My shame that is. Yes, I was wrong, I admit it we DID win something (well, quite a lot of things actually). I know I said in my last pre-Olympics post that we had about as much chance of winning something as a baboon being President of the USA (no, scratch that, it already happened), but as it turns out we were bloody marvellous!
So, yesterday London became the official host city of the next Olympics and while it may seem we have a lot to live up to in some senses, we have already lived up to a lot in others. Our 8 minute segment managed to showcase red buses, our love of a queue, our disregard for littering our streets and public transport with free pointless newspapers, our obsession with the weather, our passion for reality TV and ageing rockers and our hero worship of Beckham (though not thankfully his skelator of a missus) and I for one am PROUD!!
So what if they had 2,000 plus drummers, invented fireworks and built all their stadia on time and to budget – we have humour, good grace and a sense of fairplay. We will not stop people from participating in an event being held in their city (just try and put fences around everything and not let the party spill onto the street and you’ll have a fight on your hands Boris!), we will get some things a bit wrong, but that’s ‘cos we aren’t robots of a one party state. China’s Olympics were magnificnet let’s not deny it, but it was just a little TOO polished. If their althetes failed to win yes they showed disappointment, but you couldn’t help thinking that when the cameras had gone they might just find themselves doing a years hard labour on a bowl of rice a day for failing to deliver a gold medal. There was an undercurrent of the sinister about it.
I joined the celebrations in Trafalgar Square and the party on the Mall (didn’t have a ticket, seemingly it didn’t matter!) and for all the cheese it was fab! The exhibits on the Mall showcasing the regeneration of the East End and some of the displays; from a rowing challenge to learning a bit of hip-hop dancing to basketball showed people and above all kids getting involved.
So, come on London let’s keep the party going until 2012 and make this something for us all to be proud of. And as if we needed any further proof of the fun tone of the games then check out this link below. Boris, I would never vote for you in a million years, but jeez, this was priceless!! More of the same please you buffoon of a man!!
Susan's Random Musings 