Look out, the Olympics are coming! [Stifles big yawn]... I'm not much of a fan of sport – I certainly couldn't be bothered to watch England stumble their way to the recent Euros final – but I am completely baffled by the appeal of watching athletic events, especially now that the Olympics are packaged up as a glossy international game-show, like the Eurovision Song Contest in shorts and vests. Can it be long before the 100 metre sprinters are surrounded by choreographed "interpretation"? The bonkers opening ceremony of the London Olympics of 2012, far from being a national triumph, struck me as a new national low; talk about your society of the spectacle. Embarrassing... And so ruinously expensive! Who can blame Hamburg, Rome, or Budapest from having second thoughts and withdrawing their bids for 2024? So now it's the turn of Paris to host this sweat-fest race to the bottom. I imagine it will be a little more stylish than our own cringe-worthy effort at promoting our national stereotypes to the world, but who cares?
Although I was intrigued to learn that in the 1924 Paris Olympics there were medals for painting, poetry, and architecture. No, really! "On your marks, get set..." Bang! "Start painting / composing / building!" [1] Forget synchronised swimming, skateboarding, and break-dancing: bring back competitive Olympic poetry! Although French, Italian, and Spanish speakers will have an unfair advantage, when it comes to rhyming, it's true... Team UK's hopes for gold will be pinned on the freestyle and blank verse events.
[It's hot. Please insert your own hilarious sketch about art as a competitive event, modernist art-styles of the 1920s, national stereotypes, etc. For example, "Oh no! The German team have been disqualified! They're insisting to the judges that Dadaist cabaret is a valid form of painting!"] [Nowhere near funny enough, but that's the sort of thing. Ed.]
The high spot of the 2024 Olympics so far, though, has been the Mayor of Paris, Anne Hidalgo, taking a swim in the Seine. Eek.
"Hidalgo’s historic swim, which was postponed twice because of fluctuating pollution levels, came just 10 days before the opening of the Games on 26 July and after fears a large cleanup operation had failed. The work included the construction of a €1.4bn (£1.2bn) holding and treatment tank to contain bacteria-laden stormwater during heavy rains, which came into operation a month ago, and improvements to the city’s wastewater network.
Until very recently, the river was still failing water quality tests for E coli bacteria – an indicator of faecal matter – and showing levels above the upper limits imposed by sports federations."
Brave, but foolhardy! (in French: C'est magnifique, mais ce n'est pas la natation!) A gesture in the grand tradition of all those other politicians who have carried out performatively prophylactic stunts; for example, feeding their children burgers, to prove that Mad Cow Disease is perfectly tasty when properly cooked. So we will follow Mme. Hidalgo's progress over the next few days with interest, and no little concern.
Not least because I'm inevitably reminded of the fate of novelist Arnold Bennett, who died on 27th March 1931 after contracting typhoid from tap water he drank in Paris in January, against the waiter's advice, while dining with James and Nora Joyce, just to prove it was perfectly safe. As his wife, Dorothy Cheston Bennett put it: he had said that "nothing was so insular and absurd as to suppose that the ordinary water of Paris, indeed of France, was dangerous, since hundreds of thousands of French people never drank anything else. Drink it he would." C'est magnifique, mais ...!
To be honest, I had no idea that the French never drink anything but water. Possibly one of those sweeping, unfair, and misrepresentative national stereotypes! Odd, really, then, that they go to the trouble of making quite so much wine; pure international altruism maybe? If so, thanks, France! Although... In the late 1950s, because he knew a little schoolboy French, my father was dispatched to help oversee the installation of some conveyors – the main product of Geo. W. King in Stevenage, his employer – in the Simca car factory at Poissy, France. He and the other members of the King's team were appalled to discover that many French factory workers habitually downed a bottle of red during their extended lunch break, returning to work later in the afternoon in an unsteady condition. Which is far from the ideal state to be handling heavy machinery, at least in the stereotypically puritanical English view. But perhaps that was just a local deviation from the "nothing but water" rule?
I can attest that the tap water in Paris is now as perfectly potable as Perrier, and I'm sure a little alcoholic refreshment will be tolerated, at least while the world is watching and wandering the streets. Although, as in St. Petersburg before the World Cup in 2018, I'm also pretty sure any clochards, ivrognes and allied trades will have been mysteriously disappeared for the duration; perhaps they'll be sent back to Poissy. But, please, you aqualetes (?), do try not to swallow any water in the Seine, guys, or you may wish you'd entered the break-dancing, instead.
Anyway, here's my entry for the imaginary poetry Olympics (sonnet sprint event), which apparently always had to be on a sporty theme:
They claim the filthy waters of the SeineAnd it's gold for Team GB, despite failing under pressure to find a rhyme for E. coli!
Are almost free of floating faecal matter;
They claim it's safe to swim and row again
And take part in the water-sports regatta.
Almost: so, if you do, remember spit, don't swallow
Like the Boat Race crews on London's toilet
Thames, or technicolour yawns will surely follow!
Myself, I know I'd really want them to boil it
First or, failing that ridiculous ambition,
At least do something more about the pong,
Or else withdraw my oar from competition.
But if you truly crave a sporty gong
Prepare yourself to stand upon the podium:
Invest in several boxes of Imodium...
2 comments:
Learned tonight that town planning was once an Olympic event.
DM,
Heh, that explains a lot... Tower blocks; massive estates of housing with no shops, schools, or doctors; roads that go nowhere anyone wants to go (I think Spain won that one).
Mike
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