Painting A Picture Of London
Oh, good grief. After the whole eight minutes of big red London bus you’d think it couldn’t get any worse, at least not for a while. But then comes the news that a promotional video being screened in Beijing included brief footage of the infamous Marcus Harvey painting of Myra Hindley that was made using children’s handprints.
Okay, the video was put together by some ass-clowns at Visit London rather than the 2012 bozos, but you’d think that anything promoting London’s potential bankruptcy in four years time would need to be vetted before being given a seal of approval. I may be wrong, but I’d have thought that using images of loathsome child murderers isn’t the best way to attract people to these shores.
Perhaps it would have been better to pick a Turner instead, like The Fighting Temeraire, but then there are far better songs that are representative of Britain than Whole Lotta Love. But maybe that’s the genius of the promotional video. Maybe the plan is to keep people away. After all, the damned capital is pretty much choked solid on a normal day. What the heck is it going to be like with all the world’s athletes and sports fans clogging the place up even more?
So maybe this ploy is to offend so many countries and creeds that they simply stay away. That way the Olympic site in East London can still look like Time Team has gone mental and everyone can go about their business. The next video can remind people of our complicity in the slave trade, remind everyone that we invented concentration camps and sent all our undesirables to Australia, and at some point pissed everyone else off, whether it was by whupping the Spanish Armada or giving Napoleon an absolute caning.
In fact I’ve even got the next slogan to show everyone where we’re at: LONDON 2012. JUST FUCK OFF!
posted by Good Dog @ 11:15 am
7 mouthy comebacks
7 Comments:
I do wish you'd stop mincing your words, GD... ;)
I know, I’m such a shrinking violet. But, can you understand any of this? The graphic sequence that preceded the introduction of that big red bus in Beijing seemed to be designed by a bunch of twerps who hadn’t bothered to investigate Britain’s history.
There’s much more to this country than the fucking Beatles and punk rock. What do they think; that nowadays we have to celebrate multiculturalism otherwise some people might feel left out? Tough shit.
Cast your mind back to the utter bollocks that went into the Millennium Dome. What a massive fuck up that was! Are we supposed to be embarrassed about our past? This isn’t supposed to speak to the people, it’s supposed to celebrate the country. Which is why the Chinese ceremonies didn’t show some soldiers kicking the shit out of a bunch of Tibetan monks.
Surely those athletes who gave it their all deserved something better.
GD, before I go any further, you know I love you dearly, right?!
However...although I totally understand where you are coming from, would you rather Britain was represented as a moaning, bitchy commune which constantly looks backwards instead of forwards? We are in danger of self-publicising such an image if the headlines and general hubbub is to be believed.
Although everyone is busy celebrating the Olympic heroes' return there is a definite air of "Let's see how we can f*ck it up in 2012" circulating. Surely that's not the message we want to 'speak to the people'?
I don't think Chinese "...soldiers kicking the shit out of a bunch of Tibetan monks." would have really been speaking to the people of China en masse either. How about all the Bejing folks who were turfed out of their homes and into the slums in order to build the Olympic arena/village? I guess the Olympic message didn't appeal to them much either.
I am sure there are going to be many melodramas played out between now and 2012, but surely - just this once - it wouldn't be too hard to celebrate our Country without lashing out at the whys and wherefores? After all, isn't it our ability to shake our heads and laugh at ourselves that makes the Great in Britain and United in Kingdom?
Just my tuppence worth! xxx
Ah hon, I loves you too.
No, I’m not saying we shouldn’t look forward, but that opening sequence played on the monitors before the bus arrived in the stadium... Gilliamesque animation, graffiti artists, palace guards doing the silly walk on the roof of Buckingham Palace either side of a punk? Britain did exist before the 1960s. I’m sure I read that in a book.
This was thought up by a brains trust that lacked any brains. I’ve worked on flipping breakfast cereal commercials that made more sense and were better than what was slapped up on screen. Who the fuck thought this shit up? And why did it look so cheap?
I get the feeling that if folk are mumbling “Let’s see how we can fuck it up in 2012” their concern is about the rhubarbs in charge like Tessa Jowell and Sebastian Coe, who seems to becoming more and more like a Bond villain as every day passes.
The Dome was a money pit fiasco. Wembley stadium came in late and haemorrhaged cash. The government seems to exist solely to hand large sums of money over to complete incompetents.
And what about the east London businesses told to pack up and sod off because the land was needed? The moment Ken came clean and revealed he wanted the Olympics here solely to regenerate east London I’m surprised the sonofabitch wasn’t knifed and chucked in the Thames.
Sure, this is just the right time to celebrate everything great about Britain. But can the idiots in charge of it all do that? The great thing about our national character is that we can laugh at ourselves. That opening sequence and the crap with the bus and lollipop lady surely had everyone else laughing at us.
As for those wan fucks Scouting for Girls singing London Calling... Mother. Of. God...
The kid and the Missus were down in London and needed to stay an extra day, so I called the reservations manager at the Bayswater hotel where I've stayed so often that we know each others' names. For once, he couldn't help.
The reason why there didn't appear to be a decent mid-priced room available anywhere in town?
Wimbledon, he said.
One sporting event in one venue and the infrastructure immediately shows the strain.
He said, God knows how they think they'll manage in 2012.
And that was just for Wimbledon fortnight? Oh good grief.
I suspect the best thing an athlete could do is find a nice little B&B right on the doorstep of their particular sporting venue.
That way they can get their head down and, given how the traffic will no doubt snarl up, be the only person in contention for their event.
It was surely the shoddiest handover of any Olympics ever. An exploding bus (I wonder what the victims of 7/7 thought of that?), Myra Hindley (even Marcus Harvey says he was flabberghasted by the inclusion of his work), Leona Lewis up on a pole, a grunting 70s rock star and Beckham punting a football into the massed ranks of Chinese 'volunteers'. And Boris ... what can you say about a man who can't even wave a flag?
I shall have left London by 2012. Hopefully, I won't be deemed guilty by association then.
Sigh.
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