Thank god for the BBC!
Here in Spain it would be perfectly easy to assume that Great Britain was taking no part in the present Olympic Games. Indeed it was only when a yacht with a large sail composed of the Union Flag loomed out of the driving rain and mist to form the picturesque background to a Spanish boat that I had physical proof that my country was actually there.
Spain has won five golds so far with Nadal taking the most well deserved one in an exciting tennis final.
This match was doubly exciting for me because I had assumed that this was a three set contest and so worked myself up into a frenzy on the second set tie break as I thought it was for the gold. I then had to reset my hysteria and worry through another set!
Looking at the third position for GB in the Olympic Medal Table is a rather intoxicating experience. Leaving aside the US of A, such a high position usually means that your ‘government’ is a callous, publicity seeking, and totalitarian one hell bent on squandering on sport money which should have been spent on social services and the poor. Just for the sake of a few gilded trinkets!
That could hardly be true of the lumbering administration of Mr Gordon Brown as he carefully conserves our limited resources to provide a true ‘value for money’ no frills Olympics in 2012. Budgets will be strictly adhered to and I am sure that there is every eventuality that the Games will eventually come in under budget and provide a profit. That is what democracy can do!
Meanwhile, talking of Democracy, it is interesting to see where our medals are being won.
On the BBC Olympic website there is a ‘Live Action’ rolling news and comment section. One contributor, James Jones, started a mini discussion by texting, “Can't help noticing the success to date has come from the posh sports.” Rowing, Sailing and Equestrian events do seem to be the backbone of our golden achievement, but cycling can hardly be said to be ‘posh’ it is almost the symbol of egalitarianism. Admittedly Jones does dismiss the sport as ‘minority’ in his provocative email but, as Gertrude Stein would obviously have commented, “A gold is a gold is a gold!”
It all puts me in mind of ‘Jeux sans frontieres’ which became ‘It’s a Knockout’ in Britain with commentary by Eddie ‘up and under’ Waring. Such mindless fun, I, of course, despised. Yet in the same way that boxing could mesmerise me if I watched it for any period, I found that ‘It’s a Knockout’ could force my anguished emotional participation. I watched entranced as Nantwich or Norwich fielded a team dressed as sandwiches which failed to carry sufficient buckets of jelly on stepping stones of live human mushrooms to flush the giant toilet on their opponents or whatever other vapid metaphor was being enacted.
I can remember the key to success (apart from the complete lack of shame that was a sine qua non of participation) was the playing of the Joker. This outsize card, if played properly could double your top score and make your lead unassailable by the other kitchen utensils or however the other team was dressed.
The ‘trick’ with the Olympics seems to be a version of playing your Joker. Find a sport which naturally limits world wide participation (like rough water kayaking blindfold while eating eels – never popular in sub Saharan Africa) and make it your national sport. On second thoughts that might have been yet another ‘amusing’ game from ‘It’s a Knockout!’ in which Cumbernauld played its Joker in a masterly fashion and laid low the pretensions of Barrow in Furness.
I suppose that there is a natural limitation with yachting with the costs involved and the need at some point to be able to get to the sea. Similarly with horses, I seem to remember some of the eastern communist nations used to manage the expense by having their equestrian competitors all being in the army!
East Germany and the old USSR must look back to those halcyon days when drug taking and child abuse were not quite the hot topics that they are today, with some sort of nostalgia. Their athletes might have changed sex during training and child gymnasts looked like old women by the time they got to their mid twenties – but the golds kept pouring in!
Meanwhile we have eleven golds with the realistic expectation of more!
I say play the Joker now!
Here in Spain it would be perfectly easy to assume that Great Britain was taking no part in the present Olympic Games. Indeed it was only when a yacht with a large sail composed of the Union Flag loomed out of the driving rain and mist to form the picturesque background to a Spanish boat that I had physical proof that my country was actually there.
Spain has won five golds so far with Nadal taking the most well deserved one in an exciting tennis final.
This match was doubly exciting for me because I had assumed that this was a three set contest and so worked myself up into a frenzy on the second set tie break as I thought it was for the gold. I then had to reset my hysteria and worry through another set!Looking at the third position for GB in the Olympic Medal Table is a rather intoxicating experience. Leaving aside the US of A, such a high position usually means that your ‘government’ is a callous, publicity seeking, and totalitarian one hell bent on squandering on sport money which should have been spent on social services and the poor. Just for the sake of a few gilded trinkets!
That could hardly be true of the lumbering administration of Mr Gordon Brown as he carefully conserves our limited resources to provide a true ‘value for money’ no frills Olympics in 2012. Budgets will be strictly adhered to and I am sure that there is every eventuality that the Games will eventually come in under budget and provide a profit. That is what democracy can do!
Meanwhile, talking of Democracy, it is interesting to see where our medals are being won.
On the BBC Olympic website there is a ‘Live Action’ rolling news and comment section. One contributor, James Jones, started a mini discussion by texting, “Can't help noticing the success to date has come from the posh sports.” Rowing, Sailing and Equestrian events do seem to be the backbone of our golden achievement, but cycling can hardly be said to be ‘posh’ it is almost the symbol of egalitarianism. Admittedly Jones does dismiss the sport as ‘minority’ in his provocative email but, as Gertrude Stein would obviously have commented, “A gold is a gold is a gold!”
It all puts me in mind of ‘Jeux sans frontieres’ which became ‘It’s a Knockout’ in Britain with commentary by Eddie ‘up and under’ Waring. Such mindless fun, I, of course, despised. Yet in the same way that boxing could mesmerise me if I watched it for any period, I found that ‘It’s a Knockout’ could force my anguished emotional participation. I watched entranced as Nantwich or Norwich fielded a team dressed as sandwiches which failed to carry sufficient buckets of jelly on stepping stones of live human mushrooms to flush the giant toilet on their opponents or whatever other vapid metaphor was being enacted.
I can remember the key to success (apart from the complete lack of shame that was a sine qua non of participation) was the playing of the Joker. This outsize card, if played properly could double your top score and make your lead unassailable by the other kitchen utensils or however the other team was dressed.
The ‘trick’ with the Olympics seems to be a version of playing your Joker. Find a sport which naturally limits world wide participation (like rough water kayaking blindfold while eating eels – never popular in sub Saharan Africa) and make it your national sport. On second thoughts that might have been yet another ‘amusing’ game from ‘It’s a Knockout!’ in which Cumbernauld played its Joker in a masterly fashion and laid low the pretensions of Barrow in Furness.
I suppose that there is a natural limitation with yachting with the costs involved and the need at some point to be able to get to the sea. Similarly with horses, I seem to remember some of the eastern communist nations used to manage the expense by having their equestrian competitors all being in the army!
East Germany and the old USSR must look back to those halcyon days when drug taking and child abuse were not quite the hot topics that they are today, with some sort of nostalgia. Their athletes might have changed sex during training and child gymnasts looked like old women by the time they got to their mid twenties – but the golds kept pouring in!
Meanwhile we have eleven golds with the realistic expectation of more!
I say play the Joker now!
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