Its the inevitable Olympics blog.
Team GB have been having their best Olympics for over a hundred years. Apparently we have now won so many gold medals that our reserves are actually back to the same level they were before Gordon Brown sold most of it off in 1999.
The country has been so successful that anyone not winning now feels they have to apologise in the interview afterwards. No longer do we celebrate the plucky brit that come fourth, now we shun them like the losers they are, and tweet them to tell them they’ve shamed their dead father while painting the post boxes near their house gold so they are constantly reminded of the shame.
It is a little known fact that the word ‘Great’ was only added to the name of our country as a sarcastic comment under the terms of the post-WW2 Marshall Plan. Now, as we stand atop third in the medal table, it is, if anything, an understatement. Surely, it is only a matter of time before someone with too much time on their hands starts an on-line petition to change the ‘Great’ to ‘Awesome’ or to add the word ‘Ruddy’ in front.
There has been a lot of debate about the amount of Team GB’s medals that have been won by privately educated athletes. It doesn’t take a genius to work out that if you go to a school that has a private boating lake or eventing area, you are more likely to become good at those kinds of sports than if you go to a state school that sold all it’s playing fields to Tesco. It shouldn’t be a cause of concern though, the over-representation of the privately educated in Team GB reflects a similar situation in the media, politics and financial services. And all those are functioning perfectly fine, aren’t they?
At least our national obsession with sending the privileged teenage children of the upper middle classes around the world in yachts (via the BBC Breakfast studios) appears to have paid off. It remains poor training for their inevitable career in investment banking but only a fool would argue that we are not now the best in the world at navigating little boats around buoys.
The whole country has been behind Team GB. Even the Scottish. And who wouldn’t want to celebrate someone from the same bit of dirt as you using the money you foolishly spend each week on lottery tickets to excel at performing a basic skill over an arbitrary distance?
The answer to that rhetorical question (as with most rhetorical questions) is Morrissey. In an open letter (the favoured communication method of those whose letters would otherwise not be opened), Morrissey has asked if England has ever been quite so foul with patriotism? While this is clearly not a question that would even challenge a contestant on an ITV gameshow, he does go on (and on) to raise some legitimate concerns about the corporate nature of the Olympics, and the contrast between the shiny happy London being presented to the world and the economic turmoil the country is currently in. Maybe he’s just sour Lord Coe didn’t invite him to perform at the closing ceremony. I mean, what does the world want to see? David Beckham and the Queen again, or Morrissey singing ‘Everyday is Like Sunday’ while some dancers make a giant DWP logo on the stadium floor and form an orderly queue outside a fake jobcentre?
As the Olympics draw to a close, I’ve enjoyed it far more than I thought I would. I hate it when that happens. Damn you Team GB, damn you all.
