Beach Volleyball, Horse Guards Parade and the Accession Day Tilts
Mathew Lyons on why Horse Guards Parade was an appropriate location to host the Olympic beach volleyball.
For two weeks this summer, Horse Guards Parade resounded to the grunt and slap of the world’s finest exponents of beach volleyball as they competed in the London Olympics. Ticket prices reached as high as £450; some 3,000 tons of sand were laid for the event.
It was easy to be seduced by a vague sense of tawdry bathos about that; Telegraph columnist Charles Moore has said his thoughts on the subject are unprintable. What would the Duke of Wellington’s ghost have made of such of spectacle, looking down from his office as Commander-in-Chief of the British Army?
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