Olympics

What a great opening ceremony! Totally incomprehensible to the rest of the World.

A bit embarrassing to hear the BBC commentators this evening talking about the Men's Road Race which they clearly didn't understand at all. The reason Team GB couldn't help Cavendish win is simple- no other country seemed to want to do any work at the front. It doesn't matter how good your team of five is, you can't stay at the front for the whole race, pushing air aside for everyone else- you just end up exhausted. Simple physics really.


And how come we seem to have loads of empty seats?

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Olympics

Aren't we supposed to have the Opening Ceremony before the events start?

Whoever mixed up the North and South Korean flags is probably looking at a change of Korea. Thing is, it's our Olympics and if anyone gets stroppy about the odd cock up, then just tell them to go home. We should be proud of our sense of humour and mix up stuff for a laugh- hoist a pirate flag if Somalia win and play the theme tune to Borat if Kazakhstan end up on the podium.

Top Tip: Take an empty water bottle and fill it up for free once inside the venue

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G4S

So here's my solution:

1) The Government should cancel the contract with G4S immediately and refuse to pay them a single penny. Let them sue if they dare. They are a bunch of halfwits who cannot be trusted and will simply mess up if given the opportunity.

2) All security should be done by the Armed Forces because at least we can rely on them to do the job. It's a last minute panic measure and the soldiers will hate it. Many will have their holiday plans ruined, but reward them all with a huge bonus, free tickets for their families to any event they fancy and guaranteed leave after the Games have finished.

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Mont Blanc Avalanche

The word 'extreme' is so often added to the most mundane of pastimes to make them seem more dangerous or exciting than they really are.

Mountaineering has never needed any such label, because it is really is dangerous, exciting and physically hard.

Condolences to the families of John Taylor, Steve Barber and Roger Payne; killed in an avalanche on Mr Maudit near Chamonix yesterday.

At least they died pursuing a dream, rather than sitting in front of a computer screen or a giant TV.

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Immigration Queues

Those of you who try to escape the wretched weather by heading abroad, may well find that you are greeted by a mile long queue at Immigration on your return.

This happened to me at Luton a few months ago- only half the desks were manned, the new speedy e-passport checking machine wasn't working and we all stood waiting for the best part of an hour. There were sporadic outbreaks of slow hand clapping, whistling and the odd queue jumping accusation. I've faced pretty long queues in other countries, including the US, but that doesn't make it ok for us to be rubbish too.

Immigration Minister Damian Green has proved himself incapable of fixing the problem and has simply resorted to denying its existence and blaming the wind. We should just let Keith Vaz sort it out. (He's pretty good at shortening queues as the Hinduja brothers could testify).

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Schools Let Down Their Best

A study by the Sutton Trust claims that English schools are letting down their brightest Maths pupils.

Non-maths teachers should be up in arms- one of the cornerstones of the comprehensive system is that we let the brightest pupils down equally in all subjects. What other outcome would you expect when schools are graded on the number of pupils who gain a 'c' grade at GCSE.

Obviously all the best teachers are put in charge of classes on the c/d borderline and those children are offered extra help after school. The best pupils are left to fend for themselves, as are the worst.

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Team GB Drugs Cheats

Dwain Chambers and David Millar have been selected by Team GB to represent us at the London Olympics in a few weeks time. Both men chose to take banned performance enhancing drugs- blatantly cheating by any definition of the word.

When they were caught, they both initially denied any wrongdoing, but later expressed regret for their actions. There is no evidence however, that either would have stopped had they not been found out 


There has been cheating in the Olympics for decades and you can be assured that several athletes will be doing so in London. However, the selectors of Team GB had a golden opportunity to at least try and do something.


They did not have to pick either athlete- they could have issued a statement along the lines of:


Whatever the cost to us, even if it diminishes our medal count and we know perfectly well that other countries will send drug cheats to compete against us- we are going to take a stand and send out a clear message to our children who watch these Games and may grow up to be competitors themselves. We want to show them that we really do believe that cheating is wrong and we will not support those who put their own selfish personal gain in front of basic sportsmanship and honesty.


They could have said this, but sadly they didn't and it diminishes us as a result.

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