer number of silk scarves on display could have smothered a cathedral.

The Bentley, at least, behaved beautifully. She idled with all the arrogance of a duchess waiting for her footman. I confess I stroked her dashboard when no one was looking.

Departure

The train whistled first. A theatrical gesture, I thought. As if to remind me it has timetables, infrastructure, and an entire nation’s railway authority on its side. I have only petrol, a map, and nerves. But what the train lacks,and I cling to this,is the ability to want.

The Last-Minute Passenger

Enter Simon Etheridge, my stowaway. He arrived breathless, with a small case and an even smaller sense of shame, babbling about needing to get to London for a funeral. (Aunt? Cousin? He wasn’t clear.) His flight was cancelled, his options limited. He looked at me with the imploring eyes of a man who has never read an AA route plan in his life. Against better judgment, I let him in. He sat gingerly, as if afraid the upholstery might bark.

We are, apparently, now two against the train.

The Road Beyond Nice

The coast unfurled in ribbons of light, villas glowing, the sea flashing silver. I kept her steady, refusing the temptation to show off. This is no jaunt; this is a measured hunt. Simon tried small talk,“So, er, how fast does she go?”,but soon gave up, hypnotised by the dark and the hum of the engine. I was glad of the silence.

Near Aix-en-Provence

A fleeting glimpse of the train,its lamps sliding past in the distance, like some smug constellation. We were level then, or so I thought. A brief thrill, quickly gone. The Bentley urged me on.

I reminded myself: I will not cheat. The train might, the organisers might wink, but I will not. I must arrive with honour intact, even if only by the skin of my teeth.

Approaching Lyon, late night

Simon has dozed off, muttering occasionally in his sleep. Once he said, “Not the lilies,” which I am choosing not to investigate.

The car feels lighter without chatter. My thoughts keep circling back to the absurdity of it all: a woman in evening gloves, hurtling across France to beat a locomotive. And yet I feel alive,each mile an affirmation, each headlight beam a blade slicing the dark.

Race the Blue train!

The train is somewhere ahead, steaming steadily north. We follow, not far behind.

Tomorrow: Paris, if fortune smiles. And if Simon can refrain from spilling his coffee.