The Olympic Rings

The marking in the road are no good if you can't read

 

The road markings are warning of the most complex, confusing junction ever known to man, consisting of 5 overlapping, intersecting roundabouts.

 

Hear, flaming hear.

I quite like sport, not all sport of course, and I can even tolerate the occasional wall-to-wall, let's cancel every decent programme on TV, blanket coverage of football (even when we're not in it); golf (when half the time you can't even see the ball), snooker (the best cure for insomnia ever invented) or darts (the only time morbidly obese men can wear neon-coloured, tight-fitting nylon T-shirts, throw sharpened bits of metal around and not be arrested), but the Olympic over-hype is beginning to wear very very thin.

Every other ad on TV is about sport, Wimbledon commentators had to tell us every 20 seconds that the Olympic tennis started there in .... days' time, shops are making use of the stuff they didn't sell for the Jubilee by pushing it for '.. your Olympic party' and let's face it, it's going to hiss down with rain throughout the whole sorry event anyway so we'll have to put up with 'Such a shame it's raining for .... the opening ceremony [insert event of your choice] ... closing ceremony'

I'm sick of being bombarded by 'stuff' about the Olympics as though I've been living on Mars since 2005 or have serious short-term memory problems and may have forgotten.

So much over-hype is there one can't help but wonder whether they aren't trying to whip-up enthusiasm where none exists - and if there's one thing I hate, loathe and detest, it's being practically ordered to have 'fun' and that I'm expected to'enjoy it'.

 

I'm flying out the day it starts.

 

I haven't noticed much of this - but then I rarely watch telly and only read a newspaper once a week.

I won't watch much of it except the gymnastics which I absolutely love.

I accept that there's a lot of hype, but if we want to see the best then there has to be a vehicle for fostering, enabling and show-casing it, and the Olympics is it. Par excellence.

For those who love seeing world-beating sporting performances, how would you organise for this to come to fruition if we didn't have the Olympics?

 

And it goes on for half an hour

 

I've no beef with the Olympics - just with having them here!

When they show horseface Holmes leaping up and down in Trafalgar Square the day we were awarded the games, I can't help but be reminded of what happened the day after (7/7) and spending those 8 frantic hours not knowing where or how, my daughter was. But that's only one reason I can't get 'excited' about London 2012.

In a similar situation to Fat Controller, any thoughts we might have had of leave were quashed months ago. A total of 2 days ('.. not to be consecutive ..') between 1st June and 1st October; 12 hour days; 5 days on, 1 off; 4 Sundays and 3 Saturdays off in 4 months. Of course Mr. F'smum's are slightly different and he's got to do 'funny' shifts (not even the normal 2-10, 10-6, 6-2) so, the next time we actually get something like a day off together will be 4th Sptember. My daughter's doing 12 hour days but 6 days on and 2 off, whilst her husband is permanently 8-8 nights with 7 days on and 2 off and of course, no leave for them either - I'm not sure they get to see one another at all.

And what happens when this sorry business is all over? Well, for the 4 of us, our 'leaders' have stated that annual leave must be 'staggered' (which is what we'll be doing no doubt).

On the bright side - with this so-called 'summer', I'm rather hoping for some nice balmy days during that fortnight beginning 10th December!!

 

Now, if I ever drive in England and see those circles on the road I will know what they mean.