Bloody Olympics

[coppinpr]

Im going to get my money back after the Olympics by leaving it there and turning it into a Mcdonalds, the Navy dont have a use for it , might do more harm than terrorists that way but what the hell

[badpenny]

I accidently trapped myself in front of a television the other night the same time as The Olympic Boasting Show, now what I want to know is where the hell are the following .......

Aruba, Benin, Burkina Faso, Comoros, Kiribati, Kyrgyzstan, Myanmar, Nauru, Saint Timor-Leste,
I thought the planet was already finished and all of the available bits had been allotted, so where have they tacked these bits on?

I was most intrigued by Independent Olympic Athletes, what's going on here? Are they from outer space? Or are they humans that have rejected their own countries? When they win a medal what happens for their National Anthem? Does everybody just stand around whistling what ever takes their fancy? There are four of them, three men and one woman. I guess she's going to be busy, she could look like the back of a bus and still be beating them off with a stick.

Federated States of Micronesia, are these The Borrowers? Are they exempt from the high jump? Are they allowed to run beneath the hurdles? It seems only fair.

Lesotho. Now I'm a staunch supporter of Diversity, but I got this one hopelessly wrong. Less said the better.

Palau I was pleased they got in, I love their rice.

Saint Kitts and Nevis & Vincent and the Grenadines. I am convinced these are those people you meet on holiday, swap addresses with and tell each other "if you're ever our way you simply must drop in and see us" then pray they never do.

Vanuatu. This one didn't fool me at all, I clearly remember The Starship Enterprise visiting this one. It was the episode where Sulu gets whisked down to the surface and has to use martial arts to fight a man dressed in a marshmallow whilst Uhura tries to snog Kirk.

[coppinpr]

Burkina Faso is a skin disease, Benin is what you treat it with, the team from Myanmar is made up from the staff of the Spanish hotel of the same name, Comoros is the tour company who got them there, Kirbati is an Indian bread, Nauru is the guy who eats it, Kyrgyzstan has duel nationality (South African and Essex) and Saint Timor-Leste is the patron saint of not winning any medals (ever).
Aruba I must defend, been there four times, it's a very pretty island just off the coast of Venezuela in the Caribbean, till recently part of the Dutch Antilles and still used the Dutch guilder until they went independent. Now they use the $. They went out on their own because they are rich and the rest DA are not! Known as one of the ABC islands (Aruba, Bonaire and Curacao).

[operator bell]

Womens' beach volleyball, Brazilian team. Enough said.

Apart from that, meh.

[Guest]

the somalian olympic committe have apologised saying there team did not realise
that shooting and sailing were 2 different events

[badpenny]

The channel changer on my TV has broken. No matter what button I press I can only get grown people chasing each other around in circles. Sometimes just for a change I get stuck with someone poorly interviewing what can only be described as an old woman who looks like a wrinkled old man.

Consequently I'm getting knowledgeable about running.
How many different running games do they need? There's all sorts from 100 metres to Gas, carrying sticks, jumping puddles and lying on the floor afterwards - running contests.
Why is one considered more important than the other? Plus it takes them all ages to do and they need a special running track to play on.

I think they should all be in just one race, held down the nearest park. They could start off doing 100 metres forward hopping skipping and jumping over the dog turds, followed by running backwards for 100 metres avoiding discarded needles then 100 metres forward egg and spoon over a couple of winos on benches ending with 100 metres laying on their back.
That should sort out the good ones............ oh, and they should do it at night when I don't watch tv.

[coppinpr]

What gets me is 100 mt runners all thank their coaches, mothers, fathers, wives, the crowd and the general population of their home country but never a good word for the plantation owners who got them there in the first place!

[badpenny]

That's bananas!........ and you know it.

[john t peterson]

My British Friends,

At the risk of poking the hornet's nest one last time, I offer my sincere congratulations for an Olympic Games done right! The last two weeks have been nothing short of spectacular, both in spectacle and execution. Despite the misgivings of our diminutive Mitt-the-Twitt, you've set the bar for future games very high indeed.

Well done, lads and lasses.

J Peterson
Your American Admirer of Olympic Proportion

PS Where'd the Queen learn to skydive?

[badpenny]

That's very kind of you John, however we only paid for it, mainly with money stolen from the charities that are relied on to do the government's work for them.

What I think you may have missed is that we are so anally retentive over here, that was just a practice; the proper event is still to happen.

[coppinpr]

I was in no way a supporter of the games when it started but it has to be said, we did it well. The general media view around the world is that we did it better than anyone else, ever! Reading non-British accounts, such as Time Mag and National Geo, we will NOT lose money on it. NG suggests it was in fact a cheap way of redeveloping the East End of London; Time suggests that the profits generated by the games in increased tourists over the next TWO YEARS will generate tax revenues that will cover the cost of the games. Today Heathrow will move 140,000 people on one day. Just before the games they moved 250,000 in one day, the biggest number shifted by any airport anywhere in the world, ever. My view is that the government spending the money for the long term good of the country IS a good thing and the sort of thing rich countries should do, and make no mistake the UK IS a rich country. I wasn't interested, but like so many others I became interested. I have to give it 10 out of 10 and admit I was wrong.

[andydotp]

Well London certainly got good press and thumbs up in the Australian media (and we're still living the highs from Sid-er-ney) so s'pose I'd better say well dun too then,,,

And to agree with coppinpr...the on-going benefits ought be immeasurable - in financial terms.

Even though I'm no fan of the F1 GP and it costs us Victorian tax payers over $50,000,000.00 each year to host it, the hotels are booked out for a fortnight years in advance, my pick-pocketing take on race-day means I have sufficient cash to only have to work 48 weeks a year now and if I paint my car yellow I get waved down all the time and paid to take people places....
There's a silver lining to eveything.

[badpenny]

I've been the noisiest moaner about UK hosting the Olympics. I watched the opening and closing ceremonies, and some of the finals. Now that it's finished I publicly admit that I was impressed.

When it comes to showcasing and paying attention to details I think UK has always been good at achieving success through getting the small details right rather than just a few high profile things.
We may or may not see a high return for the investment, my concern will still be what our leaders and betters do with it.

It may be a sad fact of life, however to the individual everything comes down to "what's in it for me".
And all that's been in it for me has been losing two jobs in two years due to the government pulling the plug on funding for assisting disabled people because "we simply can't afford it!"

It's great to inspire a young generation, but I can't help wondering how many more we might have inspired with sustainable dreams of employment if we'd used £24bn to underpin real apprenticeships and not the current let's pretend job training programmes our youngsters suffer.
Randomly plucked from Google, other reviews exist and quote less or more, we'll never know

I know I've become everything I loathed in my father, he turned into a miserable pessimist and I do hate that, but I am fed up with The Bollox!

Badpenny.

[treefrog]

I think we are always split into two camps, pessimists and optimists, me being the doubter, but I too got into the whole thing, probably about two days before the event.

I thought it was great and when it comes to money, well, there is always a better cause out there and all of them will have equal importance in individual's eyes. I guess though you also need to deal with these wider feel good type events every so often, which inspire many to do more and believe there is hope out there. For those reasons it is worth every penny.... 2012 has been a good year to try and bring people out of 4 years of doom and gloom and even if they are not actually fixing everything, if you do not change people's mindset to be more optimistic we will never change.