And now ...
"Hey, Smitty, how's come you dowan't come around no mowah? Ever'body was dere: Big Petey, Little Petey, Regular Petey, Joey Bagadonuts, Jimmy the Woman, Irregular Petey, Muscles Marinara ..."
Well, the truth is threefold. One, I'm lazy. Two, I've been getting ready for a rather important event coming up, the preparation for which has consumed more of my time than I care to say. Three, I was watching a lot of Olympics.
Now, if you follow the Olympics, you know that London gets the next summer games in 2012. The handover of the games was marked by celebrations throughout London and the sonic boom of the Red Arrows (the British Thunderbirds) screeching directly over our flat. I noticed two cultural trends emerging from the overseas Olympic experience.
First, I get the impression that with the conclusion of the Beijing Games it has become all the more immediate to the London 2012 organizers how big their job is. Obvious trampling on human rights aside, Beijing put on a nearly flawless fortnight. In their defeatist post-Empire way, the British already are despairing that they'll never be able to duplicate it, a theme I started hearing from the moment the Beijing opening ceremony ended. If the organizers share that belief, they won't be able to duplicate Beijing. I think they're up to the job, however.
Second, I learned a bit about British sporting fans from the unexpected medal haul the GB team earned. In victory, British fans can be much like Boston Red Sox fans: insufferability squared. Yeah, I know Americans are the arrogant Yankees fans of world sports. But the British are simply annoying--yes, you're annoying, with your sneering over topping Australia in the medal table, with the way you picked a fight about how the medals are tallied. (PS: Times of London, the IOC doesn't issue a medal tally. It takes the view that the Olympics is a competition between athletes. PPS: I was planning on cheering for England in the next Ashes series, but when you picked a fight over the medal tally and started mocking Australia, I changed my mind.) I expect to have to put up with a month or so of this, I guess--but then the World Cup qualifiers will begin soon, and with luck we'll be back to the same old British sports fans. I could use the peace.
Besides, we all know who the real winner is: Arise, Jamaica! Your tally means you won medals on a weighted basis at a rate of 11.5 per billion dollars gross domestic product.
Well, the truth is threefold. One, I'm lazy. Two, I've been getting ready for a rather important event coming up, the preparation for which has consumed more of my time than I care to say. Three, I was watching a lot of Olympics.
Now, if you follow the Olympics, you know that London gets the next summer games in 2012. The handover of the games was marked by celebrations throughout London and the sonic boom of the Red Arrows (the British Thunderbirds) screeching directly over our flat. I noticed two cultural trends emerging from the overseas Olympic experience.
First, I get the impression that with the conclusion of the Beijing Games it has become all the more immediate to the London 2012 organizers how big their job is. Obvious trampling on human rights aside, Beijing put on a nearly flawless fortnight. In their defeatist post-Empire way, the British already are despairing that they'll never be able to duplicate it, a theme I started hearing from the moment the Beijing opening ceremony ended. If the organizers share that belief, they won't be able to duplicate Beijing. I think they're up to the job, however.
Second, I learned a bit about British sporting fans from the unexpected medal haul the GB team earned. In victory, British fans can be much like Boston Red Sox fans: insufferability squared. Yeah, I know Americans are the arrogant Yankees fans of world sports. But the British are simply annoying--yes, you're annoying, with your sneering over topping Australia in the medal table, with the way you picked a fight about how the medals are tallied. (PS: Times of London, the IOC doesn't issue a medal tally. It takes the view that the Olympics is a competition between athletes. PPS: I was planning on cheering for England in the next Ashes series, but when you picked a fight over the medal tally and started mocking Australia, I changed my mind.) I expect to have to put up with a month or so of this, I guess--but then the World Cup qualifiers will begin soon, and with luck we'll be back to the same old British sports fans. I could use the peace.
Besides, we all know who the real winner is: Arise, Jamaica! Your tally means you won medals on a weighted basis at a rate of 11.5 per billion dollars gross domestic product.
Labels: British life, culture, expatriate life, London life, sport
posted by Smitty Werbenmanjensen at 9:32 AM
4 Comments:
Phew - you're back, Smitty. I'd begun to believe you'd abandoned your blog (like another blogger we know).
I wanna meet Muscles Marinara and Joey Bagadonuts!
Schmutz, some bloggers only blog after something interesting happens, say a birthday party later this week.
Smitty, are you doing to do long Powerman, or the shorter one?
I thought the gloating the British runner did after the men's 4x400 semi-final was pretty funny. The British deserved to be upset, too, after the Jamaicans ruined the women's 4x100 for them.
I stole the whole introduction bit from the comic Dom Irrera. I'm not that clever.
I'm doing long Powerman, MK. It's going to be ... long.
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