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Kriss Akabusi

It pays testament to his enduring genius to irritate that even today, years after last setting eyes and (worse) ears on the man, it remains impossible to do the late-night channel-flick of the insomniac philistine without a frisson of terror that Kriss Akabusi might crop up in an ancient repeat of A Question of Sport.

As a useful 400-metre runner over hurdles and on the flat, specialising in stirring last legs of the relay, Akabusi seemed a harmless enough soul. Yet even then the exaggerated can-do enthusiasm of his post-race interviews – for all that they often came moments after he had proved that he couldn’t do, and indeed hadn’t done – hinted at the horrors to come.

Television executives evidently noticed them, and concluded that what the viewing public needed in the deep recession of the early 1990s was the human equivalent of one of those executive toys which, at the faintest touch, produce an extended burst of deranged giggling. If laughter is indeed the best medicine, Akabusi will live to be 140. The problem for the rest of us is that while he was getting all the health benefits, we were stuck in the placebo group. Worse than that, the insane chortling that was doing him such a power of good had the disturbing side effect of raising the blood pressure in the rest of us.

If there is an unflatteringly jealous tone in the above, the reason for that is simply put. Of all the human traits, the one I envy most is the Akabusian gift of being easily amused. In a dark and gruesome world, what ineffable bliss it must be to laugh uncontrollably at nothing until the ribcage creaks and the bladder screams for mercy.

In what passed for his televisual heyday, when he was a presenter on Record Breakers and a guest on just about everything else, nothing – not one thing – Akabusi could hear would fail to strike him as outlandishly amusing. If the Shipping Forecast on Radio 4 revealed a high ridge of pressure moving towards South Utsira, he’d squeal with mirth. If the Hang Seng index in Hong Kong had been marked sharply up in brisk early trading, he would yelp and shake with merriment. If his GP had told him that he’d developed gangrene in both legs, and required an immediate double amputation, he’d have collapsed with mirth and crawled around on the floor until the limbs detached themselves of their own accord. In his commitment to laughing uncontrollably at the studiedly unfunny, he was a one-man Michael McIntyre audience long before that alleged comedian emerged to raise fresh doubts about the taste and even the sanity of his compatriots.

Whether the unceasing screeching was genuine, possibly due to an undiagnosed neurological condition, or the stand-out feature of a construction designed to get him media work, it is impossible to be sure. I don’t remember his eyes laughing in tune with his mouth, but it was all a blessedly long time ago.

Today, Mr Akabusi does what retired sportsmen with a TV future buried in the past tend to do. He is a motivational speaker, using silly voices, demented changes of decibel level (whispering one moment, yelling the next, neither volume remotely explained by the text), anecdotes and archive footage of relay triumphs to give new meaning and direction to the lives of those unable to find a televangelist at the right price.

No doubt he makes a decent living from reliving the highlights of a decent career, and explaining to those unable to better the late King of Tonga’s personal best for the 60-metre dash how to adapt his athletic experiences to become better, happier and richer people. I hope so. There is no obvious malice in the man, and I wish him well.

For all that, I can’t help thinking that that the only people for whom a talk from Kriss Akabusi would constitute an effective motivational force are members of the voluntary euthanasia society Exit.