Beijing Olympics

I'm bored already!
Just gone nine in the morning and so far the breakfast channels are awash with Olympics! Pictures of the crowd rehearsals, of massive firework displays, of athletes choking in the dense atmosphere fill the screen. There is a general air of excited expectancy form all concerned, and we are supposed to be feeling the same joy. I'm not! Those sent to report from China will have reason to be gleeful, depending on how much snake they have had for breakfast. Their only fear is the huge expense account they will attempt to explain away on their return. TV folk seem determined to enjoy the event, whether they mean it or not does not yet seem clear. I suppose that talk of Olympics makes a change from someone with kidney disease, or a celebrity breaking a nail!

We are told repeatedly that this will be a 'spectacular' opening ceremony. If memory serves me right this usually means hours of boring meaningless activity leaving the viewer who cares desperate to understand just what is actually going on! I still lie awake some nights trying to comprehend the goings on at the beginning of the 'World Cup' in France that time. Some dancer had choreographed the opening in such a manner that even the French did not know what was going on! Why bother? 'Spectacular' is this the only word the media can find for 'waste of time?' Come now, an opening ceremony ought to tell us about the nation where the event is held, the participants and what is to occur. A couple of hours at most. Usually it takes half a lifetime and fizzles out just after the beginning. But we will still hear it called 'spectacular.'

For any lazy media folk reading this my online Thesaurus suggests :-

amazing, astonishing, breathtaking, dazzling, dramatic, elaborate, fabulous, fantastic, grand, magnificent, marvellous, miraculous, sensational, splendid, striking, stupendous, theatrical, thrilling, wonderful

Hope this helps! But in the circumstances they could add, boring, puerile, and 'dull as dishwater,' as it would fit quite well.

As to the games themselves well, I may actually watch things like the hammer and the weightlifting, the high jump, some cycling and the rowing maybe. Usually, for no good reason, I watch the boxing here. I am not one for watching great lumps knock bits of one another but find I get involved with this one. No reason why and the Cubans always win. The actual running around the track for days on end bores me rigid. However this time the added attraction of watching them struggle with the gas masks will really put a smile on my face, especially in the marathon! Ah yes, the Chinese have done well in lightening the chemical works like atmosphere to such an extent folk can walk the streets for thirty minutes before being overcome. Well done China!

The streets of course roundabout will be empty of all problems. Those are being beaten to death in labour camps in the distant parts of Mao's empire. Anything that moves outwith the totalitarian despots at the helm will be well hidden from view of the freedom loving visitors to Beijing. I noted one woman this morning, during a break in rehearsals for the opening yawn fest, informing us of the advancement made by Chines economic growth, and how wonderful it all was these days. Apart from sounding like the robot we have seen so often in communist countries she forgot to add that in Mao's days we were starved to death daily, so anything is better when there is food on the table, and stuff those who have nothing among the peasants!

Oh the delights of a totalitarian regime! Which reminds me, George Dubyah Bush is off there now. What he sees will remind him of his legacy in Iraq and elsewhere, although the building in China will at least be still be standing! Communism or Bush? What a choice?