Olympic pride followed by bungling Boris

Aug 31 2008 by Alan Ross, Magic 1170

I WAS in the US for the Olympics, and they only seemed to show Americans winning medals.

In Canada, they wanted to show Canadians winning medals, but there was a small problem . . . for the first few days such creatures seemed to be non-existent, so everyone talked about the opening ceremony instead.

One of my US friends claimed it represented the triumph of China over the West. She had a point . . . everything we buy seems to be made there.

But there was another view which became more widespread later . . . perhaps it was yet another example of how nothing is what it seems.

The beautifully choreographed fireworks couldn’t just have been inserted into the television pictures by a computer, surely?

And who would have thought a trick used in Singin’ in the Rain would be reworked . . . miming to a beautiful voice because the child singing was allegedly too ugly.

Despite the obvious wish of the US and Canadian media to concentrate on their own, by the start of the second week, even they were running stories about how well the Brits were doing.

Has anyone credited Lottery funding for our leap up the medal table? What a fabulous achievement, and even couch potatoes like me could be very proud.

I’m also proud of the way we managed to produce a typically British handover in Beijing. Not for us the perfect symmetry, the finely-honed display.

No, instead we gave them a tourist video containing an image of Myra Hindley and we wheeled out Boris, the Mayor of London, to grab the flag somewhat uncertainly, and witter on about how the British invented ping pong.

David Beckham did save the day by kicking footballs off the top of a London bus. Some people said it was ironic, others, embarrassing.

But not as embarrassing as Australia finishing behind the Poms in the medals, surely?