BIPOLARLYMPICS

I suppose, in the end, I had rather a “bipolar” relationship with the recent Olympic Games as it generally grabbed much of the rest of the world into its sticky paw and had it “gripped” and mesmerised by its sheer bulking juggernaut-like presence. Perhaps, like an occupying army, eventually it just wore the resistance down.

It is, after all, very difficult to prove a negative and whilst there’s seldom anything more tedious than someone going on and on about something that they have seen in person (“I was actually there…!” – Yawn!!!) there’s something more fundamentally tiresome about someone constantly bleating on about what they didn’t do when everyone else was, as I found out when I had to ask recently who the “balding bloke in the suit” was, and it turned out to be that Prince who the rest of the world (it seems) saw getting married a while back…

“Yes, we get it…” comes the fatigued response “How very different you think you are…”

Ah well… “Curses...!” etc., as my old friend and mentor in the ways of the arts of fair play, a certain Mr Dick Dastardly, might have muttered under his breath...

Still, having been firmly fixed inside the “anti” camp for most of the last seven years, mostly because I know how tiresomely single-minded my fellow countrymen and women can get about all things of a “sporting” nature, I managed to avoid pretty much all of the “moving spectacle” of the bit of fire being shunted around the countryside and never really felt as if I was missing out on all that much.

A bit of banter in the office and a few pithy words published on the internet and I was happy enough that I felt aware that it was going on and could talk about it but had no need to engage with it. Similarly, the much talked about opening ceremony happened whilst I was on holiday and trying to get some sleep and it’s becoming increasingly apparent (a recent edition of “Media Show on Radio 4 said that the viewing figures are teetering on the brink of thirty million) that I might very well be one of the few people left in the country who hasn’t seen any of it, and, from what people have been saying, that might turn out to be something that I might very well regret in years to come.

Certainly I’ve had conversations that started along the lines of “From what people are saying, I actually wish I’d seen it now…” as I roll my eyes skywards, slap my forehead, and try not to point out that the option was actually available and a choice was made which seemed perfectly reasonable at the time…

Ho-hum…

In the end though, it really is the broadcasting juggernaut that breaks you down and finds you weeping in a corner saying “Make it stop!” as the fiercely gung-ho, enthusiastic and blatantly partisan presenters find any possible avenue to get you “interested” and “involved”, no matter how reluctant you might be.

If you switched on a TV set at all, especially out here beyond the edge of reason where our “FreeView” is limited to whatever signal strength is evolutionarily strong enough to bounce through our relay transmitter, the whole event was, quite simply unavoidable, even if all you wanted to do was switch on and watch a bit of news and find out what was going on in the world.

“Sport” it seemed was the answer to that, and it was wall-to-wall on most of the channels which we usually visit and, as that “Media Show” item explained to me (because every programme had to have some kind of “Olympic slant” during that period, it seemed…), there was “live streaming” across twenty four channels if you had the right kind of equipment to receive such an onslaught, as well as being online if that really wasn’t enough for you.

Even if you went across to a “non-BBC” channel the adverts would be along within minutes bombarding you with as many tenuous Olympic tie-ins as they could and encouraging you to cheer on the really ghastly-named “TeamGB” whilst cramming as much pizza down your throat as was humanly possible, or wrapping your child in “Union Flag” nappies, or necking back enough alcohol to knock out a show-jumping horse.

Do the horses get medals too, I wonder…?

Incidentally, I went to Tesco the other evening and the “Go TeamGB” signs were everywhere as the Great British Public waddled around the aisles cramming their trollies full of cheap beer, pizza and crisps. I did wonder – briefly – where they wished this “TeamGB” to “go” to, but, as I walked around, I mused that wherever it was, very few members of this particular segment of the “team” were likely to be going there very swiftly…

You simply could not escape from the vice-like grip it had on the schedules, and, as the six minutes of actual competition which I actually did not “channel-surf” away from (now there’s an Olympic sport I could try out for…), or just read Teletext over, turned out to be those two rowing race finals that “TeamGB” won, I think I did okay, really, and I hope that they got a lot out of my particular contribution and input to the national team’s efforts.

In the end, though, as it once had been with the cricket all those years ago, it was the statistics that finally drew me in and got me talking, sneaking along at the last like the double-dealing do-badders they are. Oh, I couldn’t really give a monkey’s about “Gold” or “Silver” or “Bronze” but those funky little numbers on those pesky little tables started to gain my attention, and it was to them that I was drawn time and again as the sixteen days drew to their inevitable end.

Drat! Drat! And Double Drat!