Wiff-Waff's Coming Home!

The Olympics is just around the corner - actually a short train journey away - as they've been saying for the last two years, so it's time for a blog in which I misunderstand a sport...again.

But first, let me take you back. Back to 2005. A world before TOWIE. A better and happier place. On 6/7/2005 Britain and France both waited tensely to find out who would be hosting the 2012 Olympics. To my young, uneducated mind there was no question about it, it should definitely be Ant & Dec. Alas, I had misunderstood for comedy purposes, it was to decide what country was to host the Olympics. For those who don't want to know the result look away now: We won. Queue footage of Seb Coe jumping up and down shouting "IN YOUR FACE!" at some Frenchies - is there anything more British? Even I can appreciate a good thrashing of the French. The best bit though is that, due to every company in the world wanting to associate themselves with the Olympics brand, EDF is now a major sponsor. So brilliantly, we won it but the French are still having to pay for it (EDF standing for Energy Du French or something, look you do the research, you're the one who cares about sport). In a way, we've all ready won.

But how did we defeat the French to the bid? Well, it seems by saying the word "legacy" more times than they did. The committee (hereafter referred to as Coe and co.) proved that London 2012 would have an impact long after the games and repeats of the games during rain intervals in the cricket have faded away. They hoped it would help with the ever-expanding obesity crisis by promoting sport and physical activity. Something at odds with the Olympics' other commitments to promoting McDonald's and Coca-Cola. Take it from a guy who used to work in Harvester, a sixteenth of an apple in a little bag is not a salad and while I love that McDonald's have never really committed to the whole healthy living thing (because nobody really wants them to) it does seem massively stupid for them to be sponsoring the world's biggest sporting event. The Olympics conjures up images of great sporting achievement, of great power, of history, of legacy (oh God, I'm becoming one of them), of human strength and power and brilliance, the official restaurant of that should, at the very least, be somewhere you have to book in advance, have table service and where the staff don't look at you like you've just shat on the table if you ask to see the wine list. McDonald's is delicious - up there on my list of favourite restaurants - but I wouldn't take thousands of visiting athletes and sports fans there if they came over to visit, we'd probably splash out on a curry or Chinese, something properly British.

Before we could have our Olympics, the Chinese had to hold their Beijing 2008 games. Annoyingly for us, it went incredibly well and the closing ceremony was just amazing. It ended with the most amazing fireworks ever. But a lot of people in London have recently been forced, against their wishes, to have a load of ground (well roof) to air missiles installed on their roof for the Olympics, so if that doesn't top Beijing's fireworks, I don't know what will.

Then, like the "19 Years Later" bit of the final Harry Potter film, the brilliance and beauty of the final instalment of the games was ruined by an unwanted, unneeded, badly performed little add on. Boris Johnson. He turned up to give a speech about Wiff-waff and about wanting to see men carrying oxen through the Olympic stadium, killing them with their bare hands and eating them. All the time Lord Coe stood behind him regretting being so damn successful at outbidding the French while Gordon Brown tried to keep his face out of shot. To my mind, the best bit of the Olympics.

Because the TV news, advertising industry, newspapers, pre-existing clocks or our memory wasn't going to be doing it constantly over the next few years, a big clock was built in Trafalgar square to count down to the opening ceremony, and almost straight away the clock stopped and someone had to be sent to find some AA batteries. Just in case you were thinking that I was making it up or describing the plot of brilliant comedy series Twenty Twelve...You'd be right...but by incompetent coincidence:

That sitcom/mockumentary also featured an hilarious episode where a bus transporting Olympic officials got lost in London's new Olympic transport system and took a whole four hours to arrive at the Olympic stadium so some of it is obviously just farcical and over the top.

From Kerron Clement, the American hurdler's, Twitter

Also, in  the news today: in the hotel where the German relay team were staying a Moose's head fell onto the proprietor's head and after a disastrous fire drill left him concussed he became very racist towards the German team despite his protestations that they started it.

So the stadiums have been built and sold to various football clubs to use after the Olympics, because, as a country, we're like kids at Christmas demanding the very expensive thing that cool ol' China's got, but we know we'll play on it once and then wont use it again, but it'll be nice to say we had it. Team GB have taken time out from their busy advert-filming schedules to do some training and we're nearly ready to go. Time then for the Olympic flame to be sent all the way from Greece. We did try and tell them that we all ready have fire over here (in fact some young people demonstrated this clearly on the streets of London about this time last year) but they said it had to be lit by the sun traditionally and we said "yeah, we don't have that." So they sent us some of their fire for people to carry around the UK on the end of a stick. The best of British, the formerly horrifically ill and Will.I.Am carried it. People who had an impact on British culture, great musicians, actors, television personalities or people who'd bravely overcome some kind of crippling illness ran about the country with it. I went to see the flame being carried past a second hand shop in Cheltenham. First up was a Coca-Cola bus full of people getting the crowd going and handing out free bottles of Coca-Cola or in my case, disappointingly, Coke Zero. Next up was a Panasonic bus, after the Coca-Cola one I was hopeful of people giving out free TVs, but instead I got a paper flag. Deeply upsetting, but not quite so bad as being given Coke Zero. Then a bus of other torch carriers came through and we politely wooped and waved our flags so they would think we knew who they were. Next up was a crew of skateboarders (I checked my watch, but it wasn't the 90s) who skated in formation along the route. They were very good, I thought, I sensed a lot of preparation had gone into this bit. Just goes to show that I know nothing about the Olympics, because they were shortly escorted off the road by the police and given slapped wrists all round. Finally, it was Samsung quad bikes (cool), Police motor bikes (cool), and a lady carrying the torch (warm - it's a torch!!). More woops and flag waving and then off to Nandos before going home to try and buy the Torch off ebay.

Interesting fact: the Torch relay is a relatively new tradition launched in the 1936 Berlin Olympics. The most controversial Olympics ever maybe, but you can bet they didn't have the problems with security we've been reading about in the last week. So this Friday is when it all kicks off and one day you'll be able to tell your grandchildren "I was there!" or if you work for G4S "I wasn't there." Danny Boyle has put together an opening ceremony that promises to be very British, worrying as the last image of Britain he created was set on the drug fuelled council estates of Glasgow. Possibly the only time in games history where urine tests will be done for the opening ceremony. Probably the only bit I will watch is in fact the opening ceremony. Danny Boyle has promised that it will be typically British and will feature clouds and real grass, so that's something to look forward to. Especially if this clip from rehearsals showing David Cameron and the disembodied voice of Boris Johnson is anything to go buy. The Olympics will light up London, if only they hadn't bought energy saving lightbulbs:

"Ping-pong is coming home!"-Boris Johnson
"So no basically, it's all good"-Ian Fletcher, Head Of Deliverance 2012.

If you're wondering why I haven't mentioned this Olympic logo/random bit of graffiti, it's because...where do you start?