Fringe Benefits - Day 4

Previously on this blog: Meeting people. Late night French comedy. The best and worst shows ever. "I'm trying to hook you into this story now before it just turns into reviews of comedy shows...shouldn't have said that. Fuck. It's got a shocking ending, I promise" and a review of a queue right after I told you I wouldn't review a queue. What am I like?

Day 4 - Big Sean, Mikey and Me - The Turret - 1:30PM

Another early in the day one-man play, another disappointingly small audience. Aside from it's good reviews, a lot of the reason I went to see this was that the man himself was handing out the leaflets and was really friendly and chatty. Over the years, a few of the shows I've taken punts on have been shows promoted by the performer themselves, because they are so much better than, for example, the uninterested woman who was handing out a pile of leaflets and thought the best way to make us go and see these acts was to, atrociously, repeat some of their gags with zero% intonation and about 15% recall of the actual jokes. The passionate, funny, star of the show is always more likely to get me to go and that's what happened this time.

Big Sean, Mikey and Me is a play that opens by explaining that it isn't a play, but is a man simply telling his true story. The show's star, Ruaraidh Murray, tells the story of his misspent youth and growing up in the "Edinburgh the tourists don't see." After some of what he said, I felt pleased that I was leaving Edinburgh that very night if I'm honest. It's a story of an out-of-work actor trying to rebuild his life. It's very working class, Scottish and involves stories of his cocaine abuse (why wont someone be kind to that poor coke, everyone abuses it). Inevitably, I'm going to have to compare it to Trainspotting. It's quite like Trainspotting. Given that the description in the program features a review by Irving Welsh, I don't think Murray would mind the comparison. And it has its own uniqueness, enhanced by the fact that it's true and that here we see the result of the man who became an actor. His relationship with his friend Mikey and immaginary friend Sean Connery are both touching and funny. He remembered us after the show, and even recalled Ben's name, from the previous day too. A gent and a good actor. What more do you want?

My Stepson Stole My Sonic Screwdriver - Billiard Room - 3:10PM

I shook off my travelling companions - who went to see a sketch show featuring one of the impro-people from Monkey Toast - in order to wallow in some geekiness and see Toby Hadocke's second Doctor Who themed stand-up show. You don't have to be a Doctor Who fan to enjoy this show, if you're not the kind of person who will be annoyed if they don't get every little reference that is. It is surprisingly accessible and what Toby is really doing is telling the story of becoming step-father to a deaf child and bonding through Doctor Who while working through some issues he has with his own absent father (who he discussed in his first Doctor Who show). It's clever stand-up and about my favourite TV show ever. It makes me both want to embrace fully my love of Doctor Who and shout about it a lot more than I already do too much, and also realise my obsession is nothing compared to the Toby Hadocke's of this world.

Putting aside the Doctor Who fan part of my brain and activating the comedy fan side for a moment (there's not much else in my head. 45% Doctor Who. 45% Comedy. 10% Wank-bank.) it taught me the importance of not letting yourself deviate too far from your routine, as at one point Toby threw a large mug full of water over his face and then, embarrassed, explained he'd forgotten a joke earlier on in which he was meant to take a big swig of drink.

Tom Thum: Beating The Habit - E4 Udderbelly - 6:45PM

This is another one that we took a punt on because we were given a leaflet by someone who made it sound interesting. Tom Thum is a beatboxer. Now normally, I wouldn't be too fussed about seeing a beatboxer. Frankly, I'm a bit over it, but the woman giving out the leaflets sold it to us as something a bit special, the reviews were good, and fuck it! It's Edinburgh, take a risk. I'm not disappointed that I did. He was very good. The reason, I think, I don't like beatboxers (anymore, I used to) is that I've seen it be done a fair few times now and, for me, it's not a novelty or rare skill any more. But the thing with Tom Thum is he doesn't just have a talent, he has an act. Not only does he seem capable of making any noise known to man or not, he's written a show around it, with film inserts, cover versions, dub, a vague story linking it all together and plenty of jokes and charm. When old farts ask "What can you actually do with that?" Tom Thum is one of the beatboxers who can answer that question well. I hope more follow his model.

Andrew Lawrence Is Coming To Get You - Pleasance One - 8:50PM

We're into the last run of shows for our festival experience 2012, and in one of the bigger fringe venues at the  Pleasance. There are benches instead of chairs delaying the start of the near sell-out show as people had to be told to shuffle along a bit to make room for everyone. Andrew Lawrence wins the award for probably the most depressing act of the fringe 2012. It's a very good show, but a show about how we should all be depressed and miserable and how life ultimately sucks. To the tune of If You're Happy And You Know It: "Life's a shithole and you know it. Kill yourself." He also talks quite a bit about depression and mental illness in comics, because that's the subject of a BBC3 documentary he's presenting soon. He was very disparaging about that as he was about everything. To be honest, he made jokes about the link between mental illness and performers but didn't really go into much depth. It would have been interesting to explore it deeper, I guess the question though is would it have been funnier and it would be hard to imagine it being funnier than Andrew's material. I guess we have to wait to for the documentary to add the depth, though as Andrew says "It's on BBC3 so it's not a real documentary, and will be vapid and empty and probably called something like 'chuckling spastics.'"

If you think he's being overly disparaging towards his own show, you should have heard the abuse he dished out to a couple of performers from the free fringe in his audience. A particular bit where he refused to let a performer evade the question of her venue capacity was awkward and hilarious. It turned out to be around 60. "Sixty? Look around at this." Good stuff. Last time I saw Andrew Lawrence he was on stage for about two and a half hours (possibly a figure boosted by a long heckle battle where he got into a hilarious fight with a naive drama teacher and someone else weighed in to get some funny abuse too) and he definitely wants to deliver value for money, so having started 10 minutes late, we left about 15 minutes late. And we had another show to get to. Luckily the route to that venue was mainly downhill.

Marcel Lucont: Gallic Symbol - Belly Button - 10:25PM

Fortunately this show was also late to start, but with another show to see right after this, we were definitely getting a work out on our last day in Edinburgh, and with no time for a meal between shows either - probably a good thing given the amounts we'd consumed earlier in the week.

I digress (again). Yes, it is the French character we'd seen the previous night, this time we were back to see his full show. In the 21 hours or so since this guy first made his mark on us, we'd learnt some more facts about him. His face appeared on another poster for the stand-up show of Alexis Dubus - if you assumed that that was another character you're in good company, so did we, but that's this guys real name. Still two shows at Edinburgh is pretty impressive, for someone we haven't heard of. Plus Marcel Lucont's Cabaret Fantastique which he did at weekends. We had other engagements forcing us to give that one a miss, but I hope to one day see it as it's blurb describes it as "containing magic and tits."

There were few jokes from his set the previous night in this show and we were treated to different stories, different poems and different songs, and a brilliant routine where he did some English jokes for the English audience - these were all based on French stereotypes of the English and were fantastique. He has won the Amused Moose Comedy Award at the fringe which gains him £5000 for the advancement of his comedy career and a DVD deal, so I hope soon you will all have heard of him, because it's no fun saying "ha, I saw him first," about a guy who hasn't been on TV, and Marcel or Alexis or whatever his name is, deserves fame, after just enough obscurity to make me still special that is.

Reginald D Hunter: Work In  Progress and Niggas - Pleasance One - 11:50PM

The last show of the fringe for us was fortunately another late starter. And way back in the first instalment of this blog, I remember promising you a shocking ending, this is it: This show was not good.

Yes, Reginald D Hunter, was a let down. I've seen his stand-up a couple of times and was very much looking forward to his 2012 show, but naturally it had sold out, so we went to one of his extra shows later at night after his regular performance and it was weird. He'd had a fair bit to drink, this was evident from the moment he strolled on stage late with a plastic cup of "water" and before starting his show asked for another vodka for when he finished that one. That's right, he had two glasses of neat vodka on the stage from the start of the show! In setting up the show he talked about how he would use the word "niggas" a lot to mean idiots, and "faggotry" a lot to mean "hassle, stupidity, undue stress." As a thing about reclaiming those words it was unusual and uninteresting, but from a master like D Hunter it should be good and lead to good things. He started with some all right observational stuff about the recent John Terry racist stuff in the news. I get the feeling this would be sharper and more insightful without the voddy, but it was just sort of all right. Then he talked about people who ask him if Paul Merton, Ian Hislop or Stephen Fry are nice and how if your lowest expectations for someone is that they're nice, that's meaningless. Anyone can be nice and polite. There were a few awkward laughs in this routine. A lot of the room seemed to enjoy it, I really struggled to laugh as he sort of trailed off into man-in-a-pub "and-another-thing" ranting mode.

So far so weird. But then things started to get dark. He talked about women. Women he'd slept with, a woman who had his lovechild, a woman who tried to blackmail him, Margaret Thatcher... everything about this whole thing was uncomfortable and, although some people seemed to be enjoying it, very unfunny. I'm not sure why it was getting any laughs at all. It was horrible to watch this great witty man being so much closer to the drunken idiot who has something "important to tell you about life, and trust me I've been there." He seemed to have forgotten to make jokes, it almost seemed as though he'd forgotten he was saying this to a room full of paying punters. He was giving his opinions and telling rambling stories that only vaguely seemed to have a point (and didn't have a point comedically). Near the end of the show, he asked for another (3rd) glass of Vodka and described the man who came on to bring it to him as one of the few friends in life he could properly trust. If you read that and are thinking we were seeing a guy spoofing the stereotypical drunk, we certainly weren't. He was persuaded by a heckler to down that vodka, and then just started hitting on members of his audience. When a comedian says "I would like to smell your pussy," it's really weird, shocking to the point of getting a laugh, when he carries on speaking you kinda really wish this show would be over soon. Fortunately it was. As we left my main thought was "what have we just seen?"

I've now filed it in the category of "Only in Edinburgh." I've seen terrible acts die on stage, I've seen good acts die on stage, and I've seen comedians being very drunk before, but that felt like something we definitely shouldn't have seen. There were lots of unexpectedly brilliant things about this festival, and all the ones I've been to, but that was unexpectedly disastrous. I wonder if the guy throwing out free T-Shirts to the crowd at the end of the show thought of it as damage control, to make us leave happy. I don't imagine he does that after many gigs.



Weird end to the week, but what a week it had been! I am definitely going back next year and it has actually inspired me to write more and try and be funny, and one day I'd like to be in Edinburgh as a performer (it's a quicker, more efficient way of losing your money than buying tickets, but only just). It's a beautiful city of American tourists and awesome architecture, but I feel little inclination to go there between September and July. A lot of the acts I've mentioned are on tour, and I recommend most of them, so go and see them. Or go and take a punt on a comedy night with no names you recognise as I intend to.

Fringe Benefits - Day 3

Previously on my Edinburgh Blog: We met Paul Merton! Then we Met Suggs! We briefly met a man who is pictured below (or maybe not. No he is, I just wanted to build some suspense). I got picked on for not taking the fact actress, Sue Johnstone had to take a month off work seriously enough. I had a lot of Buckybombs and danced till it, quite seriously, hurt.

Day 3 - My Elevator Days - Pleasance Upstairs - 12:30PM

Before 1PM is considered early at the Edinburgh Fringe Festvial. It's like a ghost town. The mornings are the times when the locals come out and do their shopping safe from flyers. The pleasance was deserted apart from the people who worked there and the twelve people who had come to see this play. It was a one man play and for a while, me and Ben sat outside worrying that the audience might be double the size of the cast. It was not the size of crowd this man deserved. Partly because of the time of day and also competing with all the comedy names that surrounded him at the pleasance. But it was a very good play and he was a very good actor. The play is a monologue about a man who became friends with an elevator (sounds weird, but it makes sense in the show. Basically he would talk to the elevator and be comforted by the sound of it, but it has much more to do with this guy who spent his entire - pretty lonely - life on the sixth floor of a tower block). It's pretty clever, it has a lot of witty lines, often revolving around the fourth-wall-breaking that he establishes in the opening line that he is talking to us, the audience. He asks us questions from time to time, none of which we're meant to answer. I wonder if he really is talking to us or just talking to himself coz he's a bit lonely and mad. I also wonder if that really matters. Or if it's worth telling you an opinion of it, since you haven't seen the play probably...I think I'm turning into him a bit now. Look out for a production of it, you'll like it. Plus at the end he brings on a cute dog as part of the punchline to a very funny, yet character defining, story.

The Early Edition - E4 Udderbelly - 2PM

Today was going to be busy day. We had a lot of shows to pack in and about 20minutes to hot-foot it from the Pleasance to the big, upside-down, purple cow in Bistro Square. The Early Edition is a live spin-off from the TV series The Late Edition. No, didn't expect you to have heard of it, it was dropped from BBC4's schedules because it had no viewers, because they never bothered to tell anyone it was on. It was hosted by one of my favourite comedians and even I didn't discover it until halfway through the last series. It was basically The Daily Show (don't tell me you don't watch that one either. 10:30 Comedy Central Extra. Er...Daily), but British.

The Early Edition is another Edinburgh show I've been back to see several times. It's hosted by Marcus Brigstocke, who charmingly signed my ticket when I saw the show a few years ago. And I still have, kept safe, the ticket signed by Rcus Stocke, and if the steward who ripped the stub off on the way in still has it, please get in touch. Originally this show was really the only comedy show you could/should go and see in the morning, but as I say, the streets aren't exactly packed in the am. The format is simple. Rcus Stoke and Andre Vincent and guests, read the daily newspapers "and the Mail as well" and tell us what's in them. Humour ensues. To be honest, the humour was kind of subdued that afternoon. I think partly because it was still relatively early for the fringe hardcore and neither of the guests were that famous. Carrie Quinlin (who writes on The Now Show) was one of them and although a popular guest on that show, I'm not a big fan of her. Kevin Day (who writes for Buzzcocks, Stand Up For The Week and Strictly) was the other guest. He was pretty funny, but not a star name, and evidently someone who is better at writing jokes than he is at performing them. All of this meant that the big upside-down cow we were in was half empty. Not a great atmosphere, but still a very funny show, mostly because of Prince Harry's involvement in the weeks news.
It ended on a bit of a dull note with Rcus opening it up to audience questions and someone asking where they got the bottled water they were drinking from and how much they paid for it. It's hard to tell if he was offering to do business with them ("I could have got that much cheaper for you") or thought that it would lead to genuine showstopping satire. It didn't really.

Juana In A Million - 10 Dome - 4:15PM

A bit of a gap between shows let me, finally, get some breakfast. The most sugary banoffee waffle I have ever had. If I, many years in the future, suffer from diabetes, I'm pretty sure doctors will trace it back to that waffle shed in Edinburgh. It was nice though. Next up was Juana In A Million at the Pleasance Dome which as far as I can make out is the University Of Edinburgh's SU the rest of the year. The 10 Dome is a claustrophobic room upstairs in the venue. It consisted of about 10 rows of seating (average, or perhaps above average for fringe venues) and a stage that was the size of a cupboard, and I'm not talking walk-in here, I'm talking the little ones you get in the side of some desks. It was another one person play, although a guy in the corner provided additional voices and music. I always like live music in a play. It's adds quite a bit of atmosphere and specialness (you can use a better word if you like) to a live performance.

Juana In A Million is based on the true stories of immigrants into the UK and follows the story of Juana, a Mexican immigrant who moves to the UK for a better life with, it's no spoiler to say, mixed results: mostly it's not good for her though. We were undecided about whether we wanted to go to this show. It was a must see according to The Stage on the one hand, on the other hand, it has that title. It turned out to be very good. These kind of plays can be rather uncomfortable to watch, I think that's the point, and this one certainly was at some points, Vicky Araico Casas is a really terrific actress which doesn't make it any more easy going. She flips from one character to another very smoothly and uses little ticks and grand movements to signal who she is. But there's also a lot of darkly funny bits in this, that prevent it from slipping too far into sob story territory. There are stories about an incredibly smelly woman who shares a bed with Juana in the home they're forced to live in, and Casas plays the chef in the restaurant where she works, who is constantly making sexual remarks and asking her to suck his dick, with a bit of dark humour, that gets less funny the more it's repeated - totally intentionally. All of this makes the really proper dark plot twists, feel much more horrible. There's a fair amount of dance drama and physical theatre in this, as a rule those are things I don't like, and it's not much different here. I think having it rammed down my throat too much doing A Level drama might be the cause, or it might be that I just prefer natural and real things. That let this down in my eyes - though it's obviously a matter of personal taste - and meant that this morning's much more natural performance of a man who was best friends with a lift remains my favourite, because it's er...more realistic, oddly.

Greg Proops - Elegance - 6:15PM

While buying tickets to this show we bumped into Kristen Schaal from Flight Of The Conchords and took our celebrity stalking trip to new levels by stalking a celebrity famous for playing a celebrity stalker. As a result of this meta-stalk, I can confirm that that is her real voice and that she is very charming and seemed genuinely impressed that we liked Madness because she thought we were too young for them. Oh yeah, we were telling everyone that we'd met Suggs, even other famous people we met. We didn't exactly phrase it "Yeah, you're good but..."

Greg Proops Watch: Sighting #2. This has to be the best looking of all the venues we visited. It was a giant big top with lots of elegant Victorian-circus feeling decor. But the downside is that it was a tent. A tent next to another tent where Glastonbury from the 70s seemed to be going on. This visibly annoyed and distracted Greg Proops throughout as the noise from their show sometimes drowned out his. It impacted on the reaction some of his best jokes should have got, because he's a really good comedian with a really good comic style, but was clearly being put off his stride a lot. It didn't make the show not funny, nothing could make Proops not funny, but it didn't exactly do him any favours. Still the crowd enjoyed it. The stage also had three sides but everyone was sat on one side, which made it less initimate than many Edinburgh shows, especially as Proops is one to wander about the stage while he speaks and that meant there were times when he was obscured by a pillar holding up the tent roof. To summarise, a very good comedian - someone who I knew from improv but had never seen doing stand-up before and was very impressed and amused by what I saw - but let down by a rather too shitty venue.

Andrew Maxwell: That's The Spirit - George Square Theatre - 9:05PM

This show was in a much better venue, and for once it was a venue that's probably a venue all year around rather than someone's bedroom, a gym or a storage cupboard. Our various meetings with celebrities led to an over-inflated ego and sense of our own fame and importance, and this, together with the poor signposting in the venue led to us attempting to accidentally walk in via the backstage door. The man we were following had to direct us the right way, "Thank you Mark Watson," we said (for it was he) and made some jokes at him, as if to prove we could have used the comedian's entrance if we'd wanted to, he laughed and Ben got the last laugh, which we agree is nice, because the comedian wasn't desperate to get the funny line in.

The show itself consisted of a lot of stories about conspiracy theories - Andrew had recently filmed a BBC documentary on the subject - and crazy redneck Americans. It was interesting and funny. A guy from the audience shouted out to confirm he was an SNP supporter but then fell silent and struggled to describe any of their policies under the polite questioning of Andrew Maxwell, it sort of played to my stereotypes of anyone supporting a party that ends in NP. To be honest, I don't remember much of this show, when you've seen a lot of Edinburgh shows you start to lose track of them and the tiredness from the night before was kicking in at this stage in the evening. You also start to notice it feel weird to laugh. A few days after I arrived back in WGC, I developed a sore throat which I put down to comedians being too hilarious. The beginning of that sore throat was felt during this gig, and that made me a bit self-concious about my stupid loud laugh and feel guilty about the pain I must put you in when you are in my presence for a long time. (HA! The last bit is ironic self-ego-inflating shite, don't worry about it).

Monkey Toast: The Improvised Chat Show - 10 Dome - 11:05PM

Determined not to let my declining health or tiredness stop me laughing, we decided to return to our claustrophobic room in the SU for some late night comedy. I wasn't sure what to expect of this show, but it's format was different and quite good. The host, David Shore, interviewed a couple of guests who were other comics performing at the fringe and then a team of six improvisers and a pianist would improvise scenes based around the guest's life stories. The start of this show didn't fill me with confidence. Everyone jumped, skipped and ran onto the stage waving. I hate that kind of thing. Boundless enthusiasm is not a particularly British style and it feels a little bit too much like they're trying to force us to be happy and shouting "We're fun!" aggressively in your face. But the show is Canadian in origin and so is probably very American influenced and that's the kind of thing they like isn't it? All too often American comedy acts zany because they mistake zany for actually humourous.

The first guest was Naz Osmanoglu. I'd seen him before as part of the sketch group Wittank and he was a gift to the improvisers, on account of being a half-Turkish prince who is 19th in line to the Turkish throne living his life in exile. This was probably not what the improvisers normally had to work from, but they came up with some brilliant stuff for him. We were sat in the front row, left hand corner, right in front of the desk where David and Naz (please, call him Mr Osmanoglu) were sat doing the interview so during the improvised scenes I was always distracted by watching how Osmanoglu (the G is silent) was reacting to them.

About half way through the show Naz left to a round of applause and was replaced by the next guest. Greg Proops Watch: Sighting #4. But "hark, what is this treachery?!" I hear you cry, "you were only on two sightings of Proops. What happened?" Let me take you far, far back in the sands of time to half an hour previously. While queuing for the show we saw Proops in the wild. The not-usually-a-venue nature of many of these places forces the comedian to walk past the queue to get backstage. Proops was in a hurry, but polite and friendly and shook our hands. I had planned not to wash them again from that moment on, but that would require me to never use the toilet again and I couldn't go back through the airport struggling to walk because my anus was full.

Proops was, as ever, an informed and opinionated guest but the best story, that stood out for us, was his recollections of a terrible venue he'd performed in earlier than night and a tantrum, not to mention a chair, he'd thrown in rage when he'd come off stage. It was great to get hear some follow up to Proops sighting #2 and the improvisation that the improsarios (I was getting bored of saying improvisers) did recreating his tantrum made him cry with laughter. Fun was had by all, especially Mr Proops, who happened to plug his podcast, that he would be recording in the Soho theatre shortly after we returned home. As a footnote to this I want to point out Proops Sighting #5, which at this point is the most recent, where he walked around the audience and introduced himself to everyone before performing his podcast and, once again, shook my hand and we told him it was the fourth time we'd seen him and reminded him of his tantrum. He gave us a shout out. Listen to the episode in question, called Gates, here: http://itunes.apple.com/gb/podcast/the-smartest-man-in-the-world/id401055309?mt=2

After Hours Comedy - Ace Dome - 00:40AM

Another room in the SU, this time with a bar in it: lovely. A late night comedy show promising four of the best acts from the fringe, all doing around 25 minutes of material. I say late night, but obviously it's more early morning. The ticket respected that fact by listing the date of the show as ""Thu 23 August 2012."" I approve of it's use of inverted commas as a way of saying "because it's simpler and we all know what it means we're going to act like it's still Thursday because you haven't been to bed yet" but pleasing the pedants as well. If only we could all pay more attention to the needs of pedents and not needlessly do childish things to whind them up.

Prior to the show, now ever ready to spot a celebrity, we see a boy without tape on his face. In the show the  compare is one of those young comedians who's been on things, but to be honest, I didn't take much of a liking to him and failed to do him the respect of remembering his name in this whole list of comedians. Sorry. Also, earlier in this multi-part blog I said how privleged I felt to be included in comedians shows or "picked on" as people say. The reason I sort of prefer picked on is because the comic has chosen to have a dialogue with you and engage in a bit of banter. It's they're show, they're in charge. Not that I'm against heckling - in fact the last time I was in this venue, I saw the single worst comedy night I have seen, as act after act got heckled off the stage. At one point a double act were going so badly that there was a queue to leave the room, when the straight man from the double act jumped off the stage and joined the back of the queue, instantly reversing the roles of his double act and becoming the funniest part of the night.

I digress (a lot you may have noticed), but my point is there was some knob in the front row who after a brief chat with the compare suddenly believed himself to be the star of the show and would shout out intermittently throughout the gig and attempted at one point to follow the compare onto the stage. He was annoying, but I guess you come to expect that at a late night comedy gig, especially in Edinburgh, everyone's a bit drunk. To his credit, the compare who I didn't like, handled the guy well.

First act on Marcel Lucont. A Frenchman. Well, in actual fact probably an Englishman playing a Frenchman doing jokes about the English. It sounds like a fairly average premise, but thrown in are some poetry, smugness and the fact that - by his own admission - this was his fourth show and he was a little bit drunk. Not surprising as he was accompanied at all times on stage by a glass of red (naturally). I took a massive liking to this character from the off. Very funny character comedy, and I do enjoy discovering new acts at Edinburgh.

Next up was Edinburgh Fringe favourite, award-winner The Boy With Tape On His Face. Being from the past, I love silent comedy, and this guy does silent comedy with audience participation very well. To say too much about his act ruins it slightly for people who might go and see it. But the general act is that he gets people on stage, gives them some props and makes them do something funny. It's all very friendly and I was genuinely a little bit shocked that somebody in the audience refused it. I don't know how - I really must learn his secret - but The Boy manages to create an atmosphere where it's actually not so bad to be called up to the stage. Maybe it's a mix of light-hearted silliness or the fact that you are the centre of attention while you're there. The only awkward bit is when he forced two random strangers to kiss on the stage, but even so, I think they both enjoyed it. Or maybe it was when he repeatedly got the heckler from earlier up only to send him away again immediately. Finally, he got the guy up to perform. He did one of his routines that he's done on TV, where he blindfolds the guy and then puts on some glasses with a basketball hoop and a ball on some string on and nods his head trying to get the ball in the hoop, all the while the blindfolded guy assumes we're laughing at him, but doesn't know why. Simple. Brilliant. Then the guy made some comment into the microphone and the boy seemed very annoyed. This prick had to have the last word, despite just being made the star of the show. In a word, wanker.


Next time: Imaginary friends, Doctor Who and that (relatively) shocking end to our trip.

But What Of The Legacy?

So, the Olympics is over (well for a little bit, but sad though it is, the Paralympics wont be as popular) and it was really rather good. I came the closest I have ever come to having an actual fitness regime: I watched some sport live on the telly and I got a little bit into some of it. Anyway, I realise my last blog on the subject was somewhat angry and I feel like I should end on something more optimistic. They ended on The Who so I couldn't end on "Jan Moir is a fucking troll," however true it is, it's not in the spirit of things. Even when you take into account how much the BBC killed the mood by following the closing ceremony with this trailer:

"Say, did you enjoy that festival of sport, optimism, national pride and joy? Well, that's over now, but if you enjoyed that maybe you'll like this...? MURDER!!!"

So, going forward and looking at the positive and concentrating on the legacy, here's my blog about life after the Olympics. A lot of plans have been discussed about the future of the Olympic park. The stadium can be sold to a football team, despite the running track that put teams off (my solution would be to have football and running on at different times, but what do I know?), the top of the stadium can come off, the aquatics centre will be opened up to the public, a lot of the buildings can be taken down and shipped to Brazil for their remake of the Olympics and the athletes will be sold off to chat shows (Gold medalists to Jonathan Ross, Silver to Graham Norton, Bronze to Alan Carr's Chatty Man, non-medalists to The One Show). All good, but there's one area they've missed. The BBC set-up 24 new Olympics channels. My usual pessimistic, angry blog writing style would worry they will show 24 different repeats of Murder, She Wrote to choose from. But in my post-Olympics optimistic position, I have great ideas for the BBC's new sports channels. As I felt a bit left out by all you sports fans, here are some games I would put on those channels now the Olympics is over. What do you think? What would you put on instead?

BBC Olympics 1: Hide and Seek

An overlooked classic of British sport.
The rules: one person is elected to be the seeker (using the Olympic standard Ip-Dip-Doo deciding method) the others hide (and immediately feel the urge to pee when they get into their spot). The seeker counts to 100 (using the Olympic standard 1 Mississippi, 2 Mississippi counting method) and then goes in search of the others. Once found, hiders can choose whether to help the "seeker" find the others or follow them around being annoying the rest of the game. The first hider to be found becomes the seeker next time around.
How it works in the Olympics: The Olympics is sport on a bigger, grander scale than anything else. Players can hide anywhere in London. Gold is awarded to the person who stays in place the longest. Bonus points are scored for any successful "desperate dashes" to a new hiding place.

BBC Olympics 2: International Kiss Chase

Based on the misguided belief of children and gays, that being kissed by a girl is the worst thing that can happen, this sport is a keep-fit celibacy classic on the primary school playgrounds of Great Britain.

The Rules: Athletes of each gender chase each other attempting to embarrassingly kiss them in front of their friends and teachers while not being kissed themselves. 

How It Works In The Olympics: Well, everything I've read suggests that the Olympic village is a great orgy of the fittest people in the world anyway, so why not capitalise on that and make it into a sport? The only draw backs are that after primary school being chased by a girl is less of a threat to a man and being chased by a man is more of a threat to a lady. Also cooties.

BBC Olympics 3: MarioKart

There's a notable lack of motor sports in the Olympics, but Italy's finest have invented a unique, explosive and slippery twist on the sport of motor-racing.

The Rules: There are 8 cups, consisting of 32 courses with varying degrees of difficulty, gravity and physics in general. It's a more interesting sport than F1 because of it's inclusion of variations in terrain. Tracks are built on ice, in jungles, on beaches, in factories, in castles, in a shopping centre, in space and on some haunted planks of wood to name but a few. Drivers can also pick up boxes containing bombs, turtle shells (someone check this with the animal rights people) that can be thrown at opponents, banana skins that people slip on, speed boosts and fake boxes to blow up your competitors.

How It Works In The Olympics: Over two weeks, we were constantly being told how magical the Olympics is, well only this sport will prove it. Prior to the 90s, there were strict rules that Olympic participants had to be amateurs, that was part of the Olympic spirit! And the principle players in this sport all hold down other jobs, plumbing mainly, but also a princess and a toad take part.

BBC Olympics 4: The Intros Round

The closing ceremony of the 2012 London Olympics was a triumph, celebrating all that's best about British music from the last 50 years...and Elbow too, but it seemed a bit odd as there wasn't much music involved in the sporting contest itself. This is my solution.

The Rules: Each country selects a team made up of a c-list musician who wont be famous in three years time, and a c-list presenter who hasn't been famous for three years (Team GB is: Dianna Vickers and Les Dennis). The barely famous singer performs only the introduction of the song and their presenter team mate has to guess the title of the song from the performance. In the event that the competing nation doesn't get it, the question is passed over to Phil's team.

How It Works In The Olympics: Countries perform songs famous in their own country to even the playing field, however Bill Bailey is allowed to distract the presenter by being weird while performing, while Mark Lamar or Simon Amstell will distract the singer by being facetious or highly rude to and/or about them. Each time a team gets the answer wrong and it is passed over to Phil, that team is out of the contest and the last remaining team takes gold. If, at the end of the Olympic fortnight there is a tie:

BBC Olympics 5: Paintball

By the way, that image may look sexy, but she is gonna be covered in tiny round bruises the next day...avoid commitment and be gone by the morning is all I'm saying.

The Rules: Shoot paint at everyone else. Avoid being hit yourself. Take it too seriously. Assume the safety briefing is 90% exaggerated and made up and nobody has actually died from getting paint on the visor, but go along with it because they call themselves "marshals" or "sheriffs" so probably know what they're talking about.

How It Works In The Olympics: England is known for it's idyllic little villages. How hard can it be to evacuate one of those? 2 weeks. 1 village. 4 people to a national team. Some guns. Only supplies found in the village to survive. All out war! Last clean man takes gold. First competitor hit has to do the inevitable cleaning.

BBC Olympics 6: Countdown

Countdown is a traditional British game dating all the way back to the dark ages of the 1980s, as the above picture proves. It's like a triathlon that tests competitors skills with letters, numbers and sitting through Gyles Brandweth's anecdotes.

The Rules: Each nation picks 9 letters, then has 30 seconds to make them into a word. Points are awarded for how long the word is. Bonus points are given for rude words. While extra bonus points are given if you manage to make a rude word come out naturally just by choosing the letters (see below), then some maths.

How It Works In The Olympics: It is hoped that the Olympics will encourage children and young people to participate more in sport and Countdown is tailor made for this. We've all walked past the living room and gone "Countdown sucks.....but wait I have a 6 letter word and if I put the E and R on the end..." and then you're hooked. It's harder to escape than a crack addiction but lasts only 45mins. (Caution, be warned against illegal street Countdown tournaments, these can be dangerous)

BBC Olympics 7: Conveyor Belt

Otherwise known as the last round of The Generation Game.

The Rules: Participants are shown a selection of objects and then have 30 seconds to remember all of them. They win whatever they remember. If they get more than 20 objects, they win a holiday. Teams are required to cheer for the cuddly toy.

How It Works In The Olympics: One of the items on each conveyor belt is a gold medal, in order to win gold, all they have to do is remember it. If Brucie is unavailable, Jim Davidson has some cracking jokes about the foreign teams.

BBC Olympics 8: Musical Chairs

A game traditionally played at children's parties. The above picture is taken from the longest ever game of Musical Chairs, it too started at a children's party.

The Rules: A song (traditionally, an annoying cheesy song, ideally S Club or similar) is played. The participants walk about a bit, then the music is stopped and everyone has to sit down. Each round one seat is removed. The winner is whoever gets the last seat.

How It Works In The Olympics: Scandal struck the opening events of the London 2012 Olympics as newspapers reported on vast numbers of empty seats in the stadium. This would solve that problem by slowly removing those seats at the start of the event.

BBC Olympics 9: Just A Minute

It's on Radio 4, what could be more British. (Oh shut up BBC3. "The Proms are still on you know!" Yeah, do they have the Spice Girls or Mr Bean? No? Well piss off.)

The Rules: Each player has to speak for 60 seconds on a given subject without hesitation, repetition or deviation.

How It Would Work In The Olympics: As with all word games I would suggest for the Olympics, it is made more interesting by having 108 languages spoken at the Olympics. Gold medals go to anyone who can score more points than Paul Merton.

BBC Olympics 10: Pointless

Basically Family Fortunes in reverse, this has become a guilty pleasure of mine that shits all over it's predecessor The Weakest Link by being, if anything too, nice and shits all over Eggheads by not featuring CJ.

The Rules: "Remember this is Pointless so we're looking for the answer the least of our 100 people said." If you do not remember this, fear not, Alexander Armstrong will remind you before, during and after every question.

How It Would Work In The Olympics: In the first competition a bronze medal is up for grabs, but if nobody wins at the end of the episode it rolls over to be a bronze medal and £25. It takes a long time to get a gold. Richard will learn statistics for all the players from all over the world, which will make him very excited. Any country tipped by Richard to win is banned from winning a Gold medal. They may win nothing more than a bronze and must not get to the head-to-head round.

BBC Olympics 11: Knock Down Ginger

Another popular sport among British children that dates all the way back to the past. Known by many other names including ding-dong-dash and knock-a-door-run which may be a more straightforward title, but it's not what it was called by us growing up in Hertfordshire so therefore it's wrong.

The Rules: The rules of Knock Down Ginger (which we will not call Knock-A-Door-Run) are to knock on a door and run.

How It Works In The Olympics: There's an Olympic village right? A whole lot of doors and it's hella difficult to run away from the people who live there. 1 point is scored for every door you successfully run away from (NB. participants must be close enough to see the door open when it does), 2 points are added for the second time someone opens the same door (so 3 points in total), 3 points are scored (6 in total) for the third time and so on...a bonus point is scored for interrupting someone's dinner.

It boils down to a game of laughing at people for opening a door that someone has just knocked on, the fools.

BBC Olympics 12: British Bull Dog

As the name British Bulldog implies, this is the national sport of Great Britain.

The Rules: At each end of the pitch is a safe zone. Participants stand in the safe zone except for one (chosen by the Ip-dip-do, the cat has got the flu method) who stands in the middle. The participants then run across the pitch to the other safe zone while the person in the middle tries to wrestle them to the ground and generally beat the shit out of them. They are now on the "bulldog"'s team and must try and bring others to the ground.

How It Works In The Olympics: It works anywhere. It's basically just a fight but with rules, like boxing or Jeremy Kyle.

BBC Olympics 13: Catchphrase

"Name an Olympic sport..." "Catchphrase!" "Ah, it's good but it's not right."

The Rules: Say what you see, see what you say.

How It Would Work In The Olympics: It probably wouldn't, every country has their own little sayings, it would be near impossible, but I wanted an excuse to watch this clip again. Who wouldn't?

BBC Olympics 14: Pokemon

Everything so far has been preamble to the greatest, game ever invented in any field with the most rock and roll theme tune there has ever been.

The Rules: Competitors, at the age of 10, travel the length and breadth of the country, through woods and caves and cycle tracks, to towns and cities training and capturing small animals en route. In 8 cities they must battle gym leaders and when their team is strong enough they take on the Pokemon league.

How It Works In The Olympics: The Pokemon league even has it's own flame which is carried in relays around the country, in one episode of the TV series President Goodshow (who ironically never wanted to go into showbiz) allows Ash Ketchum to carry the torch which is lit from the fire of legendary Pokemon, Moltres. Like the Olympic Torch this lights a cauldron at the Pokemon Stadium. Sadly even the animators of the several hundred new Poke-creatures couldn't come up with a cauldron cooler than Danny Boyle's but that animation team also designed Officer Jenny who accompanies the relay on her bike so you'll hear no complaints from me.

There are three tiers of Pokemon gaming at the Olympics. Red/Blue (for the purists). Yellow (for those who love a bit of cuteness). Gold/Silver (because of their Olympic colour scheme). Points are awarded for completing the Pokemon league without needing to visit the Pokemon Centre to heal your Pokemon. I don't want to diss Nurse Joy, but I don't like her. The whole "We have healed your Pokemon back to perfect health. We hope to see you again." is polite but frankly a terrible message for a nurse. Bonus points are gained for Pokemon Choice, anyone not choosing the fire Pokemon to start will be thought of as a fool (except competitors in the Women's Gold/Silver contest where Chikorita is acceptable, because it is so damn cute). Zubat tolerance will also be rewarded with bonus points, anyone making it through a cave without swearing or throwing the Gameboy gets a point. Having a balanced team of Pokemon types and not just the first 6 you caught is rare enough to get a point, and having them all equally well trained instead of "Charizard Level 80. Caterpie Level 3. Weedle Level 5. Pidgey Level 12 etc" is also encouraged. Capturing Mewtwo is rewarded handsomely. But only completing the Pokemon league is medal worthy. People playing Pokemon yellow...actually don't worry, you'll still be trying to beat Brock with an electric-type Pokemon long after the closing ceremony. 

By the way, if you're wondering why I didn't include any Pokemon games after Gold/Silver it's because, I was fine with there being more than 150 types of Pokemon - the very name Mewtwo suggests there's a mew out there waiting to be discovered - and Pokemon 151-250 introduced some great new Pokemon. But after that they lost it a bit. They ran out of ideas and just started drawing beards onto their previous designs. Anyway, I'm getting a bit distracted, here is some Pokemon related humour and then let's move on to my last sport.

BBC Olympics 15: The Final Game

As the closing ceremony draws near, each Gold medal won by a team gets their nation 5 seconds in the Crystal Dome. Where they attempt to catch as many little gold pieces of paper as they can. If they have over 100, they get to rule their country for the rest of the next four years.

So those are my suggestions for the BBCs Olympic channels, post-games, there are 9 channels left unaccounted for. What do you think should be on them?

(Please note: I did consider "Sleeping Lions" but not only is not much of a spectator sport, it was found that the North Korean team were cheating...well sort of. It was more their government's doing than theirs)

A lefty, multicultural and crap blog.

The other day there was a thing in London. I don't know if you heard about it, but Danny Boyle put on a little, quiet, unassuming thing to celebrate the opening of the Olympics. It was possible you blinked and you missed it. LOL JK (as cool people and Harry Potter fans say). It was the biggest, loudest, most over the top international show since World War Two. Lady Gaga might even have tweeted "Bit OTT isn't it little monsters?" about it, so crazy and big was it. It started, not with a shout, but with a whisper. A nod to all things British. Glatonbury was not on this year, because Danny Boyle had stolen their hill and put it at one end of the stadium, while the Proms (yeah, they're still going on at the moment, been a tad upstaged though) happened at the other end. Sadly there were no great battles between them on the telly. There were sheep and cricket and clouds. Then it kicked off properly. I don't want to go into too much detail of it here, because I checked and my Twitter feed for the three hours of the opening ceremony takes up 31 pages of A4. But quickly: after a little bit of farming, some people dressed as Abraham Lincoln (or Isambard Kingdom Brunel - doing an impression of Abe Lincoln for a fancy dress party) came on and the industrial revolution happened. Chimneys rose out of the ground and the Olympic rings were forged and launched high into the sky, taking with them 7 years of cultivated British cynicism. As we all had to admit, that's a damn good opening titles sequence. Then the Queen turned the whole country into royalists, by proving she has excellent comic timing and is very up for a laugh - God bless ya ma'am.

Then Mike Oldfield's tubular bells started up and some kids in hospital beds appeared in the arena. As the nation moved behind their sofa's fearing that the kid's heads would start turning round in a mass recreation of The Exorcist a tribute to the glory of the NHS started on TV. Volunteering nurses and kids performed a brilliant choreographed dance sequence including JK Rowling reading to kids as a giant Voldermort - if you fear the name, you've already lost really - rose up and creepy dark creatures stalked between the kiddies beds. It turns out that these were Death Eaters and not as I thought, a representation of MRSA. Luckily, Danny Boyle was prepared to fight them off - well, after He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named disrupted the Quidditch World Cup and Triwizard Tournament a few years ago, did you think we wouldn't come up with a contingency plan? In a wonderful move a fleet of Mary Poppinseses were air-dropped into the stadium to fight them off. A wonderful tribute to the NHS, and Britain's Children's charities. Who could fail to be moved by that?

Well, it turns out the Daily Mail. Yes, I'm as surprised as you that they are grumpy. Thing is, I'd been reading lots of Olympics stuff in the Guardian (yes, I read the Guardian, I also turn off lights when I leave the room, wash my clothes on 30 and regret voting Lib Dem - I'm what the Mail refer to as a 'stupid c**t') and trying to write a script, but because I write best when I'm angry and because I always want to get a fair balance, I thought I'd check out the Daily Mail's, for want of a better word, "thoughts" on the Olympics so far. Frankly what I read would have made Jim Davidson blush. "What did they make of this celebration of the NHS?" I hear you ask like you already know the answer but are humouring me. Well naturally it was appalling. Because did you know someone once died in an NHS hospital? How dare the Olympics include a tribute to the NHS? they raged, "what would Kane Gorny's family think?" Kane Gorny was a man who tragically, horrifically and entirely wrongly died in an NHS hospital bed when nurses failed to get him a glass of water for so long that he eventually dialled 999 from his hospital bed to get help, but was still denied it. It's a genuinely horrible case and not something I'm making light of here, but it was one case. The Mail are basing the fact that the NHS should not be celebrated and is immoral, incompetent and should be shut down (they don't say that, but it's implicit in everything the Daily Mail stands for) on one case where some nurses in one hospital massively and horribly fucked up. Nobody, not even Danny Boyle, is saying that the NHS is perfect. I can't have been the only person to have tweeted the MRSA joke when the Death Eaters arrived, but these are a few incidents that don't stop the philosophy behind the NHS - free healthcare to those who need it - or the majority of the work the NHS does being brilliant, worthwhile, worth celebrating (the rest of the world aren't so lucky. Even with the progress of the Obamacare bill the world's biggest nation are still a long way off).

All of which is frankly preamble, the Daily Mail used it as a way into something else. Let's be honest, there are currently more foreign visitors in our country then ever before, and more nations represented, so it would be a real shame if the Daily Mail didn't rise to the occasion and put their long practised racism skills to some good use. But I get distracted back to that legendary opening ceremony.

Next up we have Tim Berners-Lee. The man who invented the fucking internet is there! That's so awesome. Well, I thought it was. A lot of people didn't know who it was, including the American commentators who said: "Don't know who that is," "Google him." If that had been ironic, it would have been funny. I'm not expecting for everybody to know who Tim Berners-Lee is. I don't think I learnt his name at school, I think I should have, but I didn't. But you'd think maybe the people hired to comment professionally on an event he's part of might have read up on him at least. Especially as NBC waited until the ceremony was over to start showing it. It's not like they couldn't have known what was coming up. But they had an attitude of "We don't know who this guy is, so he's not important," a view I think the British should adopt to Mitt Romney from now on.

Next up, a tribute to the music of Britain since the 1960s. As we see a multi-cultural family evolve over time. Remember when I mentioned the Daily Mail being racist? It's now. "This was supposed to be a representation of modern life in England, but it is likely to be a challenge for the organisers to find an educated white middle-aged mother and black father living together with a happy family in such a set-up." Right...everything about this really. It's wrong. I mean this event is happening in East London, I think it would be a greater challenge for the organisers to avoid finding a happy multi-racial family. But certainly an "educated white mother" wouldn't marry a "[note the lack of the word educated, can they read?] black father," no she'd have read up on them and know that black fathers are no good because of er...well that thing er....they all do it.....er..... I hope how massively sarcastic I'm being here is coming across. What utter bollocks. They're just making shit up.

They went onto complain about a celebration of grime music "(a form of awful electronic music popular among black youths)" well, let's look at that:
1) The inclusion of that implies your readers don't know what grime music is and, as good as, tells them they shouldn't check it out for themselves. "Meh...don't listen to it, you wont like it. Here's an opinion about it I can force on you with no evidence. No need to thank me."
2) "awful" is your opinion - and now your uneducated readers' opinions - and that doesn't mean everyone hates it or that it isn't culturally significant to thousands of people.
3) The gist of this sentence is basically "in my day you could hear all the words." It seems the Mail would prefer a tribute to Britain's musical heritage and development that stopped at We'll Meet Again because they just don't understand this modern rubbish and therefore surely nobody else can.
4) "Popular among black youths." Blimey! It's like Eminem and Elvis never happened in your world isn't it? In my experience, white youths love a bit of grime too. I have done no research into this (it always feels to me that doing research to fight the Daily Mail is unsporting. You wouldn't battle a man with a pointy twig using the Trident Nuclear Defence system) but even without research, I would believe that grime music is probably more popular among black youths than white. It's themes and those who make it being from the same ethnic group, it's bound to have more resonance with some than others. But that doesn't make it any less part of Britain's culture. That doesn't make it exclusive to only black people and even if it did, it turns out Daily Mail, that they're just like us and a bit of musical diversity and inventiveness is worth celebrating and embracing. Who would have thunk it?
5) Frank Turner, Mike Oldfield, The Jam, Eric Clapton, The Rolling Stones, Millie, The Kinks, The Beatles, Mud, The Specials, David Bowie, Queen, The Sex Pistols, New Order, Frankie Goes To Hollywood, The Eurythmics, The Prodigy, West Ham Fans, Blue, Dizzee Rascal, Amy Winehouse, Muse, Tinie Tempah, the London Symphony Orchestra ft. Mr Bean, Arctic Monkeys, Sir Paul McCartney, various classical musicians, tell me again what one type of music was it all about? Because I'm struggling to pick out one specific genre and if I did, it would be rock. Don't just pick one song you hate and use that as a basis to say that the ceremony is hateful because it happens to include things popular with groups you hate.

Germany arrive thinking it's fancy dress

But fear not foreigners, the Daily Mail wouldn't forget you. Because when it came to your turn to walk into the stadium the Mail complained that we were made to sit through hours of teams walking into a stadium from "banana republics" (just when you think they could get no more vile) that we'd neither heard of nor care about. I'm not saying that section didn't drag, my God it dragged. I'd been and made 10 cups of tea during countries starting with A alone and I don't even like tea. By the time Team GB entered the stadium the teams from Afghanistan (good ol' Welwyn boys it turns out) had all ready finished the sports and were starting the closing ceremony! But it did matter, people did care. This is a global televisual event. People from those countries were watching and cheering on their athletes. Their athletes who'd spent at least the last four years, probably their whole lives, training to be there to represent their nation, the least we could do is watch them - or listen to it from the kitchen while we grab another snack. Why not do what me and majority the lefty scum I follow on Twitter did, and listen to the commentary and try and learn some trivia about these places so we know who they are in Brazil next time. Like NBC and their Tim Berners-Lee gaff, the Mail assumes that if we don't know them, and we don't own them any more, then what's the point of them. They don't care and they don't want to and they're the rag that millions of Britons trust every day to keep them informed. I have no punchline, that in itself is a punchline, a joke so horrid if it was on the BBC they'd call for it to be shut down.

I read that article the other day, and it worked, I was angry enough to write 8 minutes worth of a pretty decent script. I didn't feel the need to channel my anger into a blog that would be very angry and political, but then today my friend Luke tweeted at me to tell me the article had been taken off the Mail's website. Maybe, just maybe, this is because they got so many complaints about it and had a change of heart, but in my opinion it was a "lets hide it and pretend it didn't happen and it's not what we really think, coz some of those Guardianistas are kicking up a right fuss," and frankly, I'm just not sure I want to let them get away with it. This blog may not have the most views, but at least somewhere there is a record of what they Daily Mail thought, and definitely continue to think.

I say definitely continue to think, because you don't have to look far for other hints. Jan "He died of gayness" Moir chipped in yesterday with her comments on the pressure put on Team GB, and it started relatively sane and interesting. She suggested that the pressure on Team GB is probably made worse by every news reporter and interviewer banging on about the pressure we put on Team GB. Of course she was unaware of the irony of theorising that in an article about how we probably all talk too much about the pressure put on Team GB, but I can forgive her that. She talks about the pressure on Zara Phillips in particular who "nevertheless still contrives to sound like a bored Essex under-manicurist despite being a) royal and b) taking part in the poshest Olympic sport." It's almost like she only brought up Zara to have a go at her dead-common sounding voice. How dare she sound normal! Not that the rest of us were even in danger of hearing her voice and mistaking it for that of Amy Childs. Especially as sounding bored, implies that frankly she's not feeling the pressure as much as your article about everyone feeling the pressure too much world like us to believe. After a brief section bitching about the face of one of the commentators (careful, Jan, you're no Sam Brick yourself), she goes on to report on Lizzie Armitstead's effort in her cycling event, where maybe the pressure put on Team GB did play a hand in it because she came second to that Dutch rider, what was her name? It's completely slipped my mind. I'll just look at Jan Moir's article to find out. Oh yes "some bitch from Holland." Yeah, stupid bitch, "snatching" a medal from Team GB, we paid for this event....well us and lots of cooperate sponsors, the least you could do is let us win. Fucking Dutch bitch, how unsporting.

The Daily Mail website is good for one thing, and one thing alone. If you want to watch porn but have content restrictions imposed on your computer, you can always find pictures of celebrities in Bikinis disguised as news KATY PERRY SHOWS OFF HER CURVES IN GREEN BIKINI THIS TIME or HER OFF TOWIE WENT ON HOLIDAY, LOOK YOU CAN ALMOST SEE SOME FANNY or of course they always have pictures of Samantha Brick.

Ah go on then, just for you: 

By the way, Marianne Vos, because I do have the respect to find out her name. Well done Holland.

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?