By a Newsnet reader
I’ve been practicing for four years to write this article and the training, sacrifice and hardship has all been worth it. It’s Olympic Night fever and I’m just about staying alive, despite not having been selected for team GB.
Never mind, I didn’t want a knighthood anyway – Chris and Steve can keep them, and it’s only a matter of time before Sir Bradley of Wiggins joins them.
By a Newsnet reader
I’ve been practicing for four years to write this article and the training, sacrifice and hardship has all been worth it. It’s Olympic Night fever and I’m just about staying alive, despite not having been selected for team GB.
Never mind, I didn’t want a knighthood anyway – Chris and Steve can keep them, and it’s only a matter of time before Sir Bradley of Wiggins joins them.
I get writer’s cramp and I’d have failed the random drugs test – caffeine, nicotine and alcohol. I remember the pundit who once insisted that anyone caught taking drugs should get “hammered”.
Chris, Steve and Bradley, have now amassed seventeen Olympic medals between them and with the flying Scot, as he is known, aiming for his sixth gold, that total looks to be about to increase – just as the screeching commentary will.
Judging by the size of the medals, Hoy will win another if he manages to stand upright wearing them all.
Sadly though, I’ve now caught the Olympic hee-bee gee-bees. I used to enjoy the Olympics, but this one has left me cold. The continual reference to something called team GB has all but destroyed any enthusiasm I may have had for the four year parade of marginal pastimes that masquerade as Olympic sports.
Archery, beach volleyball, rowing, canoeing, shooting, horse-riding and yachting are pastimes the more energetic amongst us get up to on holiday. I half expect sun-bathing to be decreed an Olympic sport the way the circus is going.
“It’s been a fantastic day for team GB”, some screeching loon tells us every night as another person we have never heard of beats several more unknowns in a ‘sport’ that we don’t want to watch.
Apparently golf is to be introduced in four years time. Will caddies be subject to drug tests? Will pitch and putt or crazy golf be next?
“I can’t believe it” said Charlie McCoo, “My dad took me to Rothesay when I was six and I always dreamt of knocking the ball through the windmill, over the ramp, and off the dugs arse into the hole to win gold.”
Sadly McCoo was later disqualified after admitting to warming his balls by dipping them in hot water prior to his round to prevent chaffing.
At least with golf you can tell who has won. Yachting is a nightmare for everybody – who the hell is in front?
“Ben Ainslie’s Danish rival Jonas Hogh-Christensen is public enemy No 1” the Telegraph newspaper told readers in a headline. Ainslie is a ‘team GB’ yachtsman who apparently pops up every four years to win a gold medal racing other yachtsmen; he has won a gold medal at each of the last three Olympics.
The cost of the yachts is probably enough to ensure the field is limited to a select few, and if Ben makes it four gold medals then expect another knighthood.
The track and field has started, so expect the screeching to continue as team GB rack up even more medals. I can’t name one single athlete in the GB team, not one.
Actually, come to think of it I don’t think we have any, they are all working for the BBC as pundits. Brendan Foster is there again, he was at the first ever Olympics in Athens.
Lord Coe is running the entire affair and has recruited the rest of the workshy House of Lords to fill seats at the hockey matches. Apparently most Londoners have escaped to Scotland to get away from the whole sorry spectacle.
It will be over soon though, and team GB’s gold medals can be melted down and sold in order to pay off the debt incurred through having to host the UK Games (that’s what they’ll be known as when the losses are calculated).
Lord Coe will return to the House of Lords and fill more empty seats at considerable public expense. Lord Hoy and Baron Wiggins will appear in “I’m an Olympian – Get me out of here” and will be forced to eat maggots.
On the subject of food, my Chinese take-way has just arrived, and I’m suspicious as they’ve knocked a whole two minutes off the previous fastest delivery time. Cause for a dope test? No, they’re just efficient.
But on the subject of dope, spare a thought for the Herald sports journalist Doug Gillon who thinks Scotland should remain part of the Union in order to allow athletes to compete in Olympic relay races, thus enhancing their chances of a medal. Doug obviously hasn’t spotted that Scotland aren’t competing at these Olympics – not if you believe Channel 4 who informed everyone that “England” are now third in the Olympic medal table.
Doug was joined by Alf ‘Tupper’ Young over at the Scotsman who grabbed the Unionist baton from Doug.
This must be the lamest pro-Union argument yet. But the Herald will surely outdo it given the news last week that Magnus Gardham, formerly of the Daily Record, has joined the Herald team as its new political editor.
Will the Herald still be here in four years, will the Scotsman and more importantly will team GB? Hopefully I will, and I’ll write another article.