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The Olympics are now underway. I am meant to go with popular opinion (or what the Government spin machine makes us believe is popular opinion) and say how dazzled I was by the opening ceremony. I am afraid I cannot. Of course it was pleasing to see so many happy young faces and the choreography and special effects were very impressive. But in terms of historical accuracy there were enough omissions that Beta minus would seem a charitable score. And the vision of what is special about modern Britain made me think what a vacuous sort of place we live in. We may have a lot of I-Pods, ageing celebs and a multi cultural awareness but do we really stand for anything of lasting note today? Some of the content was genuinely cringe making and my instant reaction was to take a two mile sea journey from my Corfiot summer base and claim political asylum in Albania.
By the time the Athletes started parading I needed a certain degree of anaesthetic in the form of cheap wine. Sadly not excellent Chapel Down wine. When an all-black team appeared behind what looked like the Irish flag it took me a little while to realise that we were only at C ( the parade seemed to last an eternity thanks to the inclusion of about 80 new countries that I had never heard of before) and that it was in fact the team from Cote d’Ivoire. And yes I then realised that the green, white and orange are in reverse order. I could not work out why some countries dressed their athletes like tour guides while others seemed to have borrowed a line of shell suits from a £1 shop in Liverpool. When a German VIP started giving the straight arm salute to the team from the Fatherland I got really baffled. Who said that the Krauts did not have a sense of humour? What were the Czech team doing wearing multi-coloured wellington boots? Is that part of the national costume or a joke about the British weather? Was it the team from Lichtenstein or Luxembourg who turned up in jeans so that they could go hang out and blend in with the young people in a Romford night club afterwards? By L, it was all a bit of a blur.
And now the actual games begin. For the next couple of weeks you are meant to get terribly excited about a range of sports, most of which attract absolutely no spectators at all at any other time other than the Olympics. Some are so obscure that it is really hard to find a commentator who really knows his stuff and can explain what is going on. Over in the cycling arena, I gather that for the 5,000 metres men’s team pursuit the closest they could get to an expert in the field is Graham Norton and he’s got the gig.
As a commentator, press release after press release encourages me to buy into the excitement of the games and how it is uniting us as a nation. I am not so sure. As to the cost, bah do not be such a spoilsport. Okay it is not the £2 billion we were initially promised it is £9 billion but in the greater scheme of things….
For what it is worth I do not think it will end at £9 billion. News of the ordinary cost over-runs will only seep out after the games. And chick in the cost of security and all the other stuff associated with this event plus the clear net loss to UK PLC that this will all create thanks to the disruption caused and I would be a buyer at £15billion. And of course Britain cannot afford that. She, like the rest of the world is drowning in debt. But that is for another day.
On the subject of debt, my pal Dominic Frisby has just released a brilliant musical comedy video Debt Bomb (featuring himself and 2 birds who end the video semi naked). If you object to partial nudity, funny jokes and a reminder of the mess we are all in then switch over to Iranian State TV now and have fun. If not watch the video HERE.
And if you are into videos, I served up one yesterday myself. In due course when Clem Chambers explains how I upload them I shall do a few here. Pro tem it can be found on my own blog and covers the Euro, Greece, Gold, Oil. Spain and a few words about equities in an inflationary environment. You can watch it HERE
For me, back to the pool where two very nice young ladies from Albania are frolicking. For you, I guess that you are now already bored by the Olympics and are wondering why there is nothing else on TV. Get used to it. Damn. The young ladies have disappeared. And so I feat that I must get back to writing a new share tip which will appear here on Monday during market hours. If you want an instant alert to when it appears. Follow me on twitter @tomwinnifrith – the disappearing Albanians is your gain.
