An Olympics Retrospective

So now that the Olympics are over I think it's time to look at the show as a whole and see what we can take from it.

The opening ceremony.

This was a great example of British showmanship at it's best. From start to finish it was a show of all the things that make Great Britain great (and theres not much of that these days) All except the text show, that kind of lost me in its meaning, after all what the hell has teens texting got to do with British culture? But the rest of the show was a true spectacle. Rowan Atkinson doing his comic best as part of the orchestra, the celebration of British music and to cap it off what can be more British than James Bond with the Queen. A moment to make any British Citizen proud. As long as your not one of those left wing, hard done by idiots that thinks we should get rid of the Royal Family. After all they cost us so much money (around 70p each per year) and give nothing back (apart from a huge industry in Royal merchandising, endless tourists and countless business' and trade both to the capital and the country) But hey what do they give us?!?!?!

The sports

For the most part the examples set by the competitors was on the highest level seen in the Olympics yet. All the medal winners truly deserved their medals...... Or did they? It stunned me that on a handful of occasions the people who came fourth threw so much of a tantrum and complained directly to the judges that they were then moved up the table into the third and the original third then became forth. During the hand full of events I watched I saw this happen twice. If I remember correctly it was the Chinese the first time and the Americans the second. I mean come on, these guys came 1st and 2nd in the medal table by quite a bit, didn't they have enough medals without throwing their teddies out of the cot in order to win more, thus depriving other competitors of their chance. In the American example it was a Romanian Gymnast who lost out on Bronze even though the American (even after being re-scored) only managed to equal the Romanians score. And yet the Romanian girl received nothing while the American got Bronze. Oh the irony, the schools constantly tell our kids that its the taking part that's important not the winning and yet there they were, professional athletes live on TV throwing a tantrum, laying on the floor kicking and screaming, spitting out their dummies until somebody took pity on them and gave them a medal depriving the more mature and deserving athletes of their moment in the spotlight. Is this really what we want to show our children, if at first you don't succeed then don't bother trying again just throw a tantrum until you get what you want. And lets not mention the badminton fiasco. Pathetic!

The Closing Ceremony

Well, what do you say about that. A showcase of the best Britain has to offer part 2?????
I don't think so. To start with they played the first handful of songs twice! Britain has produced billions of songs over the last few decades and yet they thought it was fitting to play half a dozen twice rather than get a few extra to play?! Then the real show started, or should I say the real disappointment started.
George Michael kicked things off brilliantly with a rendition of one of his best only to be followed by a piss poor song that nobody had ever heard before. Who thought that was a good idea? Could it get worse?
HELL YES!
Did we get Kate Bush live for the first time in years? No we got some people prancing around to a Kate Bush song. Did they manage to get Bowie out of retirement? No they got a bunch of vein, drug taking anorexic models to prance about on stage to a Bowie classic. Could this thing possibly get worse?
HELL YES!!
Russell Brand, I mean bloody Russell Brand singing a song from Willy Wonka, please the movie is a classic the song was sung originally by the brilliant Gene Wilder and it is and always will be a family favourite. Why let this guy ruin all those happy memories. Then they let him slaughter the Beatles. Could it get worse?
HELL YES!
Annie Lennox, not bad but not great (should have got the Eurythmics back together) singing a song that could barely be heard because the sound was so bad. Jessie J singing god knows how many times (was this girl getting paid by the song or something) Madness, they gave it a shot but Suggs can not sing any more. They sounded flatter than an ironed out piece of paper. The only thing that sounded worse was Ray Davis who sounded just awful. They obviously didn't give him enough time to recover from the shock of being raised from the dead. Could it get any worse?
HELL YES!
Then they thought they would really put on a display of the best British bands out there with One Direction. COME ON. A bloody manufactured, pop product thrust upon the world by Cowell. They're just a glorified bunch of Karaoke singers who didn't even win the X-Factor. And then they were followed by the bloody Spice Girls. Another example of the Great British Pop machine. You get more talent in your average school nativity.

All I can say is thank God for Muse and The Who (among a handful of others).

All in all a complete nightmare. Such a shame.

But I'm sure we have all gained a hero or two from the Olympics be it a swimmer, runner, gymnast or any other athlete from the great many sports that were represented. Me personally, my hero is Boris. The newly gained national treasure that is the London Mayor. Boris for PM. What a legend.

Till next time.....

The Voice has spoken.

Stop The Moaning and Start The Healing

The last 2 days I have heard things on LBC that have concerned me, wound me up, annoyed me and slightly peed me off. So I decided to vent.
Prepare for some venting.

Vent no. 1
Yesterday I heard people complaining about the amount of money the heads of banks are getting paid and the fact that the government are thinking of creating some legislation that will limit the amount they can get paid and of course people were agreeing with the governments idea. MORONS and I mean that in the most insulting way. Apologies if you are one of these people but hear me out (then call me a moron back if you like)
In this country we seem to eagerly hunt down and punish the successful. For starters these bosses are not the only ones to blame for the financial crisis, Ill come back to that later. They were only the ones that fired the starting pistol on the whole recession race. Just take a look at the state of the banks now, they are raking the money in. They have gone from being heavily in debt to being quite healthily in profit. Now who do you suppose has done this. Let me think now, do you suppose it could be the bosses who are now being paid well. Don't you think that anyone who can take a multinational business from near bankruptcy to swimming in profit should be rewarded well, regardless of what went on before. Yes there were mistakes by the banks and yes it cost the country deeply but these bosses, or fat cats if you prefer, have turned the banks around. I wish I were capable of doing that but unfortunately, just like most of us (including the moaners and complainers), I cannot. But these men can and did. So don't they deserve paying well? Lets not forget also that these businesses also employ thousands upon thousands of people, that's a lot of people to be responsible for and a lot of stress. The government is planning on capping their earnings at 1million, 'thats a lot' your probably saying and yes it is. These guys are currently getting paid up to 4 mill at the moment. Lets not forget though that the top rate of tax is %50, so if these guys earn 4 mill then that's nigh on 2 mill in tax, now isn't that better than 500000. Sure they will look at ways of paying less tax and that sure does pee the moaners and complainers off even more, but what they won't do is admit that given half the chance they would do the same. So we not only want to punish the success of these people but we also want to punish them for doing something that each and every one of us would do if we could.
All this is because of two things. One, people are jealous of the money they earn and 2, people want to punish the banks for the problems that we are going through right now. Both of these reasons carry no weight and hold no water, they are trivial and childish.
Now back to the other people responsible for the countries troubles, the ex-government. These were the people that encouraged, I repeat that, encouraged the banks to lend out more riskier loans in order to try to encourage growth and failed to regulate the banks properly for fear of capping that growth. They also spent years spending money the country didn't have to create public sector jobs. Great you might say, more jobs for the people, problem is these jobs don't make any money. They are non-profit making rolls, as are most within the public sector. So the money to pay for these jobs came out of the public purse with very little going back in till eventually, you guessed it, they ran out of money. So much so that Mr. Brown sold off nearly all of our gold reserves. I think my wife has more gold on her finger that the government currently has in its vaults. The government took us to the edge of the cliff, the banks merely gave the final push. Sure there needs to be regulation to prevent anything like this happening again, yes there needs to be safeguards to stop irresponsible banking but does that mean we should punish success. NO, if we start doing that it will drive the big business's out of the country to more understanding shores. And that would cripple the country far more than we could ever imagine.

Vent no. 2

Today I heard about a new high speed rail road from London to Birmingham and then slowly stretching beyond up to Edinburgh. Guess what people were saying about this. Yup you got it right, they moaned and complained once again.
People were saying that it wasn't worth it, it wouldn't speed up the journey by enough to make it worth the investment, we can't afford it, we don't need it. SHUT UP PEOPLE!!!!

They complain, they whinge, they moan, they sit around tables in pubs spouting nonsense about how it won't improve anything. What happened to the pioneering spirit that allowed us to rule half the world? What happened to the thirst for innovation that allowed us to take the lead in many areas of science and industry. It seems to me it has disappeared under the weight of a nation wide blanket of endless complaining. To say I'm disappointed in the way the people think is an understatement.

Now before you start bleating that I'm a Tory, right wing voter let me just tell you that I don't trust any of them. They are all corrupt and the expenses scandal proved it. I just stand for the truth of what is good for the country and for the people as a whole and that means I support the success and rewarding of success. I support innovation and the need to invest in the countries infer structure in order to keep us competitive as a small island in a big world.
Its all this complaining that fuels the recession, its the whinging that prevents the country from being what it is capable of being, that stops it from being great once again. Just like the complainers have stopped Heathrow from being the central hub of global travel for Europe they are in danger of making sure this sick old man of Europe keels over and dies.

So stop the complaining, stop the moaning and start embracing the changes that are needed to keep this country an active part of a global society. When the government wants to invest in new transport links and runways cheer for them. When big bosses are getting big money for making big profits congratulate them and welcome more of the global winners to this country, get them to bring their businesses here. And for gods sake stop frowning and start smiling. Yes times are hard but if we all head out this weekend and spend an extra £10 guess what. Some business's may even start making money. If we start behaving in a more rational way and stop believing everything the media sells us then we may be able to start putting things right. The longer we live in fear the longer we will be told to live in fear.

Venting over.

Now lets start putting things right and lets start living a little more. Like the Monty Python team said.......
"Always look on the bright side of life."

Till next time...

The voice has spoken.