Olympic quote of the day - 6; closing ceremony

Blogger, I realise, is rather slow for this kind of thing, but as I don't do twitter here are some of my favourites, to be updated through the evening:

 Laurie Penny:
 If the Olympics is a giant party, the closing ceremony is everyone's embarrassing drunk uncle doing the hip-swivelly pointy-finger dance.

Giles Coren:
Ah, wait. I know what's going on. They've deliberately made it shit so the Spice Girls aren't nervous about coming on and ruining it.

Paul Stephenson, on Emeli Sande's second appearance:
This closing ceremony was brought to you by Emeli Sande's publicist.
(Too right; who does this Sande woman know? Once was bad enough!)

Giles Coren again:
It's like in the car when you're stuck on the motorway with only one cd, and round about Coventry you're back at the beginning of it...

Sue Perkins, as the white blocks are piled up:
Kate Bush Tetris Festival is underway

(Aaaaaaagh! Bohemian Rhapsody..... violated! By 'Imagine'! And little kids!)

Dave Steele:
Wait no! Everybody stop. This is the exact ritual required to bring back Tony Blair! We've been tricked! Ruuuuuun! 

(Giant billboards? Kate Moss? Don't tell me this whole thing has just been a giant advert for all the designer outlets in that new shopping centre down the road in Stratford!)


And JuliaM, with what may be the Leitmotif of the evening:
Jeeeeeesus! Need....more....WHISKY
(You and me both, Julia! )

Oh no - Boris and Dave grooving along to the Spice Girls. Right; that's it - I'm off to find some mind bleach and bed! I'm too tired to stick around for the scouring of the Shire.

And best tweet of the evening? Surely it's got to be this exchange:

Clarissa:
What are the odds on Liam being stoned?

JuliaM:
The audience'd happily do it.Would supply their own stones too...

Olympic quote of the day - 5

Spotted by the Telegraph's Michael Deacon, from the BBC's interview with the father of British gymnast and eventual bronze medal winner Beth Tweddle during coverage of the women's asymetric bars final:

Q: “Mr Tweddle, tell us what you’ve been going through this week.” 
 A: “I’ve been laying a patio.”

Well done that man!

I wouldn't want you to think I'm against any emotional involvement in sport - in fact, my favourite television moment of the Games so far is the candid shot of Denise Lewis - so composed and calm on camera a few minutes earlier -  leaping up and down with excitement as she watched the athletics from the BBC's studio window.

Those trackside interviews, though, are another matter -  "How tough was it for you?" "How did you feel when...?"  - with innermost feelings paraded for the delectation and vicarious pleasure of viewers, giving the coverage a horribly voyeuristic quality.

And how can we fully share the victor's elation - as the BBC's triumphalist presentation invites us to do, emotive music and all - when it has come at the expense of all the other competitors? Every time we watch someone win, we've seen at least one other person lose.

I appreciate that I am not entering fully into the spirit of things, but, while I can understand the exuberance of some of the interviewees, we at the Tavern salute Mr Tweddle for reminding us that hyperbole and 'sharing' should always be optional.

Mr Tweddle, toast of the week, your very good health!

All that rugby puts hairs on your chest...

...What chance have you got against a tie and a crest?

An unlikely source, this week, for complaints that too many of Britain's Olympic medals were won on the playing fields of Eton and other independent schools.

Too many of Britain's top sportsmen and women were educated privately, the country's Olympic chief has said. Lord Moynihan said it was wholly unacceptable that more than 50% of medallists at the Beijing Olympics came from independent schools. 

That would, of course, be Colin Moynihan, 4th Baron Moynihan, Olympic silver medal-winning cox and alumnus of the distinctly independent Monmouth School, where 'rowing is a available as a Games option [...] and crews compete at events including Henley Royal Regatta.'

Not quite your bog-standard comp then, Colin? Of course, when you had sporting greatness thrust upon you thirty years ago it may well have been simply due to the fact that your school had specialised in a sport then almost unknown outside the independent sector at that level, but can you really apply that to everyone else?

It helps his cause considerably that some of the early medals are in sports where money is a huge advantage (for example equestrianism, conducted on an animal which, at that level, costs a small fortune to buy and maintain) but is the success a product of the school or simply of parental income, a correlation that says people with that kind of money at their disposal will almost certainly choose private education?

Well-off parents can afford to travel to events and buy equipment; they can support and house their grown-up children for the years of intensive training it can take to achieve international success. Even those succeeding in more 'democratic' sports almost always tell tales of parents willing to get up at the crack of dawn and drive for miles to training sessions or competitions.

All this has little to do with what happens in school and far more to do with parental priorities and geographical accident - how much open-water sailing can you get in the centre of Birmingham? What chance of starting gymnastics at 4 years old when the nearest coach is  more than 50 miles away? And, crucially, how many parents of talented children dig deep to find school fees, however great the sacrifice, or enter them for the many sports scholarships on offer?

If all independent schools were abolished, we might well still be seeing the same faces on the podium, and the ideologues would have to turn their attention to the matter of household income and level of parental support -  is it unfair that some children have parents able and willing to invest time and money in their sporting careers while others do not?

And should the state be expected to step in to redress the balance? It appears that the independent sector is merely providing a useful whipping-boy for something that looks suspiciously like social engineering.

The Quiet Man sums it up at Orphans of Liberty in a post pertinently titled 'The Politics of Envy', which, together with the comments, tackles the issue far more comprehensively that I ever could.


*Update; looks like The Guardian's CiF  is heading that way already (h/t JuliaM who handles the subject with her customary panache)


(For fans of The Jam, here's the full version)

Olympic quote of the day - 4

"There's alcohol, there are ladies - it's all good. My wife was supposed to come but unfortunately she's had to go to a hen do, so I've brought my friend along and he's quite pleased."
(A spectator at the women's beach volleyball, as quoted by the BBC)

Ah yes, beach volleyball. Babes in  bikinis. Carry On up the Horse Guards Parade. It's the standing schoolboy joke of the Olympics, from Boris Johnson's 'wet otters' to the use of Benny Hill's theme music - which basically says "we all know why you're here, and sport has very little to do with it".

It's a thoroughly incongruous situation; here is an Olympic event, trailing clouds of classical glory by association, where the high-flown phraseology of the sport's Olympic guidelines carries a distinctly dubious message.

Take, for example, the requirements for Athens, that most classical of Olympic venues. While the men's uniform followed a basic singlet-and-shorts pattern, merely stating it should be close-fitting and not baggy, the women's kit was described in meticulous and heavy-breathing detail:

'The top must fit closely to the body and the design must be with deep cutaway armholes on the back, upper chest and stomach.[...] The briefs should be a close fit and be cut on an upward angle towards the top of the leg. The side width must be maximum 7 cm.'

It's interesting to note that the dress guidelines for the sport in general are far less draconian, requiring merely that participants wear 'shorts or a bathing suit'. It's only when the Olympic committees get involved that the real nit-picking starts - though it's hard to see exactly how the aims of  'Faster, Higher, Stronger' are served by officially ensuring that women are exposing their 'upper chests' and a sufficient amount of thigh.

Formed, no doubt, by the demands of television coverage, this bizarre fusion of formality and exploitation characterises the hypocrisy that underlies much of the Olympic 'ideal' - that same hypocrisy that sees fat cats living it up in the name of inclusivity and brotherhood while drawing aside the hem of their collective garment from the masses at every opportunity.

If the use of the Benny Hill theme is an acknowledgement of the real priorities of the spectators, perhaps this aspect too should be enshrined in Olympic ritual:

"Good morning, and welcome to Horse Guards Parade for the final of the women's beach volleyball....and now we can see Lord Coe passing the official binoculars to Jacques Rogge in preparation for the Ceremonial Ogle, this taking place, of course, just before the two of them exchange the traditional "Phworrr!"..."

There is no spoon...

It seems we can't even trust the evidence of our own eyes, at least if Lord Coe's latest pronouncement is to be believed:

“Let’s put this in perspective, those venues are stuffed to the gunnels and the public are in there." 

That's right, Seb, they're the ones crammed up near the rafters, behind the massed banks of empty seats in prime position. As the Telegraph has it, the 'stadiums' (or stadia, depending on your level of pedantry) may well be packed solid in the vicinity of the 'gunnels' (or gunwales, ditto) but things are looking decidedly less crowded below the plimsoll line.

It seems the empty seats are, by and large, the ones reserved for the 'Olympic Family', including IOC officials; perhaps yesterday's no-shows were suffering the after-effects of the lavish hospitality that was doubtless on offer after the Opening Ceremony.

It's a shame that, once it was clear the places would not be occupied for the main events, spectators with children were not quietly permitted to move forward - not only would it have looked better on camera, it would have shown a generosity and consideration the Games organisers have so far appeared to lack, as well as being in keeping with the stated 'legacy' ethos.

I can view this with relative indifference, not having applied for tickets, but I can imagine it must be intensely galling for anyone who tried to purchase tickets for these events and failed - especially since anyone who applies for tickets for the early heats of a particular event may well have good reason for wanting them.

Although it makes no difference to the sporting outcome, there is something deeply displeasing about those empty chairs, testifying as they do to the relative values that see the paying public relegated to a literal back seat while the Olympic Family manifest their indifference by leaving their prime places unfilled.

Unless, of course, the gaps were a figment of our collective imagination, as Lord Coe seems to imply.



Update: some joined-up thinking:

Lord Coe said fans with tickets could have them upgraded so they can sit in more expensive areas reserved for VIP members of the 'Olympic family' (though, interestingly, it doesn't say whether this would be free of charge)

and a telling insight into Lord Coe's relationship with his IOC overlords:

He said: 'It's not easy to ask people (in the accredited Olympic family) at the beginning of the Games exactly how, where and when they're going to be in those seats.

Wot, no Mrs Tiggywinkle?

Well, hats off to Danny Boyle - sort of.

It was undoubtedly spectacular, it certainly entertained, there were flashes of awe-inspiring brilliance, and yet...and yet...

The green and pleasant land, for example, was very picturesque, along with the carefully choreographed hordes of lusty swains and buxom wenches - Thomas Hardy meets Busby Berkeley - but was I the only one wondering why they sang Jerusalem just before building the dark satanic mills?

Meanwhile, there was more brain-ache induced by Kenneth Branagh, dressed as Isambard Kingdom Brunel, complete with cigar (bet that upset the Righteous!) but reciting Shakespeare - a sort of 'My Little Pony' portmanteau of 'British things we like all combined into one incongruous package'.

No sooner had we negotiated this intellectual contortion than we had to deal with an army of top-hatted, bewhiskered 19th-century industrialists engaged in what appeared to be, according to one inspired tweet, 'interpretive dance on the importance of lawncare' while remaining entirely po-faced and purposeful.

After that, the dancing doctors and nurses - the genuine article, we were assured, fresh from 150 hours of rehearsal (which might explain a lot about recent waiting lists) - fending off massive puppets ('Finally!' the French contingent must have sighed with relief, 'Now that's how you do a ceremony!') were relatively straightforward, though the massed ranks of Mary Poppinses descending from the skies probably said more about the deepest recesses of Boyle's psyche than he would like us to know.

These things always become  more cringeworthy as we approach the present day - teenagers phoning and texting is not what I'd call a spectator sport - but at least we had the benefit of some excellent music for Boyle's name-that-tune/film competition, though the brain-ache was back with the inappropriately apocalyptic lyrics for London Calling (the choice of which has puzzled me since it was used for the Olympic bid all those years ago).

All in all, it was an impressive piece of work - I certainly have great admiration for whoever choreographed and rehearsed the performers - and did the job it was supposed to do. True, there were grating factors, like the choice of a pop vocalist to sing 'Abide With me' complete with the genre's nasal delivery and flattened blue notes or the somewhat baffling prominence given to the NHS.

And, if Boyle meant what he said about evoking what Britain means to outside visitors, why Harry Potter rather than Beatrix? You only have to see the Far-Eastern hordes seething through the Lake District to realise that she is a major influence - so much so that the appearance of a real live rabbit by the side of the road is greeted with something akin to Beatlemania.

With the IOC in the best seats, I can see why he might not have wanted to bring in Tolkien's sinister Rings, however appropriate, to the forging scene (which was very well-contrived), but the bucolic scene at the beginning would surely have been greatly improved with the addition of some of Beatrix Potter's creations - ideally in the guise of characters from Sir Frederick Ashton's ballet - to satisfy their devotees around the world.

Still, it did what it was supposed to do and wasn't too much of an embarrassment - in fact some of it was very entertaining and mocking the rest even more so. I feel I got at least some of my money's worth (an estimated 50p, if rumours of something over £27 million are true - though I should like to have been asked first) before I went off to bed somewhere around the letter G (I wanted to enjoy the full awfulness of the Spanish kit but just couldn't face the wait).

And we've paid for it all now so, for the sake of what remains of our national pride,  let's hope the rest of the glorified sports day goes as well.

A serf's-eye view

(A brief musing to occupy those who are not currently watching the preamble to the prologue to the countdown to the Opening Ceremony) 

In a war-torn land of factions and conflict between rival dynasties, the Tudor monarchs hit on a sure-fire strategy to keep the peace - the Royal Progress.

Every summer, the royal household would decamp to the castle or palace of some mighty noble, who would be expected to wine and dine the lot of them and entertain the ruler with lavish pageants.

Being chosen to receive this honour was a decidedly mixed blessing; though it was a hotly-contested mark of royal favour, it also meant months of  frantic building and landscaping even before the harbingers turned up to start slaughtering every edible animal in sight and running up an epic grocery bill.

It was a work of genius; not only did it give the king or queen a chance to keep a close eye on the activities of potential rebels among the aristocracy, the staggering cost of such a visit meant that there could be no question of its host funding a rebellion for many years afterwards.

(The progress also meant that the now-empty royal palaces could be thoroughly cleaned - the pets of the occupants being poorly house-trained and some of their masters not much better - but that's another story.)

Perhaps, when you think about it, that's really what today's Olympics are all about; never mind the rhetoric of brotherhood and unity through sport, it's a four-yearly royal progress that occupies the host nation's minds and - more importantly - wallets to the exclusion of all else.

So the great and the good put the IOC up in the country's best bedroom - 'Jaques Rogge Slept Here'  - and lavish them with plenty while planning this evening's pageant and a succession of tournaments for their diversion.

Meanwhile, behind the scenes, just as in Tudor England, an army of servants and labourers toil day and night to create the magnificent display. And where would the money come from to pay for this extravagance? Whether they wanted it or not, it would all ultimately be wrung from the host's tenants and their families.

That'd be us, then,

Olympic quote of the day - 3

Two quotes for the price of one, in fact, from members of the Spanish Olympic team describing their official clothing for the games: first up is canoeist Saul Craviotto, who accompanied a picture of himself in his shirt with a comment that broadly translates as,

"It's best if I don't say what I think, I'll leave it up to you..."

while field hockey player Alex Fabregas tweeted,

"Olympic kit; there are no adjectives..."

Looking at the photos - the tracksuit ensemble is illustrated in the second of the main heading pictures, though I'd advise making sure you aren't eating when you click the arrow - will confirm that the kit is, indeed, almost beyond description.

Given the state of their economy, it's not surprising that Spain's Olympic Committee seized the chance of a deal with sports clothing company Bosco to supply them with free uniforms.

Eighteen months later, however, when the promised items arrived, the Spanish must have questioned whether it was really a good idea to turn the design over to Russians who were also in charge of supplying the team kit for their own homeland.

I don't know how much of a threat Spain was likely to present to Russia in the medal tables, but it's certainly going to be something of a challenge to manage 'faster, higher, stronger' when you know you are wearing something that makes a 1970's pub carpet look tastefully restrained.

Meanwhile Craviotto and Fabregas may be doing themselves no favours if this report is true:

Coe believes athletes are damaging their podium chances by constantly sending out their thoughts in a 140-character format, and says he has found "quite a close correlation between the number of tweets at competitive times and the level of under-performance".

Whether or not there is an intentional element of threat to his comments (a tip of the tricorn here to Al Jahom), it's interesting to note that, within hours of hitting the headlines with a negative twitter comment about London traffic, US sprinter Kerron Clement was merrily tweeting away with suspicious enthusiasm (and detail):

"Eating at the Olympic Village. Love the variety of food choices, african, caribbean, Halal Cuisine, India and asian and of course McDonalds."

It will be interesting to see whether Craviotto and Fabregas, when they arrive, will find themselves similarly inspired to praise the living conditions of the Olympic Family.

Olympic quote of the day - 2

Jaques Rogge  this time - or, more correctly, Count Rogge - from the interview on yesterday's BBC News.

No, it's not the quote about being 'working class' - so obviously a slip in translation from a man giving an interview in a foreign language that it seems hardly worth commenting on (though some newspapers clearly think otherwise) - but a short phrase from later in the interview.

What makes this particular quote memorable is the momentary pause and the almost imperceptible shrug with which Rogge, challenged by the interviewer about the IOC's 'limos and five-star hotels', replies:

"We have to have accommodation."

in such a flat tone of stating-the-bleeding-obvious that it's clear he has no intention of even entertaining the idea that requisitioning an entire 5* hotel for the duration might be seen as a little over the top in today's climate of austerity.

Interestingly, this interview has prompted a flurry of complaints at the BBC's sports blog that David Bond, the BBC's sports editor, 'lacked respect', or was 'breathtakingly impertinent' in raising the subject as he did: some commentors claimed to have registered with the sole purpose of expressing their disapproval:

'If Mr Rogge and his organisation need a decent hotel for the duration of their stay then they should have it.'

(It all depends, I suppose what you mean by 'decent' - for most of us the term would not necessarily automatically imply the likes of the London Hilton)

'As 'guardians' of the Olympic Movement why shouldn't they stay in quality accommodation?'

Whatever the rights and wrongs of the matter - and I think it's a fair bet that the BBC bigwigs don't exactly rough it when they travel abroad for work either - it's interesting to see how this seems to have tapped into a rich reserve of enthusiasm for the games.

It's a stark contrast to the cynicism abounding in the blogosphere - at least in the vicinity of the Tavern (see Longrider , Gildas and A K Haart for a sample). How ironic, that this event supposed to promote harmony and unity through sport has divided the nation so radically.

Olympics - so she's the one to blame!

Amid all the excitement and national celebration in the run-up to the Olympics, it seems there is an unsung heroine in our midst:

Cherie Blair was instrumental in securing the 2012 games for London [...] according to her husband, the former Prime Minister.

They just can't leave it alone! Not only have they reappeared just in time for the hospitality - like some ghastly distant relatives turning up at every family shindig on the offchance of some free champagne - they are now happy to assume the dubious distinction of arranging the whole bunfight in the first place.

Blair's re-appearance was bad enough, what with his hiring of a new spin doctor and his reported intention to 'make an impact on the home front'; now he's insisting Cherie gets a share of the Olympic limelight too:

'Strangely my wife played a very big part in this really".

Funny - I thought she was meant to be having a high-profile legal career (when she isn't herding goats for Widows' Day or taking part in cake sales); I shouldn't have thought it left much time for fawning on the members of the IOC.

Blair said that his wife had travelled abroad to speak to some of the less well-known delegates to secure their votes.

"My wife was very, very good at going to different countries and seeing people who were the less significant people."

Well, that, at least, has the ring of truth - she's never been one to turn down a free holiday. Still, it would be interesting to find out what Seb Coe and the rest of the London 2012 bid team think about it.

Meanwhile, I wonder whether Tony's attempt to shoe-horn his wife into the public eye once more is connected with reports that one of their spawn has chucked in his banking job and intends to become a Labour MP (with the backing, presumably, of his parents' not inconsiderable fortune).

The thought of being ruled forever by a Blair-Booth dynasty is almost bad enough to distract one from the horror in store at the end of this week as the host nation attempts to beat the record for the number of toes simultaneously curling across the globe.

As Mary Poppins abseils into the arena to save the word from Voldemort, to the accompaniment of a massed chorus of dancing nurses, firemen and 70 sheep, and the world looks on in stunned disbelief, perhaps we may find it in ourselves to give credit where it's due and remember that we owe it all to Cherie.

London 2012 - Just when you thought it couldn't get any worse

(Readers of a sensitive disposition are advised not to follow the link)

Just make them go away....please!

James Higham barely scratched the surface of this 83-fold hideousness; the DM has kindly remedied this in a collection of pictures which I unwisely stumbled across in a misguided moment. I shudder to think how much money this insanity has cost - and if any of it was mine, I want it back!

And just to put the icing on the cake, each of these aesthetic atrocities bears a sign saying  'DO NOT CLIMB' -  surely a most apposite metaphor for the 'inclusivity' of the games.' Hey, kids! You can look but you can't touch!'

By the way, has anyone seen one close up to find out what it says under the admonitory words? 'Penalty - £500'? 'without permission in triplicate from LOCOG'? 'on pain of death'? I'd be interested to know.

(Of course, it wouldn't be the DM without some hideous mangling of grammar as we know it: in this case, the final paragraph begins with the immortal sentence, 'Then there is there appearance'.)

Olympic quote of the day

Credit to an unnamed friend of the Artful Dodger who passed this on:

"When it comes to the games i think we’ve been labouring under a misapprehension: We thought we were hosts like the queen is at a posh garden party, when actually we’re hosts in the way that John Hurt is in Alien.”

—	From a comment by “AndronicusComnenus” on Olympics regulations force cyclists to dismount

A bad case of Olympic ringworm

Businesses beware! The sinster, purple-clad London 2012 'Brand Army' is about to begin patrolling  Britain's high streets*, ready to denounce any enterprise presuming to make use of the words 'Summer', 'London' or '2012' in unseemly conjunction with 'Gold', 'Silver' and 'Bronze'.

Under legislation designed for the London 2012 Olympics, they will be able to bring court action against any business breaking the strict rules, with potential punishments including fines up to £20,000.

Jobsworths being what they are, we can surely expect to see several varieties of chocolate and tanning lotion relegated to a box under the counter for the duration - 'just in case' -  along, of course, with Roland Emmerich's best-selling geo-disaster DVD. Anything is possible in a climate that has seen the demands of sponsors place restrictions on catering, staff footwear and even the spectators' choice of clothing.

Of course, we're all by now familiar with the way the Olympic machine has sprung into action to 'protect' the symbolic rings; I have previously mentioned Olympic leeches feeding on the British Bulldog, but far more irritating is Olympic ringworm, the spreading and uncomfortable intrusion of the Games into the everyday lives of Britain's citizens - and particularly the unfortunate Londoners.

Meanwhile, it occurs to me that the purple people and their masters are in need of a marching song, a unifying corporate anthem to celebrate their tireless efforts to ensure that the games will be be a resounding and unequivocal success - for the sponsors, at least.

In keeping with the history (was recreating that really such a good idea?) of the Olympic Torch relay, that peripatetic beacon paraded the length and breadth of the land so that the masses might touch the hem of the bearers' garments (metaphorically, of course; can't have the plebs getting too near!), I have chosen a stirring tune from Wagner's 'Lohengrin', which some may find strangely familiar...

And in accordance with the prevailing spirit of protection for the sacred emblems and the intrerests of sponsors, I hereby declare that the tune of this new anthem will henceforth be off limits for everyone else....















Jogging along, hold high the flame;
Let those who infringe our copyright beware!
Striving for gold, glory and fame;
We might even give a few athletes a share.

London will welcome the fit and the strong
Once they've got through passport queues three miles long.
Cheer on those athletes, frantically running;
The Zil lanes are gridlocked, their bus won't be coming.
Forget all the millions we gave G4S;
We'll draft in some squaddies to sort out the mess.

Jogging along, hold high the flame;
Let those who infringe our copyright beware!
'Flourish those flags', LOCOG proclaim,
'It's not our money, so why should we care?'

*A tip of the tricorn to Longrider for the story; I can't link to his post because just after he published it, his blog went offline 'for maintenance'.
Under the circumstances, I find this rather worrying...

Update: He's back with a new-look blog - looks like he wasn't languishing in a hidden dungeon at LOCOG HQ after all (assuming, of course, that it's still the real Longrider...)

Big fleas have little fleas upon their backs to bite 'em...

... And little fleas have lesser fleas and so ad infinitum.

I've long thought that what we have in the UK these days is not so much a service economy as a flea circus.

It's a telling fact that every single one of the 'sure-fire' business plans presented by the 5 finalists of 'The Apprentice' involved making money by acting as intermediary in someone else's transaction.

As a nation, we gave up making things long ago and started taking in each other's washing instead; now an army of subsidiary parasites has sprung up to charge a hefty commission for procuring the soap powder or contracting the actual scrubbing out to lesser mortals.

The journey from manufacturer to final consumer has become a bloodsuckers' progress as successive agents and middlemen scramble to secure their share, while the same thing can be seen on a more abstract level in local government, say, or healthcare, where battalions of vampiric administrative drones extract a rake-off in the form of generous salaries and pensions.

There's precious little incentive to economise or increase efficiency when staff are effectively paid by the hour regardless of output, while in a higher sphere, central purchasing has led to a massive bureaucracy of corporate fleas all merrily drinking their fill at every transaction.

Small wonder, then, that the actual costs of Olympic facilities and security have far outstripped the actual costs of what is provided; in addition to the grunts actually doing the work, a myriad host of middlemen and -women must be maintained in the standard to which our largesse has accustomed them.

From this abundance, they, in their turn, are forking out smaller (far smaller) amounts to the hundreds of workers who take care of the tasks too mundane for their cash-rich, time-poor overlords - childcare, cleaning, gardening and the rest of it.

And then - here's the ironic bit - all of these lesser people, who do their own laundry and cleaning as well as that of the characters in flashy business suits, are bled dry with taxes to help maintain... what? Another army of parasites, this time eating the bread of idleness and sucking the life-blood of the state.

I'm not an expert, but it strikes me that, now the flea circus has been joined by the Olympic leeches, the poor old British bulldog is likely to be looking pretty anaemic and sick.

Olympics? Enough, already!

This morning, from the BBC news website :

LATEST: LIVE   Watch the Olympic torch pass through the North Wales countryside on day 11 of the relay

Er.. thanks, but I think I'll give it a miss; I have something I like to call 'a life'.


I'm starting to wonder whether all this fuss is some kind of national aversion therapy; are they actually trying to get us so sick of the idea that we stay away - or even leave the country - in droves and the prophesied traffic chaos in the capital is averted?

A trip up north at the weekend took us past motorway signs urging us to plan our journey wisely during the Olympics - 250 miles from London and 60-odd days before the event.

Meanwhile, even the GCSE papers are in on the act - in last week's PE paper, the multiple choice question, "Which of the following is a gateway to physical activity?"  offered, as one answer, "Volunteering to help at the London Olympic Games." It's being marketed to the young with a shocking degree of cynicism, given the startling  amount of commercial and marketing interest involved.

Don't get me wrong; I'm quite happy for talented athletes to enjoy a fortnight of running and jumping - though preferably not at my expense - but, for those of us who preferred to skulk in the library on gym afternoons, it seems a little excessive to expect us to develop a sudden enthusiasm out of the blue, even before you add in the irritation of all those dignitaries on freebies and junkets.

By the time the Olympics arrive, complete with toe-curling opening ceremony and draconian restrictions imposed on spectators by the corporate sponsors, I susupect much of the population will be so fed up that they just turn their backs and do something more interesting instead, leaving the authorities to rely heavily on the brainwashed.

It won't, of course, be a damp squib; as American political rallies depressingly illustrate, throw enough money and effort at whipping a crowd into a semblance of ecstatic hysteria and they'll be waving their little flags fit to bust, convinced they are having the time of their lives and providing that essential video footage to suggest unanimous public approval.

But I can't help feeling that, like 8-year-olds at a birthday party, those who do choose to get involved will have been worked up into such a frenzy of expectation in advance that the real thing may turn out to be a disappointment, ending in  squabbles, sick and tears before bedtime.

There's no getting off mascot-free.

You know the old adage that 'a horse designed by a comittee would be a camel'? Well, it turns out that if you want a figure to represent the London Olympics and have a vast budget and 40 focus groups, you get these;

described in a comment on the Times article as 'The result of a drunken one-night-stand between the Michelin man and a teletubby' , though I prefer Pavlov's Cat's version.

Wiser heads than mine have been mining the rich vein of comic potential in this story, so I shall merely invite you to consider a couple of minor issues - firstly that, inside those presumably hot and stuffy suits are two actors who must be profoundly grateful that their faces are obscured, and secondly that these repulsive creatures will be with us for two years.

You'd think they'd have learned from the migraine-inducing 2012 logo - memorably compared to alcopop-induced vomit - but no, the creators of these two 'futuristic magical beings' are confident their offspring will generate £15million in merchandising profits, possibly with a nice sideline in compensation payouts under the Disability Discrimination Act every time one of us laughs at their monocular state.

In fact the organisers hope that the initial story-book and animated film will eventually spawn a cartoon series (I wish I could doubt that, but have you seen the rubbish on children's TV recently?) as well as a mountain of plastic tat. Schools can even request a visit from the characters on their national tour in 2012 - that should ensure a few nightmares!

Does anyone else remember Ronald Searle's Molesworth cartoon depicting the educational trust Gabbitas and Thring as a pair of sinister top-hatted Victorians? I wonder what he would have done with Wenlock and Mandeville - however worthy the names, I can't help feeling they should resemble the hand-holding perfumed villains in 'Diamonds are Forever'.