COMIC IN PERIL

Following reports of declining sales, the comic, "The Dandy" may be facing closure.  A spokesman for D.C. Thompson, named as Dan, said the situation was desperate.

YOU'LL GO QUICKER BY RAIL

From January, there will be an average increase of regulated rail fairs, mostly season tickets, of 6.2%.  To add insult to injury this does not even guarantee a seat. Although Health and Safety has a bad name these days, consider this.  There are moves to make cycling helmets compulsory, the typical speed of a cycle is 10mph, people travelling by car are compelled to be seated and wear a seat belts, maximum legal speed 70 mph, and yet we allow people to stand up, totally unprotected, in trains travelling at up to 140 mph. Presumably, the thinking is, that, following the relentless assault from increased ticket prices, passengers have already lost the will to live.

ALL THAT GLISTERS .......

The wonderful 2012 London Olympics have drawn to a close, a triumph of organisation, dedication and creativity.  Congratulations to all involved in the organisation.

The performance of our athletes has also been remarkable, obtaining a brilliant third in the medals table.Now, far be it from me to inject a sour note into the euphoria, nor yet cast a curmudgeonly veil over this achievement, but I would humbly suggest this is not the case.  True, we received more gold medals than Russia, who were officially placed forth, but this ignores all the silver and bronze medals.  If we consider total medals, Russia had 82 and GB 65; third place Russia.  But, I hear you cry, that values a bronze medal as equivalent to a gold.  So let us weight the value of the medals  gold 3, silver 2,  and bronze 1.  Total scores Russia 156, GB 140. Well, perhaps the differential of the weighting should be increased, say,  gold 5, silver 3 and bonze 1.  Total scores Russia 230 GB 215.  Russia still beat us.

Congratulations therefore, to the GB team for their brilliant performance in obtaining a superb and creditable fourth place in the overall medals table and a little less mathematical spin please .

REVERTING TO TYPE

So, as the London Olympics come to an end, I assume that it will be business as usual in the rest of the world; war, killing, mayhem, fraud, cheating and lying, banker's bonuses and other criminality.  I do however think that it shows great deference to GB that the rest of so-called humanity was willing to postpone its murderous ways for a couple of weeks to allow us to fill our papers, cover to cover, with sport                                                           

BORIS FLIES IN

     Perhaps in an attempt to investigate a new transport opportunity for the capital, Boris Johnson, the tousled-haired Mayor of London, attempted  to travel on a zipwire in Victoria park. The trip, as you might expect, went hopelessly wrong leaving Boris dangling in the air calling for a rope.  Be careful what you ask for Boris.  If everyone who wished to see you on the end of a rope was allowed in the park, extensive crowd control would be needed.

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.