Filling Up On Chinese

I know I said I was going to boycott the Olympics…and mostly I have….but due to a lack of anything else on any of the six million channels that I pay through the nose for…and in an attempt to make full value of my high priced new wide screen HD TV…last night I watched a bit….and have a few things to say about what I saw.

Firstly…it is obvious that everyone must really want to see the swimming. This is obvious to me because no swimming was actually shown…but the announcers repeatedly announced…”The swimming will be on soon”.

Seems that the TV stations…like the banks and Telstra….have worked out the secret of true commercial success…find out what people really want and avoid giving it to them for as long as you possibly can. In he case of the banks and Telstra… they never end up giving their customers what they want…so I suppose we can be at least thankful that the TV stations…. presumably… and I say presumably because I didn’t actually see it….put the swimming on at some point during the night. It might have been at three o’clock in the morning when most of the long suffering viewers had shuffled off to bed after being bombarded by endless commercials … but…the swimming would have come.

Instead of anything interesting or anything that anyone actually wanted to see…they had on thing like men’s synchronized diving, gymnastics and women’s weight lifting.

The weight lifting really got me thinking because I have noted …..with very little interest at all……that the Chinese are very good at certain sports…..coincidentally…they seem to be the same ones where competitors would benefit most by the use of anabolic steroids….weight lifting being a prime example. I watched with disinterest as this very large and fairly unattractive Chinese woman smashed world record after world record by lifting tons of steel weights above her head…..all the time looking as though she was about to burst at any minute. My attention was really only attracted fully when they announced that that was the end of the woman’s clean and jerk …and that the next event on the program was the woman’s snatch!

It was at this point I turned off…. feeling that what I was about to witness might be something akin to a video Frank might email you.

I also see that the Chinese are very good at shooting….as you would expect….and reports even suggest that one Chinese competitor so impressed the judges with his form that they awarded him valuable points in spite of the fact that he failed to actually hit the target…..which was a small detail which they were not bothered by. And fair enough I say…they give you points for trying in Rugby and missing in football…so why not shooting. Anyway…he probably was not used to aiming at clay targets…and probably unaccustomed to having to shoot without the rest of the squad to make up for any poor aim that he might have from time to time. Anyway…they have tanks…what do the guns really matter anyway? Just give him the gold medal and let’s just move on!

I have also noticed the lack of spectators. Funny how in a country that is packed to the brim with a billion or more people…they sadly can’t get a few of them to turn up and watch….or at least photo shop in a few for effect… It must be the corporatisation of sport. Hey….why not give a couple of million political prisoners day release to make up the numbers…or would that be too much like torture for them?

And after the smoke and mirrors of the opening ceremony…we all can’t wait for the closing ceremony….I am told that it is being produced by Pixar and that there will be special appearances from Woody and Buzz from Toy Story and that Shrek will be the MC.

Thanks so much China for all you contribute to the world right now…after your proud history it is just so sad to see what you have become. At least you are showing your true face to the world…albeit…unintentionally.