POTS AND KETTLES

American coach John Leonard has described the gold medal winning performance of Ye Shiwen, the 16 year old Chinese swimmer as "disturbing" and "unbelievable" after she took five seconds off her personal best and more than a second off the world record in the 400m individual medley.  Ye denies implied claims of doping.      
 As a representative of the USA, we really ought to take notice of Leonard. After all it was the USA who gave us such exemplary sports stars as Ben Johnson and Marion Jones, although proof before accusation might have been a good idea.. 

OPENING SALVO

NBC saw fit to censor the Olympic opening ceremony by substituting the singing of “Abide with me” and its accompanying dance tribute to the UK victims of the 7/7 attacks in London with a lengthy, pointless and inane interview with Michael Phelps.  Why did they do this?  “Our program is tailored for the US television audience” said a NBC Sports spokesman. If  it really was tailored for the US audience, it should have been in cartoon form and split up into 5 minute chunks to make it understandable to someone with the attention span of a goldfish.

        Meanwhile, back in Blighty, Aiden Burley, the latest man to put the twit into Twitter, referred to the ceremony as “leftie multicultural crap” “ The most leftie opening ceremony I have ever seen - more than Beijing, the capital of a communist state.”  Quite right Mr Burley! We don’t want to see those nasty commie Health Service workers or the victims of terrorism, but the real world of silver spoons, Oxford colleges, Management Consultants, Senior Bankers oh, and, not forgetting, Nazi stag parties.

THEY'RE PLAYING OUR SONG!

Two of Team GB ladies’ football team, Kim Little and Ifeoma Dieke, both Scottish, did not join in the singing of the National Anthem, “God save the Queen”  because it is the 'English' National Anthem.  Wrong! The whole problem is that England do not have a National Anthem and the aforementioned "God save the Queen" is the anthem of the United Kingdom.  Since Scotland has ‘Flower of Scotland’, Wales ‘Land of my Fathers’ and Northern Ireland ‘A Londonderry Air’, why not give England ‘Land of Hope and Glory’ as its national song.

As for Kim and Ifeoma, a better reason for not joining in the singing would have been the words of verse 6 (which for some reason are now rarely used).

May he sedition hush
And like a torrent rush
Rebellious Scots to crush
God save the King

Why do we call it the United Kingdom?

FLAGGING UP A PROBLEM

Whilst I am sure that we all agree that, to date, the Olympics appear to have been a triumph of organisation, we are still suffering from minor hiccups.  After the G4S debacle, regarding security, we now have the North Korean upset, where the flag of their deadly enemy South Korea was displayed instead of their own.  This was the work of the Caledonian wing of LOCOG based at Hampden Park.   They stated  “We will apologise to the team and the National Olympic Committee and steps will be taken to ensure this does not happen again."  

However, my sources tell me that further trouble may be afoot when the Australians find out that their Olympic suits have arrows on them, and the German National Anthem, to be used for all the ceremonies, will be “If I ruled the world”.

THE CHANGE WILL DO ME GOOD!

David Gauke, a Treasury Minister, has criticized the practice of householders paying tradesmen in cash, saying it “is morally wrong”.  It appears that the recipients don’t pay VAT or income tax on their takings and this costs the Treasury about £2bn each year.  You really haven’t thought this through Mr Gauke!  When MPs are bribed, what on Earth do you think the brown envelopes are stuffed with!

ITS A RIOT!

Thousands of soldiers and hundreds of police have been drafted to security duties for the Olympics following the failure of private enterprise to fulfil its commitments, but has anyone thought about the gaps that this is leaving behind? As the weather starts to warm up and as August, the traditional season for chaos and insurrection on our streets approaches, potential rioters must be licking their lips and dusting off their swag sacks.  How on Earth is the poor citizen to be protected?   Time to call in G4S.

SOUTH OF THE BORDER......

Does this sound familiar?

Ring. Ring.  (After pressing options 1, 2, 1, 3 and 4.)

Your phone call may be recorded and played back at our Christmas party, to show what idiots some of our customers are.

Hello, is that HSBC?

Yes. My name is Christine, How can I help you?

I’d like to open an ISA please.

Name?

Iva Halfabrain.

Date of birth?

1^st Feb 1948

Mother’s maiden name?

Simpson-Smythe

Mother’s first pet dog’s name?

FiFi.

The  number of your bank account, omitting 1s,6s and 9’s.

What?

The third letter of the name of the company to which you made a payment from your account on 15^th Feb 2011?.

Oh forget it!  I’ll put it on the dogs.

And the reason for this interrogation?  To avoid money laundering.  What a pity that HSBC didn’t exercise the same care when Pedro rang up from San Fernando wanting to place billions of dollars of drug proceeds. 

The moral of the story is  “ If you’re going to cheat, cheat big!.”

G 4 CRYING OUT LOUD

With potential Islamic terrorists gathering at our borders and plotting within our cities, and with every other  ne’er-do-well  pressing to join in the fun, it is comforting to know that the security for the Olympic Games is in the hands of true professionals …. G4S.  Two and a half years after they signed the contract, and just two weeks before the start of the games, G4S have admitted that they are unable to provide sufficient security staff to police the games.  But they were cheap!!!  If you pay peanuts you get monkeys.  By the time potential staff receive their meagre wages and meet their expenses of travel, uniform, food etc. they would lose money.  Yes, G4S don’t even pay enough to attract monkeys. Perhaps we should spend the money boosting our armed forces, who end up providing the security anyway, rather than paying inefficient, greedy capitalist companies to not do the job.  As for the directors of G4S, I assume that accommodation is being prepared in the Tower of London, as we speak.

CRIME OF THE CENTURY

The trial of John Terry for the heinous crime of “calling someone a nasty name” continues.  The full might of the British legal system appears to be focussed on this wickedness, while the banks  devise ever more subtle ways of parting the ordinary citizen from his hard-earned money, with impunity.  Verbal abuse is not clever or grown up but nor should it be a crime.  And what is the alleged crime?  ….a racially aggravated public order offence.  How can public order be jeopardised when bystanders couldn’t even hear the remarks, and even a professional lip-reader failed to identify exactly what was said?  For heaven’s sake concentrate on the crimes that matter, like the systematic financial rape of the country, and let these self-important, overpaid, moronic bladder- kickers sort out their own playground arguments.