Bread, Circuses And The London Olympics 2012

The Olympc Ideal?

There was a fuss in the media yesterday about people who have been carrying the Olympc torches through the UK putting them on eBay before they've even taken their trainers off and stopped sweating. There was the usual moral outrage with the granny of a sick child who hadn't carried the torch claiminmg it was terribly disrespectful to the sick child.

Another man from Lincolnshire phoned Jeremy Vine on BBC Radio 2 to boast how he had phoned the Olympic authorities to formally complain about this wicked, immoral practice. I had to giggle at the thought of some vulgar Olympic official, dripping in gold and Rolex, whizzing through London in a chauffeur driven limo (maybe a Zil) indulgently tut tutting at the gripes of Mr Lincolnshire as he heads to Heathrow to fly in a private jet to a pre-Olympic junket in Monaco or some banana republic in Africa.

We have heard for months the speculation about whether this, that or the other footballer will make the Great Britain Olympic squad. Nobody questions the morality of footballers earning £100,000 a week or more representing us in the Olympics. But an unemployed joiner from Exeter flogs his torch, which he'd probably paid £200 for in the first place by the way, for a few hundred quid and their is public outrage.

What outraged me was that millions and millions has been wasted on wining and dining (aka bribing) the wealthy and powerful to get this immoral circus to this country, then the tight bastards make the torch bearers pay for £200 their torches. I don't blame them for flogging them. What outraged me was hearing that an East London cafe had been ordered to change its name from 'Olympic' because of sponsorship deals, and the authorities made them do it. The whole vulgar mess outrages me to be honest.

If we had any doubts that our civilisation is in terminal decline the Olympics are the finest visible evidence. How apt that they were bought for this country by a New Labour government, but are taking place under an equally immoral social democratic coalition government.