You don’t have to be a Democrat (or Labour voter, for those of us Brits who remain unable to get our heads around the American political system) to be heartily pissed off with that upstart Mitt Romney this week, who had the gall to suggest that the UK might not be ready to host the Olympics, nor to have (secretly or otherwise) pumped a triumphant fist at David Cameron’s response, which was to suggest, without pointing any fingers or naming any names for fear of offending anyone (in true British style) that it would have been far easier to host the Games in the middle of nowhere, which was an oblique but scathing reference to old Mitt’s tenure as Chief Executive of the Games when they took place in Salt Lake City, Utah, back in 2002, a reference which was in fact not missed by anyone at all and was designed to maim (in true British style).
How very dare he. Luckily we can be comforted that he didn’t just pick on the UK for abuse on his tour, since in the days that followed he managed to offend the Palestinian nation as well. So we know he hasn’t just selected us as the recipient of his badly constructed and uninvited comments.
However, I suspect that if Barack Obama were to be in need of a few extra votes come the US elections in November, all he would need to do in the interim is alter the US constitution to make the UK population eligible to vote and he could probably count on an extra 25 million or so in his favour, since I’m pretty sure, Mr Romney’s recent comments notwithstanding, most of us Brits are rather puzzled at how the crazoid is proposing to get any votes at all. Obama could make us a sovereign state or something. Perhaps it would make up in some way for us sending all our religious crackpots to arrive uninvited on American soil in the 1600s, and refusing to leave again until they started getting shot at. It’s just an idea Mr President. Let me know how you get on with that.
It seems that we remain slightly incredulous, now that the Olympics have kicked off in earnest, at our ability to host them with any degree of style and success. How very British of us. We cannot really believe that the Opening Ceremony was quite such a fabulous if slightly weird triumph, Mr McCartney’s epic fail notwithstanding of course. We wheeled the Queen out in the same sequence as James Bond, for heaven’s sake! Arguably our 2 most exportable assets. It was a touch of genius. As was David Beckham driving a speed boat, the Red Arrows, the Chariots of Fire music, and Rowan Atkinson trying to find a hankie. Marvellous.
And now we seem to be winning some medals! I know! Most significantly a bronze in the men’s gymnastics, a result which was a downgrade from the original silver awarded to the team, after the Japanese complained because one of their guys fell off the pommel horse and didn’t get any marks for it. He was eventually awarded some marks for it (was it a particularly artistic botched dismount I wonder?) which took the Japanese team into silver medal position from 4th place, knocking the Ukrainians out of the medals altogether. Will the Japanese ever live this down I wonder? I doubt it. If we think we were annoyed at this turn of events, imagine how it feels to be Ukrainian.
Our fabulous Tom Daley didn’t win a diving medal, but won a veritable army of supporters who may have been somehow previously ambivalent about such a handsome, youthful and talented young man but are now ferociously pro-Daley for a number of reasons. One, how can Tom and his partner’s fourth dive have scored so badly? We saw them jump together from a platform 10 metres above the pool. They entered the water together, with their toes pointed, after a series of twists and turns the likes of which most of us could only manage if we got tangled up in a parachute and had 1500 feet of free fall in which to rectify the situation. But probably not with our toes pointed. Two, how very dare the idiot who tweeted Tom afterwards about disappointing his dead father? The same idiot who is now claiming he didn’t know that Tom’s father passed away tragically last year? Even those people who don’t Tweet want to Tweet now. You don’t mess with a British sporting hero.
I sat and watched the Judo a few days ago because there was a British guy playing / fighting / competing / writhing. Whevs. Delete as applicable. I have absolutely no notion what the rules are, so this is a mark of how gripped by Olympic fever I actually am. There was a lot of writhing about on the floor with legs wound around each other, accompanied by a lot of frantic cheering from the crowd and then groans from the commentary team and random marks appearing for no visible reason on the score board. Were they trying to remove each other’s clothing? There were certainly some pauses in the middle during which an amount of dishevelled clothing adjustment was clearly allowed. It still made me clench my fists and grit my teeth though. COME ON TEAM GB!!
