Australia: loves watersports

And so, what can we learn from the Olympics thus far? Australia currently sits on 11 gold medals, one behind Great Britain, but most of their medals don't actually count because they were won in silly meaningless sports like cycling and "49ers", which is a special kind of sailing where everybody gets in boats and travels back in time to the California goldrush. On the other hand, Australia has been winning medals in muscular, robust sports like "two person dinghy", where two people row a small wooden boat around and around in circles in a duck pond for several hours; and triathlon, a sport where small sinewy women put on big sunglasses and throw water on themselves.

The funny thing is, Australia has so far won all its gold medals in sports involving water, although Tamsyn Lewis has failed to make the 800m final despite looking a lot like a fish.

Most importantly, we have learnt from the media a valuable lesson in how to deal with a complete failure of conscious thought processes. When your neurons misfire and you literally cannot think of anything useful to say, the default "out" for the enterprising idiot is to simply blurt out any sentence beginning with the words "if Michael Phelps was a country".

"If Michael Phelps was a country he'd be fifth on the medals table"

"If Michael Phelps was a country he'd be well ahead of Australia, Canada and New Zealand"

"If Michael Phelps was a country he'd have lush green fields and a thriving agrarian economy"

"If Michael Phelps was a country he would strike quickly to secure the town of Gori"

Interestingly enough, if Tamsyn Lewis was a country she'd be dead last on the medal table and crippled by fire blight. And most of her citizens would be unemployed and clinically depressed.

Perhaps the most interesting element of the media coverage has been watching the press gradually come to the realisation that there are not as many good puns on Stephanie Rice's name as it seemed at first.

"Steaming Rice"..."Rice crackers"...er...."hot Rice?"

Seriously, "hot Rice?" That's not even a pun; ANYTHING can be hot! If "hot Rice" can be legitimately used as a pun, where will it end? Hot Diamond? Hot Callus? Hot Tomkins? That's just pathetic.

Thank God for Usain Bolt, who has allowed the sub-editors to move on from stupid rice puns and take up stupid bolt puns. "Nuts about Bolt"; "Bolt from the blue"; "Hot Bolt" etc.

Just wait till the Kookaburras hockey team takes gold. See how often "laughing kookaburras" are mentioned.

So let's all cheer for Sally McLellan in the hurdles, because I really want to see what sort of puns can be made on "McLellan".

Wet Hot Beijing Summer

And so the Olympic Games are finally upon us. Some highlights so far:

- Australian Michael Rogers bravely coming sixth in the men's road race behind some rather insipid and dishonest foreigners.

- Australian Michael Diamond bravely coming fourth in the men's trap shoot behind some unhinged and dangerous overseas types.

- Polish volleyballer Anna Podolec's shorts.

These highlights had varying aftermaths. Rogers took his agonising and frankly unfair defeat with good grace and humour, whereas Diamond climbed the Great Wall and began picking off tourists, killing eighteen before turning his gun on himself. Podolec's shorts, on the other hand, are unlikely to end well.

The BIGGEST news, of course, is Aussie "golden girl" Stephanie Rice, who overcame the handicap of having to fit a swimming cap over sixty kilograms of hair to break a world record and claim gold in the women's 400m individual medley. Touchingly, Rice says that her family and friends are "among the most important things for her". Which is nice.

Not THE most important thing of course. Just among them. Somewhere above underwear commercials, but a little below wearing sexy policewoman costumes, on the importance scale.

But in any case, she did marvellously well, as did Aussie "golden girl" Libby Trickett", nee Lenton, who managed to win the 100m butterfly without once hiding from photographers inside a tent. For her efforts, Trickett will receive an Order of Australia Medal and a fine wedge of Swiss cheese to gnaw on. She celebrated her victory by hitting the bars of Beijing, where she spent the night lifting cars above her head and tearing bouncers apart with her bare hands.

Other observations from the Olympics' first few days:

- It only takes about seven minutes for judo to go from "why am I watching these two idiots make feeble attempts to grab each other's sleeves?" to "oh no, quick, grab her sleeve she's going to trip you now throw her OH NO SHE GOT YOU DOWN WE LOST!"

- A volleyball team's libero makes not much sense even after you've looked it up on Wikipedia.

- The designers of the cycling road race route, in what seems an eminently sensible approach, are intent on killing as many cyclists as possible.

All this and still so much more to go. Will Michael Phelps achieve his goal of forty gold medals by winning every swimming event, the synchronised diving and the heptathlon? Can Aussie "golden girl" Liesel Jones achieve the gold medal that has eluded her for so many years, sparing the world another four years' sulking? Are the coxless pairs as amusing as they sound? I for one cannot look away.

Enlightenment in Speedos

Today's front page of the Herald Sun: Grant Hackett says some Olympic athletes will take drugs.

Coming soon: Grant Hackett says swimming can be "hard on the arms".

Grant Hackett says the Olympics "will be in China this year, but not next time".

Grant Hackett says horses "can run faster than men".

Grant Hackett says Ian Thorpe is a little effeminate.

What next, from Gorgeous Grant's Amazing Repository Of The Hog-Buggeringly Obvious?

Whatever it is, rest assured the Herald Sun will be right on the spot to make sure it is given prominence over and above anything else happening in the world that day.


(Cross-posted in Polliegraph)

What happened to you China? You used to be cool

Olympics crack down on fun.

"Beijing CBD businesses are reporting increasingly bizarre restrictions on couriers. This includes a ban on transporting CD-ROMs through the city, and mobile phones or GPS devices can only be sent if their batteries are delivered separately. This is on top of postal restrictions on sending liquids and powders."

That's not that bizarre. If they were serious about bizarre restrictions on couriers, they would require them all to ride penny farthings and carry everything in their mouths.

"Beijing police have been visiting bar owners in the popular Sanlitun area and asking them to sign pledges agreeing to not serve black people or Mongolians and ban activities including dancing."

That shouldn't cause too much of a stir, really - traditionally, black people play very little part in the Olympic Games.

It's a fairly bigoted article actually, in that the fears of a "no-fun" Olympics really only apply to those who don't find repression of ethnic minorities fun.

And how many of us can honestly say that?