Monday, 6 August 2012
Failing to Fail
I must confess I'm feeling badly let down by the home nation's efforts in these Olympic Games. Those us who practise the national sport (grumbling) at the highest level, have been in training for years for this one, honing our Jeremiads, fine-tuning our dehortations, polishing our polemics. This was going to be the Big One, when the whole shebang fell apart, London ground to a halt, everything that could go wrong did go wrong, Team GB slid ignominiously down the medals table, and we became at last what we have so long yearned to be - the laughing stock of the world. But it was not to be - instead we Jeremiahs have been left looking on in disbelief as everything has gone like clockwork, London has been working rather better than usual, there have been no foul-ups, the world looks on in admiration - and, to cap it all, Team GB has been hoovering up the medals in unprecedented quantities. Why I've even found myself watching the damned thing from time to time. At this rate London 2012 is going to end up being hailed as a triumph. Surely we can do better than this - come on Team GB, pull your socks up (or rather, let them fall around your ankles) - we'll be expecting you to put all this behind you in good time for Rio de Janeiro. Fail again, fail better!
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Please explain this to me. The whole time I lived there, and now, as a daily reader of your newspapers, the negativity and "can't do" was and is sometimes overwhelming. Why?
ReplyDeleteSo adept are we at the medals trade it is expected, by the close of play, that we will have replaced the losses wrought upon us by Gordon Brown. The Bank of England is in a quandary, the storage space, once glittering with ingot, is now housing several large printing presses, borrowed from Tommy de la Rue, easing quantitatively 24/7. Where to put the stuff, an emergency cabinet meeting is, I would suggest, in order.
ReplyDeleteNow there's a reason for some negativity, and the approaching fußball season.
Well I have the smug glow of self righteousness as I have been telling everyone all along that it'd be fine, and it has been! Hopefully we don't tip over into australian/american style triumphalism and chest beating though. That'd be embarrassing for everybody involved
ReplyDeleteFew things are more upsetting to a middle-aged curmudgeon than being dead wrong about a wildly successful popular extravaganza like the Olympics that celebrates all the hopes, confidence, beauty and energy of youth. It undercuts our claims to hard-earned wisdom and insight and casts doubt that we have anything at all left to contribute to public discourse.
ReplyDeleteAh well, musn't complain.