The Olympics

When I was a schoolboy I was encouraged to play lost of hearty games such as rugby in the winter and cricket in the summer. I loved it. But we also had to take part in some (to my mind) very boring athletics. Bad performance was incentivised by being whacked with a plimsoll. I mean, if you aren't built for running, what fun can there be in it unless it's to fetch a football.

I never saw the point of running round a track without a ball. Or running across the country. (The good thing about the cross country track was it went near my home, so I was able to drop in for refreshment and re-join refreshed when they were coming back round.). No, the ball is what made sport interesting. Oval balls, round balls, smaller hard balls (even hockey ones). And these days irritating little white ball; golf of course, about which someone said it spoils a good walk. But running? Jumping? What was the point? OK, there was one activity I quite liked. The javelin. I could see the point in that! And I could imagine throwing it at the capital punishment prone PE Teacher. 

And so 2012 is the time that England, or should I say the UK, entertains the world at huge expense when we can't afford it, to these fairly boring activities. Let's face it, the football at the Olympics isn't going to match the Euros, the World Cup or the Premier League. But, like Strictly Come Dancing, no doubt the nation will be enthralled at the possibly of the Brits picking up some medals. Good luck to them, I really hope they do. We've had a shambles of a ticket allocation apparently organised so that people can see the sports they don't want to. The hotels in London are being accused of quadrupling prices, giving the UK a huge bonus in terms of international tourism. Not. 2012 will be a bad year for inbound London tourism.

Over the years we have seen more and more odd “sports” introduced and I would like to propose some new ones. 

One would be eating. Of various categories. The Brits would do well at it. Another could be drinking, also by different categories; i.e. wine, spirits, beer. We'd definitely win gold in that one.