You’d think they’d get the message, but it seems that no matter how few people turn up to the festival of contrived sports that is the modern Olympic Games, they still persist in holding them.
The games have cost billions of Euro to stage and as I watched the beach volleyball last night I could not help but be disgusted at the rows and rows of empty seats on view. Have you any idea, brothers and sisters, how many books, videos and date stamps that kind of money can buy? The libraries of the world are crumbling to the ground, great works of literature, as well as some Jeffrey Archer remainders, are being lost forever in dingy, damp stores and we see fit to spend all this cash on half-empty stadia, swimming pools without any flumes, easily-detected pharmaceuticals and endless, endless commemorative tat that, apparently, no-one is really bothered about.
Of course, one reason for the rows of unfilled seats could be the ridiculous sports that are now part of the games – synchronised diving, beach volleyball, dressage and that crazy 20km walk. It can only be a matter of time before date-stamping and close harmony shelving are, at the very least, demonstration sports, hell’s bells, that could get a bit Sheridan. Also, since when were highly paid professionals allowed to compete – tennis players and football players paid millions in sponsorship and yet still able to compete in this amateur festival. It’s nonsense. And while I’m on the subject, LLF do not feel that keeping our “top” athletes in energy bars and Deep Heat is a suitable way to spend lottery money. The lottery is a scandal anyway, drawing money from the proletariat and giving it to over-privileged kids in pipe bands so they can make that trip to Florida is just plain wrong in a civilised society, but to spend it on allowing athletes to train full time isn’t much better. What happened to the Olympic tradition of post-persons from Norwich finishing their round on a Monday and heading off to the Olympic 100m final by Tuesday afternoon? How we would marvel at the proud workers as they took unpaid leave from the shipyards, the fields and, yes, even the libraries to compete at the games. Now thanks to the greed and stupidity of lottery ticket holders, our Olympic hopefuls get to “train” full time. Where’s the romance in that? Nowhere – and it seems to be having the opposite effect in terms of medals anyway. No, we say this has to stop, the glorification of the hoi polloi for the amusement of the rich and privileged by way of meaningless metal gongs must be ended, for the good of personkind.
I wouldn’t mind if the games were the festival of international brother(or sister)hood that we would all like to see, but they are not. We bring the youth of the world’s nations together and force them to engage in competition, thinly veiled humiliation if you ask me. The LLF are not happy with this competitive edge. Faster, higher, stronger? What about Nicer, Neater, Kinder?
We would rather see some element of cooperation and harmony – perhaps a combined US/Iraqi/Afghan hospital and school building team. Or a British team dedicated to the learning of languages other than English? We propose a tournament aimed at furthering understanding between nations.
To this end, we call upon the youth of the world to come together to help clear the planet’s cataloguing backlog. We would be promoting libraries, making the world’s literature more easily accessible and getting rid of a really nasty wee job from Cautious Col’s “to-do” list. No fancy stadia will be required and no corruption-ridden voting process for the right to host the games, people would just be given a copy of AACR2 (between two) and a pencil. The opening ceremony would simply be a training day dedicated to the rule changes since the last tournament. What a wonderful, well ordered world this could be.