Yes. The Euro footbally thing is finally over. France cried, Ronnie cried and everyone laughed at his legs. My favourite team, Eng-er-land United (have we ever been less?) didn’t even escape from their group. Drew is rude about football and me but actually I do watch it and I do understand it, even the tricky offside rule with the ‘he’s not interfering with play’ amendment.
I do know that Portugal won having only won one match and coming third in their group. They must have used magic.
So now it’s the Olympics turn. Only three ore sad, sport-bereft weeks to go. Hooray I hear you say? Welcome the Rio Games. Let’s have another jumbo bucket of jumpy, runny, throwy, swimmy antics by people in lycra. What could go wrong? Hmmm. Well, I know as I settle down to watch those sprinters, leapers and chuckers with my feet up and a glass of something effervescent in my hands, I will be thinking. ‘Just how did this come to be an olympic sport?’ What does it all mean?
I grant you, the events like the hammer, the discus, the javelin, running a race around a track are, of course, historical. The Greeks did actually throw javelins in anger so it was useful. They needed to run fast so they could warn armies of impending invasion and then drop dead, and also to avoid the gangs of dodgy Spartans that hung around on street corners waiting to mug them and steal their lunch money. But where is the relevance? I admit, there are certain parts of GB where a javelin might come in handy but generally not. And who needs to run today when everyone has Uber and hover-boards? Where are the new, modern events? The ones that are relevant? And I don’t mean including football, tennis or darts, what have they got to do with it? How is darts a sport anyway? No I’m thinking of modern day sports that fit the modern world. Here are my suggested five.
- Throwing a Sicky. Everyone does it and it’s very popular. You could award points for distance. e.g throwing a sicky because you’ve flown abroad to watch the Euros for example as a friend of mine did recently) that should be a gold medal. A silver might come from say, “I had a really heavy weekend and I can’t do my job properly because I’m still pissed so I’ll call in sick at the last moment” or a bronze would be the classic ‘duvet day scenario’. “I just can’t be arsed to get up today so sod everyone I’m off sick’.
- Jumping the Queue. Yup. You know who I’m talking to. It’s you. Yes you! You sliding quietly in to the cinema line when you think no-one is watching (bronze) you arriving at the bus stop after everyone else and lingering by the front so you can push into the mellee (silver) or the amazing relay queue jumping (gold medal for sure) where one person is left to mind the queue while the other twenty-four so called mates turn up late in dribs and drabs claiming “Rosy was keeping my place for me.”
Hans Bruchner goes for the ‘Long Distance Dumping’ World Record. Three girls in ten minutes!
- Long Distance Dumping. You know. those people who can’t actually tell someone face to face that they’ve met this girl from Brazil and they think they have possibly met their soulmate and need to make a go of it with someone else, “just to see, you know?” and they still have feelings for you so they feel really bad but they hope you can still be friends except you find out by quizzing their workplace that they are actually in Brazil already, have been for a week, and are in fact calling from Brazil and you know they’ve been playing house with this tart from Rio for ages? Oh. It’s just me then? Disqualified!
- Running Up A Large Mobile Bill. My friend Laura put me on the this event. She has teenage daughters. Bronze, Silver or gold Medals are awarded for “naivety “Oh. I thought those games could be dowloaded for free”. Absent-minded thoughtlessness. “I’m sorry. I really thought I’d switched it off ages ago” and wheedling duplicity. “It’s not my fault Luke moved to Australia. You said I should stay in touch”.
- And finally Drug-testing Well to be honest, it’s an integral part of the Olympics now anyway so why not embrace it. Just line up all the athletes and give a medal to the one with the most illegal substances running round their bloodstream. In fact, just let everyone take cartloads of drugs and watch the records grow and grow. Perhaps we were meant to become superhuman by the overt use of steroids and illegal things ending with ‘temine’, ‘odemol’ or ‘phine’, who am I to judge?
So that’s it from me today, back to my usual nonsense. take care all of you. See ya! Holly.
