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A thousand years ago, or plus ça change...

Thursday, August 28, 2008
From 'Bitov's Britain' (Viking 1985):

"In a desperate attempt to disguise Britain's decline as a sporting nation, sports editors have recently given their reporters a new directive: any contest in which a British competitor features with any degree of success should be referred to as a blue-riband event.

Hence, for several days during the 1984 'Olympics', an assistant bank manager from Croydon was said to be the toast of Los Angeles after his triumph in the blue-riband event for marksmen, the small­bore rifle-shooting. The British were narrowly edged out of the gold in the blue-riband team show-jumping event and broke the national record when finishing a creditable sixth in the blue-event in the pool, the women's 400-metre backstroke. They compensated for a generally low score on the athletics track by managing to win golds in the three blue-riband events there, the decathlon, the 1,500 metres and the women's javelin, a feat that, it was claimed, made Britain the envy of the athletics world.

After a disappointing show in the synchronized swimming, it was decided that this was not a blue-riband event after all but merely a tedious waste of time".


The results of a google news search for 'Olympics blue riband' can be found here.

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The, cough, 'bally' Olympics - no escape even here

Wednesday, August 20, 2008
I have succeeded in ignoring the WLOSAF thus far without too much effort, but the wretched 2012 event is now about to impinge on sweet home Croydonia:

"Croydon will be celebrating the moment of the olympic handover with a flag raising ceremony on the 24 August with (sic) at Taberner House....Croydon will be celebrating the Paralympic handover on the 17 September will (sic) a themed sports day as well as events taking place in the borough's schools. More details to follow".

Judging from the page at London Councils, few if any boroughs will be safe from this particular plague.

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Bad news for Londoners born in 1994 or later

Tuesday, August 12, 2008
Not my problem, fortunately, but here is an advanced warning for those, resident in these parts, with young children:

"The government is working to fill all seats at London's 2012 Games, Olympics minister Tessa Jowell has said....If they were not filled "by people who have paid the full price", they should be filled by schoolchildren she said".

Sounds like a cruel and unusual punishment, and I recommend parents make plans to get out of Dodge well before 2012 or to at least book a holiday away for the duration, otherwise some way down the line there will be an awful lot of psychoanalysts hearing 'my parents hated me - they made me watch underwater tiddlywinks for hours on end '.

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Trusting souls, the IOC

Monday, August 11, 2008
From the Jerusalem Post:

"The International Olympic Committee has accepted the explanation of an Iranian swimmer who pulled out of an event that included an Israeli competitor. Mohammad Alirezaei withdrew from the heats of the men's 100-meter breaststroke on Saturday just before he was due to compete against a field that included Israel's Tom Be'eri. He cited illness as the reason".

And what did the IOC do to confirm this? "The athlete has withdrawn because of sickness," [IOC spokeswoman Giselle Davies] said. "He confirmed this in writing to the swimming federation".

'Confirmed it in writing', eh? No scope for any doubt about Alirezaei's health and honesty there then.

Ungallant and wholly irrelevant footnote - Ms Davies bears an uncanny resemblance to Steve Jobs.

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Another great investment by our lords and masters

Wednesday, August 06, 2008
(Warning - this post contains facetiousness)

From the wonderful people who had a fire sale of gold reserves, this:

"[Sports minister Gerry] Sutcliffe, in Macao to visit the Team GB preparation camp, said competitors needed to come home with 41 medals and show the British public that the country's £500 million investment into elite sport was "value for money".

A little digging discloses that an Olympic Gold medal weighs around 250 grammes.

And how much gold is in one?:



Yup, 3%. So 250 grammes x 41 is 10.25 kg. Three per cent of that is 307.5 grammes. And at the time of writing, the current London gold price per gramme is £14.51. So, the gold is worth £4,461.82, and at £500 m, that is well over a 100,000 fold mark up. Or 112061.77 to be precise.

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The poor little darlings

Monday, July 28, 2008
That I do not have a great deal of time for the Olympics - see repeated references to 'the world's largest outdoor steroid abuse fest' for confirmation - will come as no surprise to those people of impeccable taste who read my jottings on a regular basis.

For all that the kitchen sink is supposedly thrown at athletes to stop them spiking up, pilling up or - for all I know - toad licking, the drug scandals just keep on coming. Those of a cynical disposition will note how the press never wants to believe it of those swathed in our version of the red, white and blue, but that is a story for another day.

Another country which goes in for the same flag colour scheme - and they did get there first - has a sports minister who is concerned about the, cough, human rights of the runners, throwers, jumpers and underwater tiddlywinks players:

"The Netherlands' Deputy Minister for Health, Welfare and Sport, Jet Bussemaker says excessive testing for doping is violating athletes' right to privacy". ..." Although I think doping tests should stay, you must balance them against the rights and freedoms of the athletes, in the knowledge that you can never eliminate doping altogether."

Erm, they are dodging around in outfits that would see them barred in any number of hostelries in these parts and lapidated in some of the more delightful parts of the Middle East, and they are concerned about privacy?

Facetiousness aside, either drop the testing completely and rely on participants to be honourable or allow random testing at any time etc with zero notice. Way back lost in the mists of time I read of a poll that asked the runners, throwers etc whether they would be prepared to take a drug that would guarantee a Gold medal but also in the longer term kill them. The precise wording escapes me, but that was the gist of it. A very clear majority said yes please, and I doubt that opinions among the steroid munchers have changed with the generational advance.

As an aside, Princess Anne was the only competitor in the '72 Olympics who did not have to undergo a sex test. True story.

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Shock o' the day

Wednesday, July 23, 2008
From Hansard:

David Simpson: To ask the Minister for the Olympics how many staff in her Office have had five or more periods of sickness absence of less than five days in two or more of the last five years.

Tessa Jowell: None.


Blimey. Either they are a very fit and healthy bunch, or else they like their work so much they will bound into the office despite hangovers, Lassa fever, in-growing toenails and what have you. Or, perhaps, they sit around playing Tetris and Tessa lacks the authority to make them do any work.


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Kow-tow Watch

Tuesday, July 08, 2008
Step forward Brian Roper, Vice Chancellor of London Metropolitan University (or City and North London polys, as were):

"Brian Roper, vice-chancellor of the university, expressed in a letter to the Chinese embassy in London on June 16 his regret of his school's move, saying that offering the degree to the Dalai Lama was not a well-considered decision, according to an embassy official last week.... Angered and offended by the move, Chinese students and Internet users at home and abroad called for a boycott the university, saying its conferment of honours on the Dalai Lama had hurt the feelings of the Chinese people".

Sensitive flowers, aren't they?

"It also has a Free Tibet Society, which advocates the "Independence of Tibet."

A staff member of the Chinese embassy in London said the university's apology is sincere but it is not enough to completely offset the negative effect. "The university should do more to repair its image in the eyes of Chinese students, such as not providing speaking platforms for Tibetan separatists," he said".

Here's a list of other institutions for Beijing to get upset with.

Meanwhile, China Daily has come up with a list of '30 reasons to watch the Beijing Games'.

These include the following:

13. Babies named after the Olympics - "A total of 4,104 Chinese have been named Aoyun (Chinese for "the Olympics")"

20. Highest number of mascots - five. "Multiple Olympic mascots are not uncommon, but for the first time more than three figures will share Summer Olympic mascot duty when the five Fuwa take center stage. Featuring four of China's most popular animals - the fish , the panda, the Tibetan antelope and the swallow - and the Olympic flame.."

21. Venues on fengshui


Well that's certainly overcome my cynicism, and I will be glued to the box for the duration. Blogging may well be light.....

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Token gesture of the week

Tuesday, June 17, 2008
Seeing this headline - Australian athletes will not attend Olympic ceremony - I was gearing up to praise our Antipodean kin and contrast their approach with the kowtowing by the rabble leading this country.

However, it is nothing to do with human rights, still less the occupation of Tibet but rather this:

"Australian Olympic officials have banned the country's athletes from marching at this summer's opening ceremony in Beijing because of concerns about air pollution in the Chinese capital". I am not making this up.

If Oz's athletes, synchronised swimmers and underwater tiddlywinks players have such delicate lungs, is it safe for them to even get off the plane?

Perhaps someone can come up with an inventive excuse for our athletes, underwater tiddlywinks players ete etc?

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Yet another reason for wishing to be rid of the Olympics

Friday, June 06, 2008
From Hansard:

Sandra Gidley: To ask the Minister for the Olympics pursuant to the Answer of 22 April 2008, Official Report, column 1889W, on the Olympic Games 2012, what provision will be made to reduce any potential spread of sexually transmitted infections".

Dawn Primarolo: I have been asked to reply.

The national health service in London is currently working with both the London Organising Committee of the Olympic Games and the Olympic Delivery Authority to assess the sexual health needs up to, during and after the games. Lessons learned from previous games in host cities such as Sydney and Athens are also being considered as part of the planning process.


Lucky old Gidders in Romsey and Dim Prawn in Brizzle will be far away from the Typhoid Marys and Martins that are Ruritanian pentathletes and Absurdistani synchronised swimmers, but pity east London.....

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A history lesson for Jacques Rogge

Wednesday, May 21, 2008
With one eye on his first class air travel, accommodation, chauffeur-driven limousine etc etc for this year's Open Air Steroid Abuse Festival in Beijing, Jacques Rogge had this to say:


"You don't obtain anything in China with a loud voice. That is the big mistake of people in the West wanting to add their views. It took us 200 years to evolve from the French Revolution. China started in 1949," Rogge added, noting that was a time when Britain and other European nations were also colonial powers, "with all the abuse attached to colonial powers". "It was only 40 years ago that we gave liberty to the colonies. Let's be a little bit more modest."


Since 1968, the UK has given independence to these jewels in the crown: , Antigua & Barbuda, the Bahamas, Brunei, Dominica, Grenada, Kiribati, Mauritius, the Maldives, Nauru, St Vincent & the Grenadines, St Kitts & Nevis, St Lucia, Samoa, the Seychelles, Solomon Islands, Swaziland, Tonga, Tuvalu and Vanuatu. We sold Hong Kong down the river in '97 of course. The French empire was effectively a dead letter by 1960.

Belgium gave independence to the former Belgian Congo in 1960, or more accurately ran away and left it to anarchy.

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Losing something in translation?

Sunday, April 20, 2008
From China Daily:

"Protests against "Tibet independence" continued in several Chinese cities on Sunday. Protestors gathered in front of outlets of the French supermarket chain Carrefour, chanting "Oppose Tibet independence", and "Oppose CNN's anti-China statements" on Sunday morning. Chinese police were monitoring the demonstrations, which had no effect on the supermarkets' normal operations, Xinhua said. More than 1,000 students and citizens in front of the Carrefour in Xi'an (Xian is about as far from Lhasa as Lerwick from London....C) held banners, saying "Strongly oppose CNN's anti-China statements" and "Condemn Tibet secessionist in France tearing up the Five-Star Red Flag"(I really like this one. The language that is, not the sentiment. C). They chanted "Support the Olympics", "Go China" and "Condemn CNN" through loudspeakers".

Maybe they sounded snappier in the original. Also, could they not have wheeled out 'running dog lackeys', just for old times' sake?

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A pointer from Singapore

Tuesday, April 08, 2008
From The Straits Times 29/3:

"....Singapore's winning bid for the 1978 Asian Games...Singapore never staged the Asiad, stunningly giving up the quadriennial games a year after the victory, in 1973, as the Government decided that priority was to be given to the construction of low-cost housing".

Doubtless the IOC would stamp its little foot if we followed this example, but it would seem that those sensible Singaporeans found a higher priority than paying for people to run round in circles and dealt with whatever the consequences were.

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A bit of gratuitous Jowell bashing

Monday, April 07, 2008
A video, not necessarily the original, has appeared at the Number 10 site:



Note that Tessa refers to the Olympic values of 'excellence, tolerance and friendship'. Yes she does, right there at about 40 seconds in. They are bland enough for Ahmadinejad and Kim Jong-Il to sign up to, and not even remotely in conflict with the policies of the 'People's Republic' of China.

However, a little digging reveals points one and two of the charter:

1. Olympism is a philosophy of life, exalting and combining in a balanced whole the qualities of body, will and mind. Blending sport with culture and education, Olympism seeks to create a way of life based on the joy of effort, the educational value of good example and respect for universal fundamental ethical principles.
2. The goal of Olympism is to place sport at the service of the harmonious development of man, with a view to promoting a peaceful society concerned with the preservation of human dignity.

And what is the most basic ethical premise, one shared by every ethical system and every serious religion?: the Golden Rule, or do unto others as you would have them do unto you.

Lest the Chinese government is uncertain how this might apply to cracking heads in Tibet, I offer this from the Analects:

Never impose on others what you would not choose for yourself

Or from the Buddha:

One who, while himself seeking happiness, oppresses with violence other beings who also desire happiness, will not attain happiness hereafter

Meanwhile, Jowell is also noting the people in Downing Street to greet what is basically a rather stylised hurricane lamp, without being honest enough to say that they were hand picked.

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The London protests

But for pressure of work I would have gone up to town to cry 'shame' at the Olympic quislings and so forth yesterday, and rather regret that I could not. So, a big round of virtual applause to those who braved the intemperate weather.

Generally speaking, marches, demonstrations and so forth are dismal failures in terms of the outward aim - to change the policies of one's own government or that of another. However, the marchers, banner wavers also have themselves as a psychological target, and Countryside Alliance, CND, stop the war types etc will all have felt a nice rosy glow of self-righteousness and taken away a sense that they had at least done something.

Where the Tibet protests succeeded was not in persuading the 'People's Republic' of China to decolonise Tibet (and come to that East Turkestan), which they are not likely to do any time soon, alas, but to ensure that Tibet's struggle and the vile human rights record of the 'People's Republic' of China becomes global news, and penetrates even the consciousnesses of the boneheaded retired athletes and ''ims and 'ers off the telly' who judged that getting their faces in the papers (that they might plug memoirs, diet supplements, television programmes or whatever) was more important than exhibiting even the most elementary sense of decency. So, Trevor MacDonald, Konnie Huq and the rest of you - avaunt.

That the preservation of law and order was part delegated to a series of Chinese secret policemen / special forces types (they certainly weren't athletes, were they?) is also profoundly shocking.

Meanwhile, make haste to the Number Ten site, and attempt to play the embedded video of the Dour One doing an embarrassed nod at the torch. And fancy, just fancy, a message flashes up saying 'sorry, this video is no longer available'.

And since I am having lots of fun with wonder that is hindsight, enjoy this from Livingstone's site:

"On Sunday 6th April the Olympic flame will be carried across London as part of the global Olympic Torch Relay. Large crowds are expected to cheer on the 80 torchbearers, including Paralympians, Olympic athletes and celebrities as they carry the torch through ten London boroughs from Wembley to Greenwich".

One final (?) afterthought: it is a desperate shame that Peter Hain is no longer in the government, as it would have been delightful watching him trying to square collective ministerial responsibility with his known stances on 'normal sport in an abnormal society'.

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Good news from an unlikely source

Friday, April 04, 2008
This, at the MSF/AEEU, AmicusUnite's site:

"European Court judgement could derail the London Olympics say Unite".

And they present this as though it is a bad thing. Turns out to be scare tactics based on a reading of an ECJ ruling, whereby 'a Polish subcontractor operating in Germany can lawfully pay construction workers less than half the German construction industry’s agreed wage'. Unite reckons 'London’s Olympics will either be built on poverty wages or not at all as industrial unrest spreads'. I'll take the latter please, but I could live with the former if means that London council tax payers are skinned slightly less thoroughly to fund the World's Largest Outdoor Steroid Abuse Fest.

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Dignity in politics. How she is not exhibited.

Monday, March 31, 2008
Nursultan Nazarbayev, the not especially awful (by Central Asian standards) leader of Kazakhstan has decided that he is just the man to carry the Olympic torch when it reaches Almaty.

At 67 he is neither in the first flush of youth nor in need of round the clock medical attention, but NN has opted not to overdo it: "Kazakhstan President Nursultan Nazarbayev will run a 250m stretch of the torch relay".

Perhaps 'run' is too strong a word. Saunter, perhaps?

I would not fancy the chances of any Tibetans disruption, as "Kazakhstan has spent $2.5 million for the preparations around the torch relay...Almaty has also invested in security, having as many as 5,000-armed policemen to watch over the the relay run". Shame.

(I am deeply peeved to have discovered that I had got my Jimmy Carter anecdotes mixed up, and the killer rabbit did not attack him while he was jogging, otherwise I was going to offer that up as a terrible warning to Nazarbayev).

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Be warned

Tuesday, March 11, 2008
Jeff Ennis (Barnsley, East and Mexborough) (Lab): Does the Secretary of State agree that the British Federation of Brass Bands, which is based in Barnsley...will play a vital role in making a success of the Cultural Olympiad?

Andy Burnham: On brass bands, I am absolutely confident that the rich heritage that my hon. Friend describes...will play a very important part in our Olympic celebrations. Source

I wonder what Fanfare for the Common Man rendered by the Grimethorpe Colliery Band or somesuch would sound like?

Judging from this rendition by the Noo Yawk Phil, possibly quite good.

For those of us of a certain vintage, that piece of music will always be associated with ELP showing off in an empty stadium, so by presumed popular request:







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"The World's Largest Outdoor Steroid Abuse Fest" - The 'benefits' just keep on coming

Tuesday, March 04, 2008
Might an abbreviation to 'WLOSAF' be in order?

Anyway, the following is headlined at the Mayor's Evening Standard 'rebuttal' unit press office:

"London to benefit from nearly a hundred 2012 Games training camps".

Even the headline sounds more than a tad threatening - it might mean the Kazakh fencing squad pitching tents in Hyde Park or somesuch - but the reality is not so amusing, and by no stretch of the imagination a 'benefit' for Londoners:

"Mayor of London Ken Livingstone has welcomed the news that 96 sports centres and facilities across the capital have been selected to appear in a national guide listing training venues for athletes in the run up to the 2012 Games...Out of the 96 training venues selected in London, two thirds are from non-host boroughs, spreading the benefits of staging the 2012 Games across the city. Out of the 36 Olympic sporting disciplines, London is providing training facilities for 28 of them, which include a mixture of major and specialist centres including universities and schools, community facilities, and sport specific clubs".

So, the 'benefit' for Londoners will be that access to the local swimming pool, football pitch, gym etc etc will be curtailed because said Kazakh fencing squad, Ecuadorean volleyball players and for all I know the Vanuatu underwater tiddlywinks team have first call on the facilities.

Croydon, is part of the rather unpleasantly named South East London Cluster, and appears to have got off comparatively lightly in that only a judo club is up for a takeover. That sundry combat sports are being offered training facilities in the grimmer east London boroughs suggests a joke that is too obvious to be worth cracking.

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