Just one year to go until the Olympic games!!!!! Yeaaaaaaah! OMG not long now! Lol!
Was this your reaction to the “news” that the impending potential calamity of the London Olympics is just one orbit of the sun away? If so, then you would have loved the BBC’s attempt to make it seem like this non-landmark had some significance: Wednesday’s half an hour cringe fest programme, ‘Olympics 2012: One year to go’.
The show revolved around Jake Humphrey and a smiley woman I don’t know the name of standing on a big, blue stage in Trafalgar square and inviting various officials to come on and make claims about how the Olympic venues were definitely not behind schedule. Being live and in a public place, the announcements of the presenters were regularly hindered by the incessant whooping of young men and women who think they’re in America and don’t know when to shut up. These are the kind of shouty morons who actually never leave Trafalgar square in the hope of being asked to participate in a T-Mobile artificial, feel-good sing-along, where their whooping can be put to good use.
After some short speeches, montage videos (and partially to get away from the whooping morons) the coverage moved over to the supposedly finished aquatic centre. Here, another woman I don’t know the name of interviewed a sort of watery Justin Bieber equivalent, Tom Daley. Somehow the interviewer managed to avoid asking Tom if he was going to “make a splash in 2012”, but the interview was still tainted by Tom being forced to stand in front of a crowd of screaming school children in nothing but speedos. The whole thing looked a bit like a scene from Tom’s recurring nightmare, soon to culminate in him frantically thrashing around the bottom of the diving pool, trying to find his now missing swimming trunks before he runs out of air.
Tom was then invited to christen the pool with the first ‘official dive’. Of course no-one actually knows anything about or watches diving, not even the commentator. Thus, Tom could actually have belly flopped straight in, and assuming he wasn’t screaming in pain, applause would have ensued.
Fifteen minutes in, and the coverage switched back to Trafalgar Square once again. More speeches were made, first from the world’s most successful yes-man David Cameron, who spoke with the conviction of a medium cost after dinner speaker who’d been drafted in at the last minute. Second was Boris Johnson, who added his trademark layer of subtle humour to the proceedings. Boris, I’ve noticed, is the kind of person you find yourself laughing at, only to suffer from a sickening feeling in your lower stomach as the extent of his power and responsibility slowly dawns on you.
Following these speeches, a black and white video montage of various successful Olympic athletes closed the show. Perhaps the melancholy music could have been toned down though, as it looked disturbingly like one of those ‘who’s died this year’ clips that make everyone turn over for a few minutes during the BAFTAs.
Unnecessarily aggressive cynicism aside, London is genuinely a good place to hold the Olympics. There are few cities on earth with such a diverse mixture of cultures combined with such lengthy tradition, and appreciation for the world’s greatest sporting event will almost definitely be bountiful. Sure, this programme was a bit awkward, a bit cheesy, and more than a bit unnecessary. But most people will see the silliness of these kinds of events and embrace it: no-one who lives in a city run by Boris Johnson takes themselves seriously, and that’s exactly why ironic broadcasts that attempt to take British stereotypes and give them a modern twist go down with a rippling of soft laughter rather than a thunderstorm of booing.
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