Olympinonsense

[johncorrigan]

I suspect that Murray will regard his gold medal as absolutely equal to any Grand Slams he may win in the future (and I'm sure he will).

I don't disagree but would Andy feel the same about it if the medal had been won in Beijing or Rio rather than at Wimbledon - not sure he would think the gold was equal to a slam then. As for Federer, Wimbledon is his 'home turf' and the battle with Del Potro was as much about that - and he doesn't need to trade in a gold for a slam. But I also think Andy'll win one in the year ahead.

[handsomefortune]

why are increasing numbers of posters apparently on the wrong thread? there's one specially designated for the sensible adulation of sportiness? ontopic, back to the olympinonsense.

i may well have got my bandwidth gummed up with my maple syrup, can merely waffle at the get-go..... but did anyone else suffer mild disappointment at the resort to romantic cliche from john morton, between bonneville and coleman? an unconvincing clinch, (was it meant to be)? the end: searching online for a romantic holiday.......... concluded 'the deliverance team's otherwise superbly accurate, suitably absurd, 'luxury london antics'.

but how else might morton have ended the 2012 series? why not just make it up - coe coe the clown and macaroon style? choose your own ending - (see last paras (below) for examples of other options, and then just stitch up your own ending).

what will the country do for 'giant olympian posturing' post games? as lat posts, upthread, it's great to feel that you have personal choices: like tossing a bucket of cold water at professional olympian clowns, or just willing an accident with a plank. potentially, i agree with those who think that discussion of the games can become vaguely threatening, like the gibberish of wartime bushisms. 'you are either with us, or against us' works well as a strategy when playing 'galaxy balls' on your mobile phone, but isn't that reliable in more complex circumstances.

after, sports participants will compete in all their usual fixtures, schedules, as normal ...and the very best of good luck to them. but totally ignored by the media....until a mishap, injury, loss of sponsorship, or caught consuming olympian quantities of sports drugs. in the latter case they are perceived by some as hoisted by their own leotards, any fame will work against them predictably. so engrossed in their total love of sport, they've may be forgotten how to form a meaningful relationship, but this aspect wont be presented as such.....as it's quite an off putting feature of 100% commitment, a lonely pursuit. the idea that sports people 'continue on, to a career in tv or other media' applies to what, 0.1% of sports people, if that? 'lively retorts, thinking on the spot, pertinent questions' are a media company's worst nightmare in a sports presenter, all highly undesirable qualities. the glazed oddbod, snoozy tv presenter played by steve coogan, once illustrated this aspect of media 'professionalism' brilliantly. apparently, you can get away with a lot if you wear a blazer over golfing attire on tv, as long as you keep your weird shoes and personal opinions under the desk!

i would have thought on a forum such as this, which mainly revolves around arts appreciation, thorough criticism of the 'workings' of olympinonsense, especially its committees which, ultimately, directly affect arts funding, as well as increasing 'our debt to austerity', is par for the course.

yet the miseries on this thread won't accept that the sports fans among us are not concerned with the politics of it all, we just want to experience the Olympics for what they ARE!

to me, this implies that you're sort of intending to vote for jessica ennis in the next election......which'll be a bit pointless. i always think the phrase 'too political' usually means 'shut up, because this is politically sensitive'. i can see that an interest in sport is optional, but don't think the same applies to politics - but often wish it did. also posted, upthread, john wright, tis 'only a forum' but some comments on this thread are worthy of (the worst) of utube responses from emotional delinquents.

shortly, i suspect the 'happy, winning, t*ssers' will use the olympic debt as a means to excuse 'finishing what they've already begun' at suffolk nhs. in this precise sense, i don't want the olympics to ever end.....because i dread the politics of 'miserable' news, the anticipated avalanche of latent media hysteria, which'll doubtless accompany 'the official anti climax + miserable reality' as a 'media event' almost equaling 2012 games media waffle itself. (just hopefully less expensive for citizens).

'all tory sins originated in labour's mismanagement of a global financial crash' is long since threadbare, moth eaten...a brand NEW excuse, for buffoon, macaroon & co is well over due. marketing teams are working on 'the branding of overspend' as i type. (in my tea leaves, i can see 'perfect curve' beavering away, with branding slogans and pictures: never mind 'way to go',...... 'ways to starve' might be more accurate? or perhaps 'what a way to go?' might work?) cool! how might 'perfect curve' communicate press announcements that there might be plenty of waffle left, but syrup banks are empty? what catchy phrase sums up bandwidths buzzing only with the sound of a blue bottle infestation, the 'get go' - got up and gone?

shank it into the long grass.

mmmmm jc! olympic golf, along with the 'media mini sensation' about a violent woman and a (possibly) idiotic drunk..... (imv it's got nowt to do with anything really. imagine competing, and then having to read that non story)? BUT it might well make an apt ending to the tv series '2012'.

or another ending

absurd commentaries from politicians etc about what 'they've created'. - (wants burying in the long grass, but i'm not sure just a 'shank' would do though, where's a violent self appointed vigilante when you really need one eh)? i think that morton's already touched on the irony of coe coe the clown's sense of creative genius about sport ... as an ending, it's perhaps just 'more of the same'?

or, here's another possible '2012' ending

tv viewers need 'well being therapy', having assumed that if they look at the olympics on screen long enough, it'll have the same effects as a pay rise+facelift+gym addiction...... fans think they look just like the smiling, youthful faces that camera men have been instructed to capture, specifically. until the games end, and viewers finally get off the sofa.

or

people who don't actually wish to discuss olympic wins with other fans. instead, relish banging on about their 'happiness, love of sport, and national pride' but directed at people who aren't in the least bit interested. (i reckon john morton could have a field day with that rather poisonous but imo plausible ending?

or how about something brand new about the future, a super injunction and ban on pepperpig merchandise at brazil 2016,

why not make your own up? or, why not just pretend it really is 1908? vastly preferable to echoes of 1939, or 2003. (if you choose 1908, perhaps contact hugh bonneville for costume hire....he's a whole wardrobe'sworth).

They'll need to learn how to shout, scream, burst into tears, and ask inane questions. the eager training providers of that particular 'skills update' training course might just make an impressive ending mangerton...(in fact may be a whole tv series), ...one which the whole nation can participate in too. i just hope it's not £9,000 per year like a degree though eh. how will miserablists get an educashun - as they're apparently the ones who need these 'screaming & bursting' skills most? sigh

it's not completely safe as yet, but personally, i have been a gold medal winner at avoiding mostly. but (musically speaking), caught a tiny snatch of something , which i assumed was an r4 drama about a raid on an illegal rave, .....hey, guess what!? it turned out to be 'the olympics 2012'! it woz gr8 musik, bearing in mind only equestrian horses listen to classical, or any other styles of music. apart from the para olympics, we're very nearly 'post olympic'- anyone fancy a count down, and bell ringing sesh soon?

here's to no winners, and no losers ie

[MrGongGong]

yet the miseries on this thread won't accept that the sports fans among us are not concerned with the politics of it all, we just want to experience the Olympics for what they ARE!

I missed the first bit being away in a field in Franche-Comté but am struggling to avoid it and seem to have mislaid my script
oh hang on here it is

so

"I was cynical at first but now i've seen all those wonderful people running very fast and throwing stuff i'm convinced of how important it all is !"

Is what I guess we are supposed to say ......................... and the remarkable thing (as every BBC bulletin is screaming at us !) is that some of these wonderful people actually come from "near where I live " ....... GOSH indeed
I guess they have to come from somewhere

but I'm still failing to grasp how its supposed to be "inspiring" us all as a nation ?
having missed the opening I looked at some of it on the internet zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

probably great to be there
great to be involved but for the rest of the world ???????

At least i'm not running a B&B in Weymouth

and surely it's not just me who secretly hopes that "lord" Co has an encounter with a discuss ? (in an Odd Job styleeeeee)

[french frank]

I'm sure they truly adore Sir Christopher Hoy ...

Who?

The guy who won the gold for the keirin, for goodness' sake

[Bryn]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wd8zi5KuyJc

[MrGongGong]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wd8zi5KuyJc

[handsomefortune]

apparently macaroon says sports doesn't need funding!

and now steve hewlett's having to begin his programme with the great triumph of the beeb's olympic coverage.

there is STILL no point in turning on my xxxxxxxxy radio then - darn it!

[MrGongGong]

I seem to remember that in the 1970's the Romanians and other Soviet Bloc countries spent lots of money on training their young athletes to win medals at the Olympics.
So why , given that's more or less exactly what Britain has done is there so much fuss over it all ?????
We spend lots of cash on expensive sports facilities for a handful of people and they get better at their chosen sport , No shit Sherlock.................... while for the rest of us we have to try and use the local swimming pool (which is part of a school) in the small windows of time between school swimming and the "serious" club ............

[teamsaint]

I seem to remember that in the 1970's the Romanians and other Soviet Bloc countries spent lots of money on training their young athletes to win medals at the Olympics.
So why , given that's more or less exactly what Britain has done is there so much fuss over it all ?????
We spend lots of cash on expensive sports facilities for a handful of people and they get better at their chosen sport , No shit Sherlock.................... while for the rest of us we have to try and use the local swimming pool (which is part of a school) in the small windows of time between school swimming and the "serious" club ............

yup. 5 live phone ins are full of people complaining that funding for their 12 year olds bid for future olympic gold, in a sport nobody cares about, is soon to be withdrawn.
(while the rest of us bankrupt ourselves to get a university education for our kids).

Also, as it is "Team GB", who are Northern Irish people competing for?

[Serial_Apologist]

why are increasing numbers of posters apparently on the wrong thread? there's one specially designated for the sensible adulation of sportiness? ontopic, back to the olympinonsense.

i may well have got my bandwidth gummed up with my maple syrup, can merely waffle at the get-go..... but did anyone else suffer mild disappointment at the resort to romantic cliche from john morton, between bonneville and coleman? an unconvincing clinch, (was it meant to be)? the end: searching online for a romantic holiday.......... concluded 'the deliverance team's otherwise superbly accurate, suitably absurd, 'luxury london antics'.

but how else might morton have ended the 2012 series? why not just make it up - coe coe the clown and macaroon style? choose your own ending - (see last paras (below) for examples of other options, and then just stitch up your own ending).

what will the country do for 'giant olympian posturing' post games? as lat posts, upthread, it's great to feel that you have personal choices: like tossing a bucket of cold water at professional olympian clowns, or just willing an accident with a plank. potentially, i agree with those who think that discussion of the games can become vaguely threatening, like the gibberish of wartime bushisms. 'you are either with us, or against us' works well as a strategy when playing 'galaxy balls' on your mobile phone, but isn't that reliable in more complex circumstances.

after, sports participants will compete in all their usual fixtures, schedules, as normal ...and the very best of good luck to them. but totally ignored by the media....until a mishap, injury, loss of sponsorship, or caught consuming olympian quantities of sports drugs. in the latter case they are perceived by some as hoisted by their own leotards, any fame will work against them predictably. so engrossed in their total love of sport, they've may be forgotten how to form a meaningful relationship, but this aspect wont be presented as such.....as it's quite an off putting feature of 100% commitment, a lonely pursuit. the idea that sports people 'continue on, to a career in tv or other media' applies to what, 0.1% of sports people, if that? 'lively retorts, thinking on the spot, pertinent questions' are a media company's worst nightmare in a sports presenter, all highly undesirable qualities. the glazed oddbod, snoozy tv presenter played by steve coogan, once illustrated this aspect of media 'professionalism' brilliantly. apparently, you can get away with a lot if you wear a blazer over golfing attire on tv, as long as you keep your weird shoes and personal opinions under the desk!

i would have thought on a forum such as this, which mainly revolves around arts appreciation, thorough criticism of the 'workings' of olympinonsense, especially its committees which, ultimately, directly affect arts funding, as well as increasing 'our debt to austerity', is par for the course.

yet the miseries on this thread won't accept that the sports fans among us are not concerned with the politics of it all, we just want to experience the Olympics for what they ARE!

to me, this implies that you're sort of intending to vote for jessica ennis in the next election......which'll be a bit pointless. i always think the phrase 'too political' usually means 'shut up, because this is politically sensitive'. i can see that an interest in sport is optional, but don't think the same applies to politics - but often wish it did. also posted, upthread, john wright, tis 'only a forum' but some comments on this thread are worthy of (the worst) of utube responses from emotional delinquents.

shortly, i suspect the 'happy, winning, t*ssers' will use the olympic debt as a means to excuse 'finishing what they've already begun' at suffolk nhs. in this precise sense, i don't want the olympics to ever end.....because i dread the politics of 'miserable' news, the anticipated avalanche of latent media hysteria, which'll doubtless accompany 'the official anti climax + miserable reality' as a 'media event' almost equaling 2012 games media waffle itself. (just hopefully less expensive for citizens).

'all tory sins originated in labour's mismanagement of a global financial crash' is long since threadbare, moth eaten...a brand NEW excuse, for buffoon, macaroon & co is well over due. marketing teams are working on 'the branding of overspend' as i type. (in my tea leaves, i can see 'perfect curve' beavering away, with branding slogans and pictures: never mind 'way to go',...... 'ways to starve' might be more accurate? or perhaps 'what a way to go?' might work?) cool! how might 'perfect curve' communicate press announcements that there might be plenty of waffle left, but syrup banks are empty? what catchy phrase sums up bandwidths buzzing only with the sound of a blue bottle infestation, the 'get go' - got up and gone?




mmmmm jc! olympic golf, along with the 'media mini sensation' about a violent woman and a (possibly) idiotic drunk..... (imv it's got nowt to do with anything really. imagine competing, and then having to read that non story)? BUT it might well make an apt ending to the tv series '2012'.

or another ending

absurd commentaries from politicians etc about what 'they've created'. - (wants burying in the long grass, but i'm not sure just a 'shank' would do though, where's a violent self appointed vigilante when you really need one eh)? i think that morton's already touched on the irony of coe coe the clown's sense of creative genius about sport ... as an ending, it's perhaps just 'more of the same'?

or, here's another possible '2012' ending

tv viewers need 'well being therapy', having assumed that if they look at the olympics on screen long enough, it'll have the same effects as a pay rise+facelift+gym addiction...... fans think they look just like the smiling, youthful faces that camera men have been instructed to capture, specifically. until the games end, and viewers finally get off the sofa.

or

people who don't actually wish to discuss olympic wins with other fans. instead, relish banging on about their 'happiness, love of sport, and national pride' but directed at people who aren't in the least bit interested. (i reckon john morton could have a field day with that rather poisonous but imo plausible ending?

or how about something brand new about the future, a super injunction and ban on pepperpig merchandise at brazil 2016,

why not make your own up? or, why not just pretend it really is 1908? vastly preferable to echoes of 1939, or 2003. (if you choose 1908, perhaps contact hugh bonneville for costume hire....he's a whole wardrobe'sworth).

They'll need to learn how to shout, scream, burst into tears, and ask inane questions. the eager training providers of that particular 'skills update' training course might just make an impressive ending mangerton...(in fact may be a whole tv series), ...one which the whole nation can participate in too. i just hope it's not £9,000 per year like a degree though eh. how will miserablists get an educashun - as they're apparently the ones who need these 'screaming & bursting' skills most? sigh

it's not completely safe as yet, but personally, i have been a gold medal winner at avoiding mostly. but (musically speaking), caught a tiny snatch of something , which i assumed was an r4 drama about a raid on an illegal rave, .....hey, guess what!? it turned out to be 'the olympics 2012'! it woz gr8 musik, bearing in mind only equestrian horses listen to classical, or any other styles of music. apart from the para olympics, we're very nearly 'post olympic'- anyone fancy a count down, and bell ringing sesh soon?

here's to no winners, and no losers ie

A brilliant tours de force of a post - well worth the Gold!

[gurnemanz]

A brilliant tours de force of a post - well worth the Gold!

Didn't our man win Gold in the Tour de Force this year?.

[Lateralthinking1]

apparently macaroon says sports doesn't need funding!

and now steve hewlett's having to begin his programme with the great triumph of the beeb's olympic coverage.

there is STILL no point in turning on my xxxxxxxxy radio then - darn it!

Many great bits in your longer piece handsomefortune. Loved "Coe Coe the Clown", "hoisted by their leotards" and "only equestrian horses listen to classical", among many others.

Lynne Truss said this morning that it is possible to run out of the feeling that everything is "amayyyzing". At one point, her publisher was ringing her every week to confirm that her novel was still at the top of the American book charts. She sounded as effusive in Week 46 as she did in Week 1.

Truss found that difficult as the weeks passed. She was using the same words and phrases each time in response - "that's wonderful", "terrific", "I'm so pleased" - when in truth she was starting to think as she put the phone down that it was merely "nice". Later, apparently, it got too much and she was praying hourly for sales to plummet.

I agree with John on the football, tennis and golf. The first two don't seem serious in the Olympics. I think though in the case of Andy Murray, the medals are unusually meaningful. The timing for him couldn't have been better and it might well have made the difference between him winning future grand slams or not.

[John Wright]

...... but as she said she wanted to see the race. Appropriate action would have meant her missing it.

She DID miss it Lat, it only takes 10 seconds to run 100m.

And in a few seconds one does not have much time to think. The point I keep trying to make, my opinion anyway, is that in a few seconds she had no idea what the man would do next, no idea if the race had started ok, and her aim was to prevent him causing a bigger public nuisance than he already had.

[amateur51]

She DID miss it Lat, it only takes 10 seconds to run 100m.

And in a few seconds one does not have much time to think. The point I keep trying to make, my opinion anyway, is that in a few seconds she had no idea what the man would do next, no idea if the race had started ok, and her aim was to prevent him causing a bigger public nuisance than he already had.

and all she did was whack him on the back with her flat hand. Good for her!

[Flosshilde]

and all she did was whack him on the back with her flat hand. Good for her!

& all PC Simon Harwood did to Ian Tomlinson was hit him on the back of the legs with his truncheon, & look what happened