It is a piquant part of the opening celebrations of the Olympic Games that one of the people who had a hand in the designing of ‘The Bird’s Nest Stadium’ one of the signature buildings of the Games has chosen not to attend.
If I have missed one thing during the build up to the Games it is the presence (at a reasonable price) of The Guardian. This is not because I need the reassurance of the ‘Opinion is free but facts are sacred’ motto of Randolph Scott, the lanky, laconic cowboy and one time owner of the paper, but because I have missed the doom laden opinion of the whole concept of the Olympic Games for which The Guardian is famous.
I think that the Tokyo Olympics was the final Games that I watched on the level of Baron Courbetin’s English-public-school-cricket-loving-it’s-the-taking-part ethos; every Games since I have enjoyed for the naked political cockpit of ruthless ambition that they clearly are. And the BBC music for the Tokyo Olympics was the best tune until Barcelona in 1992.
From the political corruption for the ‘election’ of the city for the Games; through the bitter recriminations about where to site them; the more mercenary corruption of the escalating costs; unfinished buildings with the usual strikes and panic; unfair distribution of tickets; hypodermics glinting in the sunlight as ‘athletes’ pump themselves full of substances; to few hotel rooms and at too high prices; a catastrophic transport system and so on.
Those are the aspects of the Games that I like most: the action of the Olympics is often a rather ordinary series of running, jumping and kicking. Oh yes, and the Brave British Boys (and Girls but they didn’t alliterate) as they fail to live up to the absurd hype. Thanks to our participation in the early Olympics of the Modern Era when plucky Englishmen joined in a race when they were on holiday and they happened to find out that the Olympics were taking part, took their top hats off and bally well ran for the old country, and got a gold by gad! Our position in the medal tables still reflects our medal tally from long ago when only a few countries actually took part. Now, of course, when we regularly find ourselves behind a country like The Galapagos Islands, the Games have become a time of national humiliation rather than celebration and they are greeted with dread rather than excited anticipation.
One newspaper prediction stated that we are in the best position to amass a reasonable haul of medals which could see us in the top ten. I can only assume that this particular journo was on the same drugs that fuel the endeavours of the athletes when it was written. God knows we are a pessimistic people, but past experience has shows that it is a good default position to take when it comes to British sporting prowess.
The example to justify all of this depression is of course the Lawn Tennis Association. The genteel corruption of the LTA makes the Mafia look like a charitable institution. The LTA founded the sport, they have led the world in setting the rules of the sport, they have had umpteen millions pass through their hands and we have not had a male Wimbledon Champion since Fred Perry in the last millennium. We are the fourth largest economy in the world and Sweden has more indoor tennis courts than we do.
Talking of corruption I do hope that all event winners and all medal winners will be drug tested – and not by scientists connected to the autocratic, corrupt, totalitarian, censorship loving regime of, yes, you’ve guessed it, the International Olympic Committee. The pious platitudes which drop from the mouth of Blatter (or whoever that corrupt organization has established as a mouthpiece) as he urges the brutish, repressive, secretive, oligarchic apology for a government of the Chinese to be more open and liberal is too sad even to be ironic.
So, the opening ceremony is now over.
The best thing was the size of the Olympic flame.
I do like a flaming flame, something which represents the passion of the event, not the sedate, tasteful lapping flames that we have had in past Olympics.
The Spanish upped the ante by having the flame lit by an archer firing a lit arrow into the bowl of the Olympic flame. I have to admit that the Chinese produced something more astonishing with the torch bearer hoisted on high to mime running around the top of the stadium and lighting the flame. Majestic!
There were moments in this overlong ceremony which were, if I may quote myself from my shameful broadcast on The Cunning Little Vixen, “visually stunning.” The giant speckled light Olympic rings; the globe rising from the stage with runners impossibly running at different latitudes;
the light suits;
the Olympic flame.
But.
I thought that the final raising of the Olympic flag by a squad of goose stepping soldiers was grotesquely out of kilter with what the Olympic ethos should be.
Just as the opening sequence and other throughout reminded me of those repellent Spartakiáda, or mass gymnastic displays http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spartakiad beloved of Communist countries http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass_gymnastics I find them fascinating if disgusting.
For me the subordination of the individual to the whole, the degredation of the single human to a mere piece of a jigsaw puzzle to make a moving pattern
is the antithesis of what I believe is an acceptable image for a nation. And certainly for the Olympic Games.
Oh yes, and if you can still think back that far, I do know the difference between Randolph and CP Scott – but both ‘availing to good’ I think!
If I have missed one thing during the build up to the Games it is the presence (at a reasonable price) of The Guardian. This is not because I need the reassurance of the ‘Opinion is free but facts are sacred’ motto of Randolph Scott, the lanky, laconic cowboy and one time owner of the paper, but because I have missed the doom laden opinion of the whole concept of the Olympic Games for which The Guardian is famous.
I think that the Tokyo Olympics was the final Games that I watched on the level of Baron Courbetin’s English-public-school-cricket-loving-it’s-the-taking-part ethos; every Games since I have enjoyed for the naked political cockpit of ruthless ambition that they clearly are. And the BBC music for the Tokyo Olympics was the best tune until Barcelona in 1992.
From the political corruption for the ‘election’ of the city for the Games; through the bitter recriminations about where to site them; the more mercenary corruption of the escalating costs; unfinished buildings with the usual strikes and panic; unfair distribution of tickets; hypodermics glinting in the sunlight as ‘athletes’ pump themselves full of substances; to few hotel rooms and at too high prices; a catastrophic transport system and so on.
Those are the aspects of the Games that I like most: the action of the Olympics is often a rather ordinary series of running, jumping and kicking. Oh yes, and the Brave British Boys (and Girls but they didn’t alliterate) as they fail to live up to the absurd hype. Thanks to our participation in the early Olympics of the Modern Era when plucky Englishmen joined in a race when they were on holiday and they happened to find out that the Olympics were taking part, took their top hats off and bally well ran for the old country, and got a gold by gad! Our position in the medal tables still reflects our medal tally from long ago when only a few countries actually took part. Now, of course, when we regularly find ourselves behind a country like The Galapagos Islands, the Games have become a time of national humiliation rather than celebration and they are greeted with dread rather than excited anticipation.
One newspaper prediction stated that we are in the best position to amass a reasonable haul of medals which could see us in the top ten. I can only assume that this particular journo was on the same drugs that fuel the endeavours of the athletes when it was written. God knows we are a pessimistic people, but past experience has shows that it is a good default position to take when it comes to British sporting prowess.
The example to justify all of this depression is of course the Lawn Tennis Association. The genteel corruption of the LTA makes the Mafia look like a charitable institution. The LTA founded the sport, they have led the world in setting the rules of the sport, they have had umpteen millions pass through their hands and we have not had a male Wimbledon Champion since Fred Perry in the last millennium. We are the fourth largest economy in the world and Sweden has more indoor tennis courts than we do.
Talking of corruption I do hope that all event winners and all medal winners will be drug tested – and not by scientists connected to the autocratic, corrupt, totalitarian, censorship loving regime of, yes, you’ve guessed it, the International Olympic Committee. The pious platitudes which drop from the mouth of Blatter (or whoever that corrupt organization has established as a mouthpiece) as he urges the brutish, repressive, secretive, oligarchic apology for a government of the Chinese to be more open and liberal is too sad even to be ironic.
So, the opening ceremony is now over.
The best thing was the size of the Olympic flame.
I do like a flaming flame, something which represents the passion of the event, not the sedate, tasteful lapping flames that we have had in past Olympics.The Spanish upped the ante by having the flame lit by an archer firing a lit arrow into the bowl of the Olympic flame. I have to admit that the Chinese produced something more astonishing with the torch bearer hoisted on high to mime running around the top of the stadium and lighting the flame. Majestic!
There were moments in this overlong ceremony which were, if I may quote myself from my shameful broadcast on The Cunning Little Vixen, “visually stunning.” The giant speckled light Olympic rings; the globe rising from the stage with runners impossibly running at different latitudes;
the light suits; the Olympic flame.But.
I thought that the final raising of the Olympic flag by a squad of goose stepping soldiers was grotesquely out of kilter with what the Olympic ethos should be.
Just as the opening sequence and other throughout reminded me of those repellent Spartakiáda, or mass gymnastic displays http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spartakiad beloved of Communist countries http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass_gymnastics I find them fascinating if disgusting. For me the subordination of the individual to the whole, the degredation of the single human to a mere piece of a jigsaw puzzle to make a moving pattern is the antithesis of what I believe is an acceptable image for a nation. And certainly for the Olympic Games.Oh yes, and if you can still think back that far, I do know the difference between Randolph and CP Scott – but both ‘availing to good’ I think!
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