On me 'ead son...now that's what I call sport
Well here we are in a brief respite twixt fit people's games and those for the less so. And what excitement we've had so far, eh? Especially so for those of us with Sky TV (and the time to enjoy it) who have got through several remote control batteries as we flicked between a bewildering number of channels showing every sport you could think of plus a few you couldn't. Strange how one always seemed to end up back on the beach volleyball...
Elsewhere we had a glimpse into the usually invisible-to-the-naked-eye infra red end of the sports spectrum with things like Greco-Roman wrestling, dressage and taikwando. This peek into the sporting twilight zone was best summed up by a BBC radio commentator who, when dealing with the transfer of the coverage between the last two of these activities, said "this is what the Olympics is all about: dancing horses and girls trying to kick each other's heads off!" Excellent.
The one exception was Korfball which was notable by its absence. Please join my campaign to have this intriguing sport included next time round. This will then enable us to sing regular choruses of the excellent Half Man Half Biscuit song "Joy in Leeuwarden (we are ready)". Do check this out (it's on their latest album "90 Bisodol") and you'll become a paid up member of the UK Korfball Association in a trice (assuming there is one - if not we'll form one.)
In a similar vein, but for entirely different reasons, let's see things like snooker, billiards and darts included. Then we might have a chance of overtaking the USA and China in the medals table. Especially when we create several variants of each.
So were there any negatives then or was it "all good", to use one of the favourite expressions from the "2012" sitcom (I do hope you've seen it?) Well there were some bizarre acts at the closing ceremony: Russell Brand singing "I am the walrus"? Ed Sheeran with some motley prog rock supergroup? And who on earth allowed Georgie Michael to plug his new single? You could almost hear the whole country shouting "Wake me up before you go go!" at the TV. Well you could in our house.
But the one thing that irked me was this embargo on the use of any words or symbols associated with the Olympics (if I'm allowed to call them that) or any item emblazoned with a brand name being on view inside the venues. This meant people having umbrellas confiscated; having to remove labels from bottles of water; radio DJs on non-Olympics programmes not being able to say "Olympics" etc., etc. An inadvertent display of the M&S tag on your knickers and you'd be frogmarched to the strip search area...
This sort of thing is just not on. I've droned on about freedom of speech before and no doubt I will again. It's important for goodness sake! If there was ever a just cause for civil disobedience then this is it. If you're off to the Paralympics then ensure you and all your accessories are fully adorned with every conceivable logo. I'd like to see them take away someone's wheel chair just because it's got "John Lewis" on it.
I'm not sure if they have wheel chair beach volleyball but I believe they have wheel chair rugby and that it's the most vicious sport you ever saw. Time to buy some more batteries for the TV remote.
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