29 August 2008.
Amongst the hysteria surrounding the collapse of Zoom, another aviation story usurped the Zoom demise on my radar: Apparently an elderly woman followed her bag onto the check-in conveyor belt at an airport in Sweden.
A spokesperson for the baggage handling firm responsible stated “Luckily it wasn’t a long ride – only a couple of metres”. Well that’s ok then, if she’d travelled for half a mile on the conveyor belt now that would be serious. Don’t worry Mrs Spokesperson you can go back to your gold-coated ivory tower with its crystal chandeliers, diamond-encrusted Jacuzzi and emerald-covered toilet seats and brush this incident under the sixteenth-century Persian carpet.
This hideous incompetence barely gets noticed while the revealing that yet more former Eastenders with too little acting prowess to find other work are practicing their passa dobles for the latest series of Strictly Come Dancing gets front page billing.
More troublesome still is the terminology “ride” used, as if this elderly woman was seeking white-knuckle thrills from the latest addition to Alton Towers (possibly a new bus crash rollercoaster if recent events are anything to go by). Now this may have been the first time this woman laid down and felt the earth move for years, but I think the notion that this was not an unpleasant experience for her is about as believable as the smile you give a relative at Christmas after they’ve ignored your wish-list and bought something from Debenham’s that they’re sure is so far superior you’re miniscule brain couldn’t even comprehend to position it on the list in the first place.
Mind you, our senior Scandinavian presumably permeated passport control and conquered customs quicker than her fellow fliers. Certainly, this highlights some issues which could be addressed at airports by letting everyone go on the conveyor belt with their suitcase:
1. If both are on the conveyor belt together, the combined weight of traveller and baggage could be used when calculating fines for excess baggage. Surely everyone has now sat on a flight so squashed by the morbidly obese passenger next to them that they have considered jumping out of the nearest emergency exit. This would ensure these porkers have to purchase two seats and stop innocent holidaymakers being ripped off for taking presents home for their nearest and dearest.
2. There is no need to check-in three hours before departure because you can hitch a ride directly from check-in to the airplane. Planes are also, therefore, not left waiting to taxi for take-off because of some reprobate who overslept or couldn’t make sense of the signs directing them to the departure gate.
3. Nobody’s luggage is left behind only to finally arrive at their destination the day before they return. The owner witnesses it heading onto the plane so there is no need for a repeat of the scenes at Heathrow’s Terminal 5 in April with everyone not going to Milan’s luggage being sent to, yes, you guessed it, Milan to be sorted.
4. There is no waiting at the security gates for people to take off all their jewellery and footwear. Either you take it off early during transportation on the conveyor belt ready for the mid-travel scan or you set the alarm off, get pulled off as roughly as someone pulling off their suitcase at the arrival baggage claim not sure if it’s theirs or not, and miss the flight.
As for Zoom going bust it’s about as surprising as the finding of the latest pitiful study (see yesterday’s entry for four more) today entitled “Fly’s Brain Senses Swat Threat”. Did alarm bells not sound for the idiots purchasing tickets with Zoom when Oasis, famed for its £65 fares to Hong Kong, Silverjet and others went broke?
It costs about £65 to get from Gatwick to the nearest Chinese takeaway by car these days so why would a company requiring the endless gallons of aviation fuel to fly thousands of miles across the world be able to stay afloat. It’s about as likely as Russia not invading Ukraine and Moldova.
People need to realise that there is no such thing as a bargain in this world. The only thing you get for free in this life is the clap or a bunch of fives to the temple. For those that are struggling to understand this concept, if a DFS advert telling you its sofas now have 75% off, think about why that might be.
Companies are about as likely to do something out of the kindness of their heart as a heroin addict scrabbling around for their next fix. The very statement that they have a heart is more erroneous than the philosophy that opening up the hard shoulder to motorists will reduce traffic jams. The only motivation is maximisation of shareholder value. If it is perceived a consumer good is cheap, therefore, it is either damaged, out of fashion or season, the seller is about to hit the wall, or, most likely, was never its claimed 100% price in the first place. You get what you pay for.
And the fact that retailers can get away with charging that 99p should be investigated by the industry regulator, too, although the people that believe they’re picking up a good deal because the price is £499.99 rather than £500 and thereby are only paying for something beginning with a 4 rather than a 5 so they must be getting a good deal are really the type of individuals that society should not be permitting to have a bank account from the outset.
They're the same degenerates that expect their non-existent love lives to suddenly spark into life by logging on to Match.com because its latest television advertisement claims there are too many women on the site. Once they've wasted the majority of their benefits money on dating websites and on grounded Zoom aircraft, perhaps they can think about spurning the remainder on the latest flop-to-be that is Celebair - the latest gathering of Z-list reality TV rejects who, like the audience, are unable to find real employment. Perhaps Kenzie and Chico can form a duet to provide on-board entertainment while the Gate Gourmet meals are dispersed called It's ChicKen Time.
Apart from the most established – Ryanair and Easyjet in the airline industry – low-cost producers always hit the wall in harsh economic conditions. People need to realise that it is only because the going is good these companies are able to charge their apparently fantastic prices. If more people realised this the economic turmoil currently being experienced wouldn’t eventuate.
Just look at how the global economic downturn started – people being offered money by banks and credit card companies and accepting it more readily than a dog its kibble, perceiving it to be free and in infinite supply. Then when the banks call in the debts owed to them, people whinge as if they had a divine right to the money that came their way.
Those people need to ask themselves how they would react in a comparable scenario, i.e. if they were burgled, would they deem it unreasonable to expect the return of their money from the robber once caught?
Friday, 29 August 2008
Stop submitting stupid surveys
28 August 2008.
Four separate studies have come to my attention today highlighting inequalities dependent upon where in Britain the citizen hails from.
The first study revealed five of Britain’s top six obesity hotspots are in Wales. No reasons were posited for this concentration, presumably because the study wanted to class all Welsh as fat and lazy. In reality, there are obvious reasons for this trend: The Government and big business only wishes to invest in the UK’s largest cities.
Cardiff, aside, you’ll have to drive miles rather than walk to get anywhere and do anything so exercise goes out the window. There’s not even a walk to a train station or bus stop because there’s about as much ploughed into public transport in Britain’s rural areas as there is a porn star with HIV.
Furthermore, with nothing to do what incentive is there to leave the house. The most exercise some people get in these areas is lifting the television remote to find another diet programme. These programmes are destructive in themselves, instructing their audience to try Atkins and stuff itself with nothing but fatty foods and then bringing out some size zero bikini-clad model to tell you it’s your fault for not being anorexic and not being unemployed so you can spend all day in the gym.
Apologies to those sniffing a Welsh-directed pun, but to ram home the point top of the pops in the obesity chart goes to the Shetland Islands – conceivably the most remote place in Britain. I’m not particularly criticising companies for not investing here, after all they’d be as likely to turn a profit in Shetland as the woman in the latest series of The Apprentice who thought it would be a good idea to introduce a personal account manager and 24-hour hotline for an overnight underwear laundry service.
On the theme of pants, the second study sought to establish discrepancies in driving test pass rates. What a waste of time and money which shows that a higher proportion of idiots in one part of the country over another are about as safe on the roads as a myopic hedgehog. Investigating something of this nature will only serve to let more potential white van men slip through the net rather than bring down the pass rate in areas with higher pass rates.
If there is a need to investigate something driving-related, survey how many inbred buffoons hog the middle or outside lane for absolutely no reason other than being completely devoid of consideration for their peers and too busy checking their lipstick is fully applied in their rear-view mirror to use it for its correct purpose. Making it an offence to hog lanes unnecessarily would reduce congestion, making Britain more efficient, thereby rendering the sums invested in the study worthwhile.
Or perhaps fund a study of how much fuel emissions are reduced by driving at 45mph than they are at 30. The Government is quick to discuss eco-driving, involving driving at 50mph rather than 70mph but carefully avoids disclosing that a usual rush hour speed of 2mph is far worse for the environment than driving at 90mph. Raise the speed limit in 20 and 30 zones and not only can emissions be reduced but once more congestion can be alleviated. But let’s be fair when has the Government reduced any “green” or “safety” measure which does anything except fund Treasury coffers.
It is rather worrying, however, that only one in three people in Rhyl pass their driving test. When these finally don a short skirt to get their certificate you won’t want to be stuck in rush hour there. If the first study’s to be believed, though, the reason is probably because they’re all too fat to see the windscreen over their moobs.
Study three looked into the effect of social factors and genetics on ill health and life expectancy. Once more the researchers have discovered something a six year old halfwit could have told us, namely that you’re going to live twice as long if born if Japan as those born in Lesotho.
Another example given was a boy living in the Glasgow suburb of Calton is likely to live 28 years less than a boy living in nearby affluent Lenzie. Another resounding endorsement of the Government in its futile efforts tackling UK inequality. Being able to afford food, clothing and decent quality housing away from crime means you’ll live longer – state the bleeding obvious.
Did they think people aspire to live in affluent areas so they can die earlier? Tell me if I’m wrong but could there just possibly be a slight chance that if I live in a box at the foot of a twenty-seven storey council estate, clad in nothing but a charity shop thong, consuming a diet consisting solely of a KFC bargain bucket, Bacardi 151 and intravenous drugs I won’t live beyond the age of 50?
The final study revealed Britain’s “happiest” places. Powys in Wales came out on top which goes to show in light of the previous studies either the Welsh are a remarkably resilient bunch, not letting their spirits be dampened by obesity more common than Russell Brand picking up an STD and being as talented behind the wheel as Maureen from Driving School, or one or all of these studies was/were an utter waste of time.
Manchester came second, which is probably linked to its inhabitants not all being morbidly overweight because they have the facilities to do some thing about it on their doorstep. Meanwhile, Edinburgh was bottom, which if its Scottish neighbours Calton’s suburbs are anything to go by can’t be much of a surprise. Who’s likely to be happy at the prospect of dying 28 years sooner than the majority of their UK peers?
The researchers in this study said the variations were not statistically significant. Well that’s as surprising as seeing Davina McCall hosting a television show. When a fellow study concomitantly being released shows district variations there aren’t going to be significant variations in your study if you’re going to analyse things on a city-by-city average basis.
Stop commissioning studies like these that are as big a waste of money as a Big Brother weekly challenge and develop some real ones. Aside from the aforementioned effect of driving more quickly on carbon emissions, I would:
1. Examine the effect of criminalising parental teaching on coitus and banning all things which connote sexual imagery and discussion, e.g. television, the internet and other media, advertising and education, on the UK’s teenage pregnancy rate.
2. Conduct a practical study which assesses how many child molestation victims would go through with the slow removal of their attackers’ penis using a Swiss army knife in a dark room where the paedophiles are detained in solitary confinement in a strait jacket if invited to do so by police.
3. Search for a defining correlation between walking around in groups, dressed in a fake Burberry cap, hoody and tracksuit bottoms and the number of burglaries at Matalan outlets.
4. Assess whether masturbation really is bad for you using the chances of causing blindness, repetitive strain injury and the like as evidence.
5. Investigate the link between being brought up on a farm and entering a life of bestiality as an adult.
6. Establish any relationship between letting people from less privileged and impoverished backgrounds with a good IQ into Oxbridge or employing them in decent jobs and productivity and quality of work.
Four separate studies have come to my attention today highlighting inequalities dependent upon where in Britain the citizen hails from.
The first study revealed five of Britain’s top six obesity hotspots are in Wales. No reasons were posited for this concentration, presumably because the study wanted to class all Welsh as fat and lazy. In reality, there are obvious reasons for this trend: The Government and big business only wishes to invest in the UK’s largest cities.
Cardiff, aside, you’ll have to drive miles rather than walk to get anywhere and do anything so exercise goes out the window. There’s not even a walk to a train station or bus stop because there’s about as much ploughed into public transport in Britain’s rural areas as there is a porn star with HIV.
Furthermore, with nothing to do what incentive is there to leave the house. The most exercise some people get in these areas is lifting the television remote to find another diet programme. These programmes are destructive in themselves, instructing their audience to try Atkins and stuff itself with nothing but fatty foods and then bringing out some size zero bikini-clad model to tell you it’s your fault for not being anorexic and not being unemployed so you can spend all day in the gym.
Apologies to those sniffing a Welsh-directed pun, but to ram home the point top of the pops in the obesity chart goes to the Shetland Islands – conceivably the most remote place in Britain. I’m not particularly criticising companies for not investing here, after all they’d be as likely to turn a profit in Shetland as the woman in the latest series of The Apprentice who thought it would be a good idea to introduce a personal account manager and 24-hour hotline for an overnight underwear laundry service.
On the theme of pants, the second study sought to establish discrepancies in driving test pass rates. What a waste of time and money which shows that a higher proportion of idiots in one part of the country over another are about as safe on the roads as a myopic hedgehog. Investigating something of this nature will only serve to let more potential white van men slip through the net rather than bring down the pass rate in areas with higher pass rates.
If there is a need to investigate something driving-related, survey how many inbred buffoons hog the middle or outside lane for absolutely no reason other than being completely devoid of consideration for their peers and too busy checking their lipstick is fully applied in their rear-view mirror to use it for its correct purpose. Making it an offence to hog lanes unnecessarily would reduce congestion, making Britain more efficient, thereby rendering the sums invested in the study worthwhile.
Or perhaps fund a study of how much fuel emissions are reduced by driving at 45mph than they are at 30. The Government is quick to discuss eco-driving, involving driving at 50mph rather than 70mph but carefully avoids disclosing that a usual rush hour speed of 2mph is far worse for the environment than driving at 90mph. Raise the speed limit in 20 and 30 zones and not only can emissions be reduced but once more congestion can be alleviated. But let’s be fair when has the Government reduced any “green” or “safety” measure which does anything except fund Treasury coffers.
It is rather worrying, however, that only one in three people in Rhyl pass their driving test. When these finally don a short skirt to get their certificate you won’t want to be stuck in rush hour there. If the first study’s to be believed, though, the reason is probably because they’re all too fat to see the windscreen over their moobs.
Study three looked into the effect of social factors and genetics on ill health and life expectancy. Once more the researchers have discovered something a six year old halfwit could have told us, namely that you’re going to live twice as long if born if Japan as those born in Lesotho.
Another example given was a boy living in the Glasgow suburb of Calton is likely to live 28 years less than a boy living in nearby affluent Lenzie. Another resounding endorsement of the Government in its futile efforts tackling UK inequality. Being able to afford food, clothing and decent quality housing away from crime means you’ll live longer – state the bleeding obvious.
Did they think people aspire to live in affluent areas so they can die earlier? Tell me if I’m wrong but could there just possibly be a slight chance that if I live in a box at the foot of a twenty-seven storey council estate, clad in nothing but a charity shop thong, consuming a diet consisting solely of a KFC bargain bucket, Bacardi 151 and intravenous drugs I won’t live beyond the age of 50?
The final study revealed Britain’s “happiest” places. Powys in Wales came out on top which goes to show in light of the previous studies either the Welsh are a remarkably resilient bunch, not letting their spirits be dampened by obesity more common than Russell Brand picking up an STD and being as talented behind the wheel as Maureen from Driving School, or one or all of these studies was/were an utter waste of time.
Manchester came second, which is probably linked to its inhabitants not all being morbidly overweight because they have the facilities to do some thing about it on their doorstep. Meanwhile, Edinburgh was bottom, which if its Scottish neighbours Calton’s suburbs are anything to go by can’t be much of a surprise. Who’s likely to be happy at the prospect of dying 28 years sooner than the majority of their UK peers?
The researchers in this study said the variations were not statistically significant. Well that’s as surprising as seeing Davina McCall hosting a television show. When a fellow study concomitantly being released shows district variations there aren’t going to be significant variations in your study if you’re going to analyse things on a city-by-city average basis.
Stop commissioning studies like these that are as big a waste of money as a Big Brother weekly challenge and develop some real ones. Aside from the aforementioned effect of driving more quickly on carbon emissions, I would:
1. Examine the effect of criminalising parental teaching on coitus and banning all things which connote sexual imagery and discussion, e.g. television, the internet and other media, advertising and education, on the UK’s teenage pregnancy rate.
2. Conduct a practical study which assesses how many child molestation victims would go through with the slow removal of their attackers’ penis using a Swiss army knife in a dark room where the paedophiles are detained in solitary confinement in a strait jacket if invited to do so by police.
3. Search for a defining correlation between walking around in groups, dressed in a fake Burberry cap, hoody and tracksuit bottoms and the number of burglaries at Matalan outlets.
4. Assess whether masturbation really is bad for you using the chances of causing blindness, repetitive strain injury and the like as evidence.
5. Investigate the link between being brought up on a farm and entering a life of bestiality as an adult.
6. Establish any relationship between letting people from less privileged and impoverished backgrounds with a good IQ into Oxbridge or employing them in decent jobs and productivity and quality of work.
Wednesday, 27 August 2008
Xcruciating
26 August 2008.
Well hold me down and slap me with a kipper. Someone on X Factor made up their sob story in a pathetic attempt to get through the first audition. Even Mikey off Big Brother 9 could have seen that one coming, do we really need it as headline news that broadcast media has been faked?
Now I’m not someone who gets the chance to watch daytime television but even I can remember watching an early episode of Vanessa Feltz’s chat show (yes in the days before she married Phats and started appearing on every reality TV show going) and wondering exactly which council estate the actors had been drafted from and had a bottle of White Lightning dangled in their faces as remuneration, or how far off camera the ITV acting coach was whispering to each of them their lines. Similarly, anyone with the slightest sense that Jerry Springer isn't faked should think about why the show has bouncers. There's not going to be a fight for the 1800th show in a row is there?
Then there’s the farce that is the phone-in competitions. Anyone that is stupid enough to try and enter some of them deserves to be fined as much as the terrestrial stations responsible. For those that were never witness to one of these, a rough guide is ring in if you can tell me a four-letter word beginning with the letter A and you could win. An hour and thousands of £7.50 per second calls later, no-one’s guessed the word the show is looking for and they move on to the letter B. In some cases, they won’t even reveal this mysterious word they were looking for.
This is what those free scratchcards sent in the mail which say “You’re a winner. Dial xxx to discover your prize” have been doing for years. They're all about as believable as one of the girls found on Sky channels 900+ telling you that they want really want to get dirty with you.
All that any observer could possibly comment as a result of this and the Blue Peter scenario (producers giving the prize to a family member) is why didn’t I think of this first? Let’s be honest, you’re not hosting a competition out of the goodness of your heart, so why not rig the result to increase your margins. Why not make up a nauseating soliloquy to ensure passage ahead of your more talented peers on the X Factor? There's so many gullible invalids around there's a fortune to be had.
It’s irritating enough that half the acts appearing on the Xtraordinarily-bad Factor have to spill their miserable life stories just to make “good” TV. Why are these people any more deserving of a place in the next round than anyone else? I thought it was a talent contest with the best singers getting through, not a competition about who can produce the most tears and make up the most ridiculous tale about their torrid lives.
It was only a week prior that one featured lady reached the next stage after horrifying us all with her tale of getting on her back for the first time at the age of 13 (well getting her first bun in the oven - given her track record she probably opened her legs aged 9) and 4 pregnancies, more drugs than Balco, time in jail and three social services confiscations later she's decided to turn things around by singing to Louis Walsh. It's a sad society we live in when doing a short rendition of your favourite song is tantamount to a bribe for social services to return your nippers from their care.
Maybe if I audition and told Dermot “find me a show and I’ll be on it” O’Leary that I’d been sexually abused by one of the wolves I’d had my feral upbringing with because I was unable to defend myself due to being a Down’s syndrome-suffering midget who lost both arms and legs in a freak masturbating accident I’d be straight through to mentoring at Cheryl Cole’s house.
Apparently our young faker who wasn't actually brought up in a foster home after all merely wanted to show his real parents he "wasn't a waste of space". Go on ITV and cry your eyes out to the man with the highest waistband in television, yes that's a great way of proving it.
Well hold me down and slap me with a kipper. Someone on X Factor made up their sob story in a pathetic attempt to get through the first audition. Even Mikey off Big Brother 9 could have seen that one coming, do we really need it as headline news that broadcast media has been faked?
Now I’m not someone who gets the chance to watch daytime television but even I can remember watching an early episode of Vanessa Feltz’s chat show (yes in the days before she married Phats and started appearing on every reality TV show going) and wondering exactly which council estate the actors had been drafted from and had a bottle of White Lightning dangled in their faces as remuneration, or how far off camera the ITV acting coach was whispering to each of them their lines. Similarly, anyone with the slightest sense that Jerry Springer isn't faked should think about why the show has bouncers. There's not going to be a fight for the 1800th show in a row is there?
Then there’s the farce that is the phone-in competitions. Anyone that is stupid enough to try and enter some of them deserves to be fined as much as the terrestrial stations responsible. For those that were never witness to one of these, a rough guide is ring in if you can tell me a four-letter word beginning with the letter A and you could win. An hour and thousands of £7.50 per second calls later, no-one’s guessed the word the show is looking for and they move on to the letter B. In some cases, they won’t even reveal this mysterious word they were looking for.
This is what those free scratchcards sent in the mail which say “You’re a winner. Dial xxx to discover your prize” have been doing for years. They're all about as believable as one of the girls found on Sky channels 900+ telling you that they want really want to get dirty with you.
All that any observer could possibly comment as a result of this and the Blue Peter scenario (producers giving the prize to a family member) is why didn’t I think of this first? Let’s be honest, you’re not hosting a competition out of the goodness of your heart, so why not rig the result to increase your margins. Why not make up a nauseating soliloquy to ensure passage ahead of your more talented peers on the X Factor? There's so many gullible invalids around there's a fortune to be had.
It’s irritating enough that half the acts appearing on the Xtraordinarily-bad Factor have to spill their miserable life stories just to make “good” TV. Why are these people any more deserving of a place in the next round than anyone else? I thought it was a talent contest with the best singers getting through, not a competition about who can produce the most tears and make up the most ridiculous tale about their torrid lives.
It was only a week prior that one featured lady reached the next stage after horrifying us all with her tale of getting on her back for the first time at the age of 13 (well getting her first bun in the oven - given her track record she probably opened her legs aged 9) and 4 pregnancies, more drugs than Balco, time in jail and three social services confiscations later she's decided to turn things around by singing to Louis Walsh. It's a sad society we live in when doing a short rendition of your favourite song is tantamount to a bribe for social services to return your nippers from their care.
Maybe if I audition and told Dermot “find me a show and I’ll be on it” O’Leary that I’d been sexually abused by one of the wolves I’d had my feral upbringing with because I was unable to defend myself due to being a Down’s syndrome-suffering midget who lost both arms and legs in a freak masturbating accident I’d be straight through to mentoring at Cheryl Cole’s house.
Apparently our young faker who wasn't actually brought up in a foster home after all merely wanted to show his real parents he "wasn't a waste of space". Go on ITV and cry your eyes out to the man with the highest waistband in television, yes that's a great way of proving it.
B*llocks to Beijing
25 August 2008.
So the Olympics are over and Team GB is heralding success unseen for a century. This will no doubt result in countless MBEs and knighthoods come the next time the farcical investitures are handed out. According to Sunday’s 2012 party Jason Gardener is an MBE, presumably solely for being part of the 4x100m relay that won gold in Athens because the Americans cocked up and as a minimum one-quarter of its constituents were on a cocktail of substances even Amy Winehouse would wince at.
Mansfield’s seen its biggest street party since the Queen’s Silver Jubilee 31 years ago to celebrate a Concorde-nosed woman winning a couple of gold medals for doing a couple of lengths. Hardly heroic when emergency services personnel probably go through this each time some idiot decides a spot of nightime drunken seaside skinny-dipping must be a good idea. As for naming a pub after the 19 year old, I think the Nose & Crown would have been better than the Adlington Arms.
Forgive my traditionalism but aren’t the Olympics supposed to be a medium for the most outstanding athletes in their particular discipline to prove their superiority over their fellow man all else being equal? Team GB’s 19 golds mostly came with the aid of a couple of wheels, or a sophisticated boat.
Let’s be real, the majority of the 204 countries competing at the 2008 games can’t afford this equipment. As for those shouting James DeGale or Rebecca Adlington, how many nations can even afford to produce boxing gloves and aerodynamic swimming costumes at their sweat shops? Some of them haven’t even got water, let alone a swimming pool. Ben Ainslie’s Finn probably accounts for the GDP of the Netherlands Antilles. For that matter, how many of even the UK population have even seen a Yngling?
As Goldie Sayers’ javelin represents the only British athlete seen on the Bird’s Nest’s field out of the 24 disciplines on offer, all else being equal the Brits are quite frankly useless. Brush aside Christine Ohuruogu’s achievements - and let’s be honest no-one can be sure she’s drug-free - GB has got nothing to be proud of.
Philips Idowu’s been number one in the world for months thanks to injuries to Christian Olsson but he can only manage silver. Germaine Mason is only British because he changed citizenship from his native Jamaica two years ago. Kelly Sotherton goes in as huge favourite for gold because Carolina Kluft is so far better than the rest she decided to focus on the long jump instead and ends up outside the medals even after the disqualification of the latest drug cheat (who by the way didn’t really need a drugs test – all the organisers had to do was look at Blonska and you could see she had more drugs in her than a Michael Barrymore pool boy). The 4x100 men produced a worse handover than the allied forces in Iraq. And Paula Radcliffe breaks down again like a second-hand fridge-freezer.
All the usual excuses materialise, which Michael Johnson rightly noted are diseases only miraculously incapacitating the Brits come the big occasion. They're about as believable as Steve McLaren's two-week old Dutch accent. I can picture in the not-too-distant future a hopeless boxer with one too many blows to the head stating at his post-fight defeat "I think I must have picked up one of those computer viruses".
My favourite excuse which appears time and again from the commentators is in middle- and long-distance events where the Brit is described as “staying out of trouble” at the back of the pack allegedly waiting for their moment to strike. The fact is they’re at the back because they’re useless. You don’t see Kenenisa Bekele sitting at the back, he’s too busy staying out of trouble – at the front.
Beyond the athletics, Frankie Gavin couldn’t even make the designated weight to box. If 4 years is too short a timescale to lose a stone or two, what hope have those attending Weight Watchers meetings every week got? Shanaze Reade, who apparently had never lost, crashed out 3 times before finishing nowhere in the BMX. Fair play Aaron Cooke was a victim of poor umpiring, but a USA athlete would never have put themselves in the position of losing as a result of poor judgment.
These are the few events a Brit managed to qualify for. Where were Brits in the table tennis, synchronised swimming and handball? Meanwhile, surely we should have enthusiasts queuing up for the fencing and shooting events if the UK’s record on gun and knife crime is anything to go by. As any management theorist would tell you a good leader would turn that achilles heel into an opportunity. If you want proof look at the Africans who dominate distance running - most of them are so far away from their next meal they have to run 10,000 metres every day to survive.
Fair enough those on the other side of the pond covered themselves in glory on the track - perhaps the special relationship means when one screws up a relay so must the other - with both 4x100 squads dropping the baton, the sprinters outshone by the Jamaicans across the board and Lolo Jones tripping over the penultimate hurdle like a member of the Parachute regiment tripping over an Iraqi landmine when running away with the 110 hurdles.
But you know they’ll be back. Frankly, it’s hard to see how Britain is going to improve. Maybe China does have a poor record on human rights but if regular beatings to instil a little discipline in athletes gets them a gold medal four years later so be it. The coach shouldn’t have to be thrown in Wormwood Scrubs for life for it in this overregulated society, while the athlete lets loose at the Olympic village sex-fest and finishes last. Bring back the cane and legalise smacking and you'll see the difference in British sport performance.
Meanwhile, all those with power claim Britain doesn’t have the finances to do what China’s just done i.e. top the medal table, have representatives competing in virtually every Olympic event, produce incredible stadia and infrastructure. I could be wrong but what happened to the UK being an economic superpower? Last time I looked, the UK was more developed than China. Have the over-greedy banks and energy companies screwed us over so badly we can’t build some sporting facilities?
The Chinese are giving over £20,000 for each gold medal won by their athletes in Beijing. We should do the same and delay lottery funding until someone wins something. The idea should then defuse to those providing the finance to our Premier League nancy boys too. That might get rid of the itch in that part of your back you just can’t reach that is football agents.
It’s not that Britain is poor in any case, simply that those somehow elected to plan all these things haven’t got a clue. And if they do, they probably left the plans on a train somewhere. Look at the plans for the 2012 Olympic stadium: Only the UK could rip out three-quarters of the seats and turn what should be an iconic stadium into a third division football club home after 2 weeks of use. So much for leaving a legacy, the premise the London bid was based on. I didn’t know increasing Leyton Orient’s capacity to 25,000 was so high up the governmental agenda for a better Britain.
One way of increasing GB participation posited is to form a GB football team - or the cheapskate’s way of increasing participation as it should be known. No need to spend anything on facilities and so on there. What a flawed idea anyway as the same 11 players representing Great Britain would all hail from England's council estates.
The fact that all overpaid fairies under the age of 23 compete at the Olympics is a ridiculous notion in any case. Who needs a special Graham Norton-fronted Saturday evening show when a competition to find the biggest nancy was ensuing right in front of us in Beijing. With the tennis players the idiocy stems to any age – especially when some of these, e.g. Andy Roddick, choose not to attend or in the case of the sole Brit Andy Murray barely even try and get knocked out by an unknown.
And as for the other Government-run waste of taxpayer money, the BBC, how are Brits supposed to become enthused in the sports where we have no athletes competing if we can’t even watch them. I have no clue about the rules governing softball and it could be as exciting as a nose-flute concert for all I know but if I saw some to learn hold the front page I may want to play.
24-hour coverage? Half of it was spent discussing the commentators’ personal highlights or showing pre-recorded interviews with Olympians. Hardly any of the content outside the athletics and the gold medal matches was even live on BBC1. The Usain Bolt interview with Phil Jones after his triple gold exploits was shown three times in two days. Surely relegate that to BBC3 or BBC4, which had no coverage. In fact, gymnastics and perhaps, following Tom Daley’s involvement, the diving could be shown on CBeebies. Given the UK’s record on teenage pregnancy, however, more likely we’ll be seeing Daley on City Hospital in a few months for a post-Caesarean section interview on the birth of his first child.
Any road, the fact is surely there was unlimited space on BBCi to show about 47 streams – live coverage of every sport taking place at any one time – let alone on their normal channels which no-one watches the rest of the time. If they’re concerned about wasting taxpayers money for once on less cost-effective sports, I’ll do the commentary in return for a free flight to a country not even the Prime Minister could get into a few decades ago. It’s surely cheaper than some of the Canadians and others subcontracted in for minor sports such as the synchronised swimming.
Besides the money would be best spent continuing the theme of bribing the IOC exercised by other nations (as exposed by the BBC’s Panorama) so that we can get sports into the games that we’re actually good at, and where we’re not going to see empty seats. Surely the Brits would excel at the following, and they would certainly make great television:
1. The chase the cake race. Separate weight classes needed for over-15st, over-20st, over-25st and so on. It would function in much the way greyhounds chase the dead rabbit round Walthamstow’s finest, although the winner gets a bonus price if an Olympic gold medal is insufficient.
2. The armoured tank fighting. There would be no recourse for the judges to distinguish the winner there, although the silver and bronze medallists would only receive their awards in hospital or posthumously.
3. The pint-downing. Spectators can join in on this one so everyone’s a winner plus I’m sure it’d leave a legacy albeit similar to that left to city centres on most Saturday nights.
4. White van racing.
And, if there’s a shortage of managers for our newly established participation, there’s about 20 million armchair versions down the pub or sat at home in front of the telly watching the footy every weekend who reckon they could do a better job.
Forecast for 2012? Firstly, the minimal investment in “improvements” to transport - apparently putting more boats on the Thames which I would’ve thought would interfere with our heroic rowers training is improving transport links - will mean only those who can already get to the London Olympic sites easily aka Londoners will be able to get there. Those outside with no option but to use the car hopelessly trying to get to London will also increase carbon emissions, leaving a legacy of a different kind. And for our foreign friends coming to watch their heroes they'll be subjected to welcome to Britain stabbings.
Those that do make it won't get in anywhere as the stadia will not be finished. It won't make a difference though as the games will be a complete washout with the powers that be once more ignoring the desperate need for a retractable roof on everything. Unsurprisingly, then, there'll be empty seats galore. Half those that are filled will be vandalised by groups of 13 year olds after drinking half a bottle of White Stripe in Hyde Park. The remainder will simply be bombed due to contraband getting through security in a processional fashion as fraud and security breaches abound. And that's despite the costs to the taxpayer doubling the stated £9.4bn. Those that do get to see some Olympic action will be treated to another serving of poor GB performance mainly because school and club sports facilities will have had no investment.
Oh well, nothing can live up to my Beijing highlights, namely the 4 horses testing positive for banned substances and Jackie Chan giving the microphone his all at the closing ceremony.
So the Olympics are over and Team GB is heralding success unseen for a century. This will no doubt result in countless MBEs and knighthoods come the next time the farcical investitures are handed out. According to Sunday’s 2012 party Jason Gardener is an MBE, presumably solely for being part of the 4x100m relay that won gold in Athens because the Americans cocked up and as a minimum one-quarter of its constituents were on a cocktail of substances even Amy Winehouse would wince at.
Mansfield’s seen its biggest street party since the Queen’s Silver Jubilee 31 years ago to celebrate a Concorde-nosed woman winning a couple of gold medals for doing a couple of lengths. Hardly heroic when emergency services personnel probably go through this each time some idiot decides a spot of nightime drunken seaside skinny-dipping must be a good idea. As for naming a pub after the 19 year old, I think the Nose & Crown would have been better than the Adlington Arms.
Forgive my traditionalism but aren’t the Olympics supposed to be a medium for the most outstanding athletes in their particular discipline to prove their superiority over their fellow man all else being equal? Team GB’s 19 golds mostly came with the aid of a couple of wheels, or a sophisticated boat.
Let’s be real, the majority of the 204 countries competing at the 2008 games can’t afford this equipment. As for those shouting James DeGale or Rebecca Adlington, how many nations can even afford to produce boxing gloves and aerodynamic swimming costumes at their sweat shops? Some of them haven’t even got water, let alone a swimming pool. Ben Ainslie’s Finn probably accounts for the GDP of the Netherlands Antilles. For that matter, how many of even the UK population have even seen a Yngling?
As Goldie Sayers’ javelin represents the only British athlete seen on the Bird’s Nest’s field out of the 24 disciplines on offer, all else being equal the Brits are quite frankly useless. Brush aside Christine Ohuruogu’s achievements - and let’s be honest no-one can be sure she’s drug-free - GB has got nothing to be proud of.
Philips Idowu’s been number one in the world for months thanks to injuries to Christian Olsson but he can only manage silver. Germaine Mason is only British because he changed citizenship from his native Jamaica two years ago. Kelly Sotherton goes in as huge favourite for gold because Carolina Kluft is so far better than the rest she decided to focus on the long jump instead and ends up outside the medals even after the disqualification of the latest drug cheat (who by the way didn’t really need a drugs test – all the organisers had to do was look at Blonska and you could see she had more drugs in her than a Michael Barrymore pool boy). The 4x100 men produced a worse handover than the allied forces in Iraq. And Paula Radcliffe breaks down again like a second-hand fridge-freezer.
All the usual excuses materialise, which Michael Johnson rightly noted are diseases only miraculously incapacitating the Brits come the big occasion. They're about as believable as Steve McLaren's two-week old Dutch accent. I can picture in the not-too-distant future a hopeless boxer with one too many blows to the head stating at his post-fight defeat "I think I must have picked up one of those computer viruses".
My favourite excuse which appears time and again from the commentators is in middle- and long-distance events where the Brit is described as “staying out of trouble” at the back of the pack allegedly waiting for their moment to strike. The fact is they’re at the back because they’re useless. You don’t see Kenenisa Bekele sitting at the back, he’s too busy staying out of trouble – at the front.
Beyond the athletics, Frankie Gavin couldn’t even make the designated weight to box. If 4 years is too short a timescale to lose a stone or two, what hope have those attending Weight Watchers meetings every week got? Shanaze Reade, who apparently had never lost, crashed out 3 times before finishing nowhere in the BMX. Fair play Aaron Cooke was a victim of poor umpiring, but a USA athlete would never have put themselves in the position of losing as a result of poor judgment.
These are the few events a Brit managed to qualify for. Where were Brits in the table tennis, synchronised swimming and handball? Meanwhile, surely we should have enthusiasts queuing up for the fencing and shooting events if the UK’s record on gun and knife crime is anything to go by. As any management theorist would tell you a good leader would turn that achilles heel into an opportunity. If you want proof look at the Africans who dominate distance running - most of them are so far away from their next meal they have to run 10,000 metres every day to survive.
Fair enough those on the other side of the pond covered themselves in glory on the track - perhaps the special relationship means when one screws up a relay so must the other - with both 4x100 squads dropping the baton, the sprinters outshone by the Jamaicans across the board and Lolo Jones tripping over the penultimate hurdle like a member of the Parachute regiment tripping over an Iraqi landmine when running away with the 110 hurdles.
But you know they’ll be back. Frankly, it’s hard to see how Britain is going to improve. Maybe China does have a poor record on human rights but if regular beatings to instil a little discipline in athletes gets them a gold medal four years later so be it. The coach shouldn’t have to be thrown in Wormwood Scrubs for life for it in this overregulated society, while the athlete lets loose at the Olympic village sex-fest and finishes last. Bring back the cane and legalise smacking and you'll see the difference in British sport performance.
Meanwhile, all those with power claim Britain doesn’t have the finances to do what China’s just done i.e. top the medal table, have representatives competing in virtually every Olympic event, produce incredible stadia and infrastructure. I could be wrong but what happened to the UK being an economic superpower? Last time I looked, the UK was more developed than China. Have the over-greedy banks and energy companies screwed us over so badly we can’t build some sporting facilities?
The Chinese are giving over £20,000 for each gold medal won by their athletes in Beijing. We should do the same and delay lottery funding until someone wins something. The idea should then defuse to those providing the finance to our Premier League nancy boys too. That might get rid of the itch in that part of your back you just can’t reach that is football agents.
It’s not that Britain is poor in any case, simply that those somehow elected to plan all these things haven’t got a clue. And if they do, they probably left the plans on a train somewhere. Look at the plans for the 2012 Olympic stadium: Only the UK could rip out three-quarters of the seats and turn what should be an iconic stadium into a third division football club home after 2 weeks of use. So much for leaving a legacy, the premise the London bid was based on. I didn’t know increasing Leyton Orient’s capacity to 25,000 was so high up the governmental agenda for a better Britain.
One way of increasing GB participation posited is to form a GB football team - or the cheapskate’s way of increasing participation as it should be known. No need to spend anything on facilities and so on there. What a flawed idea anyway as the same 11 players representing Great Britain would all hail from England's council estates.
The fact that all overpaid fairies under the age of 23 compete at the Olympics is a ridiculous notion in any case. Who needs a special Graham Norton-fronted Saturday evening show when a competition to find the biggest nancy was ensuing right in front of us in Beijing. With the tennis players the idiocy stems to any age – especially when some of these, e.g. Andy Roddick, choose not to attend or in the case of the sole Brit Andy Murray barely even try and get knocked out by an unknown.
And as for the other Government-run waste of taxpayer money, the BBC, how are Brits supposed to become enthused in the sports where we have no athletes competing if we can’t even watch them. I have no clue about the rules governing softball and it could be as exciting as a nose-flute concert for all I know but if I saw some to learn hold the front page I may want to play.
24-hour coverage? Half of it was spent discussing the commentators’ personal highlights or showing pre-recorded interviews with Olympians. Hardly any of the content outside the athletics and the gold medal matches was even live on BBC1. The Usain Bolt interview with Phil Jones after his triple gold exploits was shown three times in two days. Surely relegate that to BBC3 or BBC4, which had no coverage. In fact, gymnastics and perhaps, following Tom Daley’s involvement, the diving could be shown on CBeebies. Given the UK’s record on teenage pregnancy, however, more likely we’ll be seeing Daley on City Hospital in a few months for a post-Caesarean section interview on the birth of his first child.
Any road, the fact is surely there was unlimited space on BBCi to show about 47 streams – live coverage of every sport taking place at any one time – let alone on their normal channels which no-one watches the rest of the time. If they’re concerned about wasting taxpayers money for once on less cost-effective sports, I’ll do the commentary in return for a free flight to a country not even the Prime Minister could get into a few decades ago. It’s surely cheaper than some of the Canadians and others subcontracted in for minor sports such as the synchronised swimming.
Besides the money would be best spent continuing the theme of bribing the IOC exercised by other nations (as exposed by the BBC’s Panorama) so that we can get sports into the games that we’re actually good at, and where we’re not going to see empty seats. Surely the Brits would excel at the following, and they would certainly make great television:
1. The chase the cake race. Separate weight classes needed for over-15st, over-20st, over-25st and so on. It would function in much the way greyhounds chase the dead rabbit round Walthamstow’s finest, although the winner gets a bonus price if an Olympic gold medal is insufficient.
2. The armoured tank fighting. There would be no recourse for the judges to distinguish the winner there, although the silver and bronze medallists would only receive their awards in hospital or posthumously.
3. The pint-downing. Spectators can join in on this one so everyone’s a winner plus I’m sure it’d leave a legacy albeit similar to that left to city centres on most Saturday nights.
4. White van racing.
And, if there’s a shortage of managers for our newly established participation, there’s about 20 million armchair versions down the pub or sat at home in front of the telly watching the footy every weekend who reckon they could do a better job.
Forecast for 2012? Firstly, the minimal investment in “improvements” to transport - apparently putting more boats on the Thames which I would’ve thought would interfere with our heroic rowers training is improving transport links - will mean only those who can already get to the London Olympic sites easily aka Londoners will be able to get there. Those outside with no option but to use the car hopelessly trying to get to London will also increase carbon emissions, leaving a legacy of a different kind. And for our foreign friends coming to watch their heroes they'll be subjected to welcome to Britain stabbings.
Those that do make it won't get in anywhere as the stadia will not be finished. It won't make a difference though as the games will be a complete washout with the powers that be once more ignoring the desperate need for a retractable roof on everything. Unsurprisingly, then, there'll be empty seats galore. Half those that are filled will be vandalised by groups of 13 year olds after drinking half a bottle of White Stripe in Hyde Park. The remainder will simply be bombed due to contraband getting through security in a processional fashion as fraud and security breaches abound. And that's despite the costs to the taxpayer doubling the stated £9.4bn. Those that do get to see some Olympic action will be treated to another serving of poor GB performance mainly because school and club sports facilities will have had no investment.
Oh well, nothing can live up to my Beijing highlights, namely the 4 horses testing positive for banned substances and Jackie Chan giving the microphone his all at the closing ceremony.
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