PaoloSmythe

Thanks to China, we have a blueprint for 2012.

Thank God for dishonesty. I can't have been the only Briton to shift awkwardly in their seat throughout the opening ceremony of the Beijing Olympic games the other week. The Chinese mounted an unprecedented spectacle. Thousands of synchronised drummers, acrobats, fireworks, impossible floating rings made of electric dust (surely alien technology, that), dancers, prancers, singers and flingers. Maybe not flingers. I just threw that in to complete the rhyme. But you get the picture. It was amazing. It cost around £50m and was probably rehearsed at the shooty end of a machine gun. Dance, beloved populace! Miss three steps and we take out your kneecaps. Miss five and we go for the head. Dance till your homeland is the envy of the world! Stop weeping and dance!

Yet even as my eyes took delight in the colour and magic, my spirits sank. I'm no patriot, but I feared for our national pride come the 2012 London Olympics. How the hell are we going to top a display like that? Our plans currently consist of six roman candles, Bernie Clifton riding his ostrich, and some Britain's Got Talent prick-a-ma-boob beatboxing on a trampoline. It would be less shameful if we all marched into the arena one by one, dropped our trousers, yanked our bumcheeks apart and let the entire globe gaze right up our apertures for an hour, while the Kaiser Chiefs perform their latest single in the background. If nothing else, it would give the rest of the planet something to think about. They'd never mess with us again, that's for damn sure.

But my defeatism, for once, was misplaced. The ceremony wasn't as spectacular as it seemed. An impressive swooping aerial shot of fireworks bursting in footprint-shaped constellations turned out to be a computer-generated lie. And the cute little girl singing the Chinese anthem was only miming to the voice of another girl, whom the authorities considered too hideous to warrant airtime.

Actually, they were right. The original girl was an absolute pig, with teeth so higgledy-piggledy you could be mistaken for thinking her skull was trying to chew its way out of her face. You could possibly use her head as the basis for the lead puppet in a children's programme set in Ugly Wood, provided you didn't mind your kids vomiting in fear and disgust each time she wobbled on screen.

Oh shut up. I'm joking.

Anyway, the deception didn't end with the opening carnival, but bled into the events themselves. Hordes of volunteers, known as "cheer squads", have been been planted in the stands during under-attended events, to disguise empty seats and goad the rest of the crowd into whooping on cue.

What's remarkable about all this trickery isn't the trickery itself - but how ineptly it's been maintained. Even a six-year-old knows that once you tell a lie, you stick to it. You never admit the truth. Never. And when confronted with irrefutable evidence of your guilt, you dig your heels in further still - loudly denying reality until your accusers die of exasperation. It's a brilliant strategy that's kept the Bush administration going for years.

But the Chinese? A few timid queries and they admitted it all with a shrug. Yeah, they were computer-generated image (CGI) fireworks. Yeah, the kid was miming. Yeah, we're using cheer squads. So what? We're not arsed. Stop wetting your pants. What are you going to do about it anyway? Did you know that if we all stood up and sat down at the same time, the resulting tidal wave would destroy your capital cities? Ask us again if we're arsed. Go on. Fire away.

They didn't even try to cover it up properly before they were rumbled. The "cheer squads", for instance, were hardly subtle - they were decked out in bright yellow shirts and huddled together in conspicuous clumps. They couldn't have been more noticeable if they'd had searchlights for faces and foghorns for hands. All of which provides an effective blueprint for us to follow circa 2012. First up, the opening ceremony, in which a volcano rises from the Thames, spewing flaming Olympic rings into the night sky while Big Ben - or rather, a genetically enhanced version of Big Ben, one with straighter teeth and bigger tits - pirouettes in the background, miming to the Kaiser Chiefs' latest single. This goes on for 15 hours or until the nearest superpower threatens to bomb us. Then the events themselves begin. None of them takes place in the Olympic stadium because there is no Olympic stadium. We've not bothered building one. Instead, we've got a host of exciting made-up CGI sports. Moon Snooker! Unicorn Wrestling! Quantum Deathball! Dissenter Beheading! Pac-Man with Guns! Naturally, none of the other countries has been allowed to practice any of these games, whereas we've had four solid years to develop and perfect them. So we're guaranteed, ooh, at least three bronze medals. We'll thrash Paraguay, that's for damn sure.

And as our virtual athletes (who aren't really there) take their place on the podium (which isn't really there either), thousands of specially trained spectators will loudly voice their appreciation at gunpoint. Then we'll kick the shit out of one or two overseas journalists and claim the whole thing's been a roaring success. Again and again, till we're blue in the face. Bish bash bosh. Job done. As a twat might say at the end of a column.

Charlie Brooker - The Guardian, Monday August 18 2008

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Simply^Ride

that's the hell of a fucking article, I had no idea that the fireworks were fake. The funny thing is that as I saw the opening of the Olympics I was thinking of how awful the training was for these poor people.

I have to agree it's going to be the hell of a job to beat that presentation in the 2012 London Olympics, you guys have better start practicing now .


Damn I can't believe I read the whole thing, usually I give up by the middle

Mooz

That dude just won the internets.

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mpdsnowman

Last night when I was watching the womens floor excercise the stands looked pretty full. I didnt notice any yellow clumped shirts.

In order to put their best foot forward I am certain consessions were made to do so. I believe London will do just fine when it is their turn. I dont recall any olympic city faultering on that in the past.

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M P D S N O W M A N

PaoloSmythe

YAY FOR EURO WEENIES!!!!

EU Medal Tracker | Home

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Simply^Ride

But you are taking the E.U. like a single country, I don't think that's fair for the rest of the world. I am amazed at china's results, but then again if they don't win they kill their families

Mooz

Pfft killing your family is sooooo Stalinist Russian. In china they force feed you your family with rice n crickets.

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PaoloSmythe

why is that not fair?

surely such a form of 'national grouping' puts into a fairer context, the total number of participating athletes, the amounts of finance and resources committed to sporting endeavour and the geographical catchment areas....?

or is it just difficult for a supporter of the USA to come to terms with their media changing their 'medals table' from one listing the number of golds won, to a total tally of all medals (once China took the lead)?

Quality vs. quantity in medals race | csmonitor.com

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Simply^Ride

Funny thing, I got more interest in EU than the USA getting more medals in the Olympics. Due to the simple reason that I have a heavy French/Spain side in my family and none US one.

Another thing that I noticed is when ever they have a participant from Europe they never say "here is ...... representing the EU", they always the country of origin.

And I still believe that it's not fair for the rest of the world. I know the EU has fought a lot to get were it is, but it's still not a single unified country or economy.

PaoloSmythe

then why complain of 'unfair' instead of cheering?

and who is 'they'?

but these are issues of that thing which has nothing to do with the olympics (idealistically); politics!

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