Olympic Avoidance Log 2008: Day 10: Runnin’, Jumpin’, Throwin’, Interviewin’

When I was a kid, I thought the Olympics was just an athletics competition. This was before the red button and us being good at anything that involves sitting down. (Note how many of our medals have been ones in sports where you get to sit down). No it was runnin’, jumpin’, throwin’ and gettin’ told off for doing the javelin in the back garden with a bamboo cane. That event never went away. But in this Olympics, even a studied avoid has noticed that the athletics has been played down a touch because we did not expect to win much. Well we won a few. And we got a silver int he High Jump that we did not expect. How do I know this? All the commentators saying, over and over again as I was trying to hide in another room, that it was truly remarkable. When I finally poked my head around the door it became apparent what was so remarkable. The hubris of his fellow competitors believing they could jump higher. … read on …

Olympic Avoidance Log 2008: Day 9 - Jolly Hockey Sticks

Less medals = less news coverage. That is a good thing to the determined avoider. What else has been good is the monotony of the sports involved in the British medla haul. It is quite easy to tell if its the Olympics when the staggering diversity of potential sports to be shown are narrowed down to cycling and sailing (or indeed general watersports*). There is a safe bet that if my eye catches wide open expanses of grey water, that the TV is not on an ITV3 re-run of Hornblower or the Onedin Line, but rather another untelegenic sport with unclear rules. For instance its not clear to me if in the Yngling all the contestants have to be female (and blonde). Sex would seem to make little difference to a sailing crew, but what do I know. Except having “Laser” as a boat class name is a pretty pathetic way of making your sport sound cool!

One place where I am surprised to see a lack of the mixed version of the game is the hockey field. (Or field hockey field if yr expecting ice hockey). … read on …

Olympic Avoidance Log 2008: Day 8 - Of Tables

STOP WINNING MEDALS so called Team GB (so British to invent a teamname which tries not to actually say the contentious British word). Its relatively easy to avoid the Olympics when your radar is set for the BBC with extra Clare Balding alerts. But win medals, (or lose medals with Paula Radcliffe) and the games make the news. And I want to watch the news, as Georgia is on my mind. And whilst sports commentators can be banal, add BBC news teams to this and you could end up with some sort of explosion of idiocy.

So it appears that the “GOLD RUSH” means we are third in the Medals Table, a table where it is mainly about the number of golds (silver and bronze columns see to be there for goal difference purposes). … read on …

Olympic Avoidance Log 2008: Day 6 and 7 - The Team, Lightweight, Coxless, Synchronised, Freestyle Yngling

As I move into the second week of Olympic avoidance, the game is getting considerably harder. The reason? I am no longer in charge of the television as I am visiting my parents. And they want to celebrate Great Britain’s successes and it would be sort of rude to walk out of the room whenever they flick the seemingly endless cycling on. So my awesome record attempt is crumbling due to people in funny hats cycling round and round in a circle. Occasionally they fall off, and men in jackets stare at the velodrome track. Sometimes the men put a bit of gaffer tape down on it. Being a cycling judge is clearly where roadies go to retire.

But there has been so much cycling. And so much swimming. And quite a lot of diving (though considerably less now we are rubbish at it). Put it like this, there has been more than I would expect from sports where you are racing over distances where one would think the medals may go to the best over 100m, 200m, 400m etc like in the athletics. Instead though the minor sports which make up the gravy of the Olympics are well aware that this is their one moment in the sun, every four years. And some of them have worked out the key part of making their sports seem more important: to have more versions of them so more medals are available. … read on …

Olympic Avoidance Log 2008: Day 5: Go China

So it may be premature, but I reckon that I may be getting into a groove with avoiding this Olympics. The key point is to AVOID THE TELEVISION. And luckily the TV has helped me out by scheduling TV programmes I really don’t want to see near the Olympics. So I have no real desire to see Spooks: Code Nine*, and of all the CSI’s to premier in the summer, CSI: Ginger (aka - we only do one case because we are too thick to solve two). No TV has made it easy for me. … read on …

Critics Lobby For More Mummy Sequels

Most of the reviews of The Mummy: Tomb Of The Dragon Emperor said it was rubbish but gave it more than one star. Why is this? Clearly because this mummy movie does their work for them. The review takes about two minutes to write - as I will demonstrate using the points below that all of the reviews have mentioned.

-It’s a threequel. Threequels are nearly always rubbish, especially when the first sequel was rubbish, which was certainly the case with The Mummy Returns. Therefore the critic can use phrases like “Uncalled for second sequel” and “Law of diminishing returns”, and if they are really keen bemoan the state of Hollywood for making unwanted sequels. … read on …

Olympic Avoidance Blog - Day 4: SUCCESS

I managed to avoid all of the Olympics yesterday. It seems a little insensitive to say it, but thanks Russia and Georgia for pushing swimming champs and posh horse riders off of the front pages of even the tabloids.

Of course if Tanya was here she would also be praising the Russians, though I imagine on the spurious grounds that this international incident was sparkeds by the fact that the B-52’s and R.E.M. all hail from Georgia. Her grasp of geo-politics was always shaky.

OLYMPIC MINUTES SO FAR: FIVE

(A) Man (Who Walks Up)On (A) Wire

Man On Wire does not have to do much to better previous “On Wire” films, beating the Mel Gibson / Goldie Hawn starrer Bird On A Wire considerably. And being a documentary we do not constantly cut to a pair of feet which obviously don’t belong to Goldie Hawn as the tightrope walking is done. But as a documentary film, it suffers somewhat from lack of key footage of its main event and subject. So whilst there is footage in the film of Philippe Petit tightrope walking, there is none of the key event, namely walking between the twin towers of the World Trade Centre. And that is no longer there either. … read on …

Olympic Avoidance Log 2008: Day 3 - Waterworld

Waterworld was rubbish partially because swimming isn’t all that dramatic. Even if you have gills like Kevin Costner. The British swimmers and divers may have gills for all I care, though that may be cheating (again I wonder about the IOC’s line on evolutionary advantages). Anyway what I remembered today was that Olympic Avoidance gets significantly harder when Britain wins medals. It invades the normally agreed non-sport sections of the news. So I saw our swimmers getting gold and bronze in a stupid medley race. I mean they don’t get the athletes to do 100m running backwards, so why should swimmers get to mix it up? As it was I felt a little sorry for the foreign swimmer who was the silver meat in the British medal sandwich. A few tenths of a second is unfortunate. Nevertheless, jingoism ensues, and apparently Hazel Irving got to talk about shoes with Rebecca Adlington. I get the feeling Irving wants to go over to present What Not To Wear with all her apparent fashion talk. … read on …

No Rubber and No Blow Up Dolls

You know how I keep saying I hate the Olympics. Well there is one bit of the Olympics I like, it’s the bit which suggests that there is still room for bonkers artistry and fireworks this a po-faced search for medal Dorado. I have always liked opening ceremonies; probably from the moment that bloke on a jet-pack flew around the stadium in Los Angeles. Casts of thousands, explosions and allegorical histories presented as interpretive dance. As a child I was really into interpretive dance, and was often praised for my ability to inhabit the persona of – say – Fernando whilst leaping around the living room. In later life I discovered the cruel truth that actually no-one EVER danced like that except Pans People and they (and successor groups) were wound up in the mid eighties. There was no career in it for me. Unless – 2012… … read on …