I’ve taken my words from the previous post,
deep-fried them in boiling excrement and devoured them humbly and with penitent
apology. Danny Boyle should be fucking
knighted. He set the scene for an
Olympics that is proving to be so utterly fantastic that nearly all of us have
thrown off the cynical scorn that can often form a lynchpin of our popular
culture and national mood and replaced it with an out-pouring of the deeper and
genuinely warm, celebratory and harmonious British characteristics.
And because of this wonderful coming together
in a communion of admiration for Great Britain’s athletes (and that man Boyle’s
unpretentious bulls-eye in aiming to capture the spirit of our history, culture
and values) it has served to make those dissenters even more emphatic bastards
for all their criticism.
It remains true that I still can’t work out
what the fuck is going on in sailing, that the boats seem to be floating
haphazardly on the water until a commentator declares a winner, and I may never
watch it again; but I cheered like the rest of you to see Ainslie bob his way
towards a gold.
It remains true, that Judo shall never appear
to me to be anything beyond pyjama wrestling, but that is my failing; and our two
medallists Bryant and Gibbons gain my ignorant applause.
Similarly, much as I have failed to be won
over by the merits of Handball or Basketball, I have found new enjoyment in the
likes of volleyball, weightlifting, badminton, table tennis, etc…
I have become un-bastardised, temporarily. But others haven’t. If you happen to browse your way through
Twitter whilst putting arse-moulds into your sofa in front of the Olympics, you
can get some sense of the national mood and the views and opinions out
there. And from this, you find in those
dark and putrid corners some of humanity’s charmless turds. The Tory MP Aiden Burley was the first to
emerge and was rightly castigated by the nation for his ill-conceived
politically-biased and borderline-racist outburst, which remains in the public
domain despite the backlash. But joining
him are other flavours of bastard.
For instance, those blokey blokes who need to
pair their applause for Jessica Ennis with some irrelevant comment about her
looks. I bet she loves looking through
her Twitter mentions list to see that so many men “would”. How reassuring that all her hard work has
given her the opportunity to be sexually perved over by so many evolutionary
throw-backs. Now, I’ll be the first to
admit that I switched on the women’s beach volleyball with an ulterior motive,
but I wouldn’t sleazily slurp all over these athletes on a social network even
if that’s how I felt; which I didn’t,
because the sport itself distracted me from the skimpy outfits and well-toned
bodies. Almost completely anyway.
Any event involving other countries brings out
the xenophobic strains in the worst of us.
Fortunately, our successes have probably saved us having to endure too
much overt disrespect towards the Germans and French (we’re beating them, that’s
why!) However, Andy Murray’s gold (and
silver) brought out a backlash in which phrases like “surly Jock prick” were
deemed acceptable by a good few wankers on Twitter. Because…what?
He’s proud to be Scottish? He’s serious
rather jovial during post-match interviews?
He’s not pretty like Jessica Ennis?
Obviously, there remains a few miserable gits
who still begrudge the money spent on this event in a time of economic
crisis. They peddle the simplistic
utilitarian argument that belittles the powerful impact sport (or the arts) can
have on people in terms of inspiring personal ambition, fostering good will in
society and bringing pleasure to our lives.
That old crap about how every penny should be spent on housing people
and feeding people from the hypocrites who don’t in fact abstain from spending
money on their own pleasures in life rather than giving it away to the
vulnerable. Agreed, the costs against current cuts to welfare services is a debate; but I fucking hate the
absolutism of sound-bite arguments you get from some misguided twats, again
particularly on Twitter.
So, sweeping that little pile of moaners into a corner, let’s get on with feeling good about the country, about
each other and about the wonderful achievements of people who have worked
harder and shown more sacrifice and commitment that many of us ever have.
