Olympidioms

I flicked on the television this morning and caught some earnest looking men swimming laps and really putting their backs into it. So, no Hairy Bikers on Saturday Kitchen then. Of course it was the Olympics. I should have realised because I’d been watching the stunning opening ceremony yesterday afternoon.


Now, I know China should be frowned upon for the human rights abuses and whatever – although I don’t think the American and the lapdog British governments should really do any finger pointing – but that was a fucking brilliant show they put on. I didn’t catch all of it (which meant I luckily missed Sarah Brightman caterwauling away) but from the Fou drumming that opened the ceremony and the 3,000 students of Confucius, through to the remarkable giant scroll that rolled across the stadium floor to illustrate the discovery of paper, later moveable type, and then Chinese trade through the Silk Road.

I thought Western leaders were supposed to be boycotting the ceremony because the Chinese have stepped on the odd Tibetan, but there was Dubya up in the stands. Where was Gordon Brown? If Blair was still PM obviously he’d be in line for the concession stands, getting hotdogs and soda for George and his pal Vladimir. Blair may be a grinning war criminal but at least he’s not a dour, doughy Scotsman who couldn’t run a fucking bath let alone a country, so he’s still got that going for him. Maybe the Beijing Olympic Committee was akin to the China White people, telling Brown that useless tits simply weren’t welcome.


Of course the problem with watching the fantastical opening ceremony make us think that in four years time it’s going to be happening in London. Oh, deary, deary me. Beijing had previously invited Steven Spielberg to be involved in the ceremony, but he bailed because China wasn’t doing enough to resolve the crisis in Darfur, or some other backtracking twaddle, and went on to shit a rubbish Indiana Jones film all over us. Instead it was left to Zhang Yimou, director of Raise the Red Lantern and House of Flying Daggers to provide the spectacle. Does that mean we’ll get Guy Ritchie?

Yes, we can big up our history and traditions, bigging up all the things that have made this country great like Shakespeare and Wordsworth, Isambard Kingdom Brunel, Chaucer, caning the Spanish Armada, the Industrial Revolution, The Battle of Britain, tea drinking and The Beatles, Sherlock Holmes and Bulldog Drummond. Except in the last few decades all the industries have been sold off so we don’t really produce anything anymore leaving football hooligans, hoodies and skank celebrities and shit public transport. Is that what we’re going to promote?


Although, expecting to have a wow-wee opening ceremony in four years means expecting the Olympic Park to actually be finished in time. I don’t imagine anyone is seriously putting money on that. So we’ll probably end up with an artistic interpretation of hoodies stabbing each other’s heads off, in amongst a pile of graffiti-covered rubble. I think the best bet would be to have the allegedly corrupt and money-grabbing 2012 Olympic Committee and their associated flunkies strung up on the approaches where they could be freely beaten and blowtorched by the mob. Now, that would be great entertainment.