Yet more Olympics nonsense

All great fun, Scrungee, but this Olympics is no different from its recent predecessors - ie they have all needed to keep the sponsors sweet in order to make the darn thing pay. Which rather proves my point, I think. No one else seems to feel the need to poke fun at themselves the way we do. It's quite endearing, in a way, but it gets misunderstood by outsiders who don't understand our need to be self-deprecating.

 

Read the publication from LOCOG © (London Organising Committee of the Olympic Games©) entitled "Non Commercial organisation - what you need to know, August 2011"© and you'll find everything is copyrighted, including the 'Five Interlocking Rings'© and, to quote (without permission) .....

"Certain 'Listed Expressions' .... The Listed Expressions are: - any two of the words in list A below, OR - any word in list A with one or more of the words in list B below:

List A: Games, Two Thousand and Twelve, 2012, Twenty-Twelve
List B: London, medals, sponsors, summer, gold, silver, bronze."©

It goes on to say that the " .. 5 interlocking rings symbolise the Olympic Spirit and values of fair play, peace and friendship"© Um!!

To quote one news bulletin I heard yesterday - ".. reports of people being requested to remove clothing bearing words or symbols not those of an offical sponsor, are 'being greatly exaggerated'©..." Which made me itch to reach for the writing paper and ask if they'd got copyright clearance to quote Mark Twain for that one?

Of course, it's all nonsense - otherwise anyone turning 21© in London© in 2012© is going to be stuffed: what if, like me, your workplace uses the 24 hour clock? 'What's the time? - 'It's 20.12© - no hang on, it's eleven plus one minute past eight o'clock'? Will Asda have to change their Champion Mini Moments ice cream, which are described as 'A selection of vanilla flavour ice creams covered in milk chocolate with gold©, silver© and bronze© coloured coatings'? Are Silver© and Gold© wedding anniversaries out then? Will my Godson, still be able to play Games© at his birthday party this summer©? Will 'On the fifth day of Christmas, ...' have to become 'One more than 4 circular, yellow coloured, metal objects'? Doesn't really 'scan' that one does it? 'Loving would be easy if your colours were like my dreams, red *** and green, red **** and green'?: High-ho ****** lining, etc., etc.

And, if I may quote stephenprudence© '.... As it turns out, Britain also the butt of many jokes around Europe.©' Well, I think you'll find that's because we're really only good at sports which require sitting or laying down - Cycling: skeleton; rowing; equestrianism; swimming; sailing

And just as a BTW - who owns the copyright© to the copyright© symbol?

 

Well, again, FM, all jolly good fun. However, we were fourth in the medals table at Beijing, beating both Germany and Australia. And as for it all being about sitting or lying down .......... have you any idea how much sheer endurance, let alone skill and dedication, it takes to be an Olympic rower? If not, I'm sure our own Melinda, who is part of the GB team, can fill you in. I think you'll find she does quite a lot of running around, actually. Swimming? Sedentary? Hmmm. I don't remember anyone suggesting that Mark Spitz was a bit of a couch potato, but maybe British swimmers are different. Cycling? Yes, I'm sure Bradley Wiggins' preparation for the Tour De France involved nothing more than a few extra pints down the Dog and Duck.

Why do we have this need to say that anything we're good at is somehow not worthwhile, or less valid than the things other people are good at, I wonder? Next you'll all be telling me that we're not proper athletes because we don't stand a hope in the women's beach volleyball.

Unfortunately this kind of aww-shucks-we're-not-much-good stuff goes way beyond 'Olympic nonsense' and other nations don't really understand it because they don't beat themselves up like this. Put it this way: if someone went for a job interview and said: 'well, I'm not awfully good at anything, really. Well, a few things, maybe, but not the things that matter. Other people are always better than me. But, hey, at least I can laugh at myself!' Do you think they would get the job?

 

I don't remember suggesting any of the sports I listed were 'sedentary', and isn't Mark Spitz, American as opposed to British?

 

No were not rubbish at everything but we do appear so, in the eyes of the untrained.

ps Fidgetsmum.. the health and safety executive owns the copyright symbol... overwhelmingly probable.

 

Yes, that's the point. I said:-

'I don't remember anyone suggesting that Mark Spitz was a bit of a couch potato, but maybe British swimmers are different.'

ie, when other nations excel at something, we recognise it as an achievement, but when our sportsmen/women do well, our first reaction is to rubbish it. Rebecca Adlington? Pah! Lying down sport. Probably trained by blobbing out on the sofa and stuffing her face with pie and chips.

Surely sitting down is by its very nature sedentary, FM?

sed·en·tar·y​

​

   [sed-n-ter-ee] Show IPA​

adjective​

1.​

characterized by or requiring a sitting posture: a sedentaryoccupation.

And isn't your point that sports which don't involve being upright are somehow lesser activities than those which do?

 

This is starting to become more entertaining than actually watching the 'Lympics!!
Jenny

 

according to conspiracy theorists there is going to be an alien invasion when the olympics are on.......

 

Isn't this what's going to happen?

 

That is Professor I.M. Looney-Bonkers isn't it ? Spokesman for the conspiracy theorists of the UK .

 

That's too easy.

Forget which beach I was at but next to it some construction was going on for about two days, they were making a beach area to practice beach volleyball, and a lorry turned up full of sand.

 

With all the furore over G4S, Immigration Officers' strike, bringing in extra troops, missile launchers, portable rocket launchers etc., etc., it makes you wonder who decided that to hold an event (Beach Volleyball) right next door to the garden of 10 Downing Street, was a good idea?

 

I love this thread. Brits - never knowingly outwhinged. I can't help wondering why we bothered going for the darn thing in the first place. Is it too late to give it to the French?

A few years back, when Greece was staging the Olympics, the Athenians were really quite upbeat about it despite all the problems. Contrast this with Londoners: 'It'll all be rubbish. We're always rubbish. Terrible security risk. Blinking rip off. Can't even eat yer Ginster's in peace. It'll be impossible to get a mini-cab and the traffic will be carp.'

Strangely, when we go abroad we often go the other way entirely and become huge optimists who are remarkably easy to please. Once, on one of those see-the-whole-of-Europe-in-two-hours trips, we had a whistle stop cafe break at an establishment which sold overpriced junk in a filthy square which reeked of human urine and was plagued by mangy stray dogs. 'Isn't is lovely?' said a sweet lady from Bexley. 'So much nicer than anything we have back home.'

 

Wow Clara,
you're on top form today! Iv'e been stufffing 10,000 Hospice Newsletters with other volunteers for 2 days and having a good old whinge don't 'arf help the adrenaline to rise and we all stuff the quicker for it!
Maybe it will all be so brilliant that us doubting Thomases will be even more thrilled with the whole darned thing than the 'Lympiaphiles,
Jenny

 

Tomorrow (Wednesday) will be good, its when all the Olympic lanes come into force.