Good day for bad news

Just caught the BBC News 24 coverage of the interminable Olympic opening ceremony.

Breaking news comes in from Georgia that Russian tanks have crossed the border to support nationalist rebels. In a piece of perfect visual irony worthy of Banksy, the coverage for a moment goes into split -screen mode: On one side the pompous pageant with its cast of drilled thousands, and on the other rumbling tanks. Suddenly, as if the subversive subliminal message has just dawned on the BBC editors, the image is gone. Delicious.

Put that light out

I was surprised to learn that like so much of the Olympics, the whole torch carrying thing was a modern intervention. Apparently it was first used at the 1936 Berlin Olympics. Fantastic, you really couldn't make this stuff up ...

I'm a bit slow off the blocks on this one - but just how marvelous were those scenes from London and Paris as the Olympic torch was assailed by demonstrators ?

It's not often that protesters face a win-win situation. But here it is for once. If the torch is extinguished it's a propaganda coup and if the authorities crack the protesters' heads - then the image that goes around the world is that of the repression of legitimate protest.

Hopefully by the time the torch eventually gets to Beijing the the credibility of the Chinese government will have taken a bit more of a battering at each city it passes through.

Boycott Beijing

The spectacle of the England football team giving the Nazi salute at the 1936 Berlin Olympics sends a shudder of revulsion down our spines today. I wonder what we will think in seventy years time about images of the 2008 forthcoming Beijing Olympics.

Which begs the question: Bearing in mind the suppression of protest in Tibet, the continuing sale of arms to the Sudanese in Darfur, civil engineering projects of unimaginable environmental damage, the suppression of ethnic and religious groups, an appalling criminal justice system and a litany of human rights abuses against dissidents .... why was it considered reasonable to boycott the Moscow Olympics in 1980 after the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan , apartheid South Africa or Mugabe’s Zimbabwe, but not China ?

The only reason that I can see for these double standrads is that none of those countries were/are emerging economies on the global stage. Meanwhile China is fast becoming the manufacturing sweat shop of the world, and pissing them off is bad for business.

Why so miserable Gordon ?

I'm not going to comment on the Rugby World Cup Final - a triumph in the end of skill over passion, and in spite of the disputed try probably a fair result. It was the presentation of the silverware at the end that got me going.

There was Sakozy as the host who, despite being a Tory still managed to look cool (well he is French after all) and then there was Gordon Brown, in contrast looking every inch the disgruntled Presbyterian bank manager.

Putting both to shame was the South African President Thabo Mloeki; the only one who actually looked like he wanted to be there. He was wearing a Springboks anorak and jumping up and down with excitement, laughing and joking , slapping the players on the back as they collected their medals. In fact I ignorantly assumed at first that he must be a member of the South African coaching entourage who had somehow got onto the platform. So obviously did some of the England players who appeared to ignore him when they collected their medals.

But why must politicians look so miserable in public - do they think it gives them some sort of gravitas ? Maybe Mloeki is a bit more self confident - after a lifetime in exile working for the ANC and with family members shot by the apartheid regime he possibly doesn't feel the need to prove anything.

Statesman who appear as human beings are surely worthy of more respect than stuffed shirts.

Remember the images at the previous South African victory in 1995 with Mandela in a Springboks shirt and cap embracing Francois Pineaar ? This was not simply a well-spun photo opportunity - Mandela actually does have a genuine passion for the game - as incidentally did Che Guerva, who was apparently a useful scrum half.