BANJAXED IN BEIJING

The Olympic Games opened in Beijing last week with great fanfare. The Chinese are using this opportunity to show case the country to the world whilst conveniently hiding any evidence of human rights abuses for which the country is notorious.

Indeed there would be no Olympic Games opening in China on the 08/08/08 (they love their eights in China – lucky numbers and all that bull) were it not for human rights abuses.

All the Games stadia were effectively constructed by slave labour, particularly so when it looked like they were not going to make the necessary deadlines. At that point, the Government hauled hundreds of thousands of workers in from the fields to complete the projects on time. People had no choice in the matter. It is estimated by news agencies that hundreds, if not thousands, of workers lost their lives during the preparations for the games. Health and safety issues on building sites were low down on the Chinese authorities’ priorities.

In an overall context, you would wonder about the status of the modern-day Olympic Games. Their value is completely eroded because of the political circuses that have grown around them. They are monuments to power, money, illusion and corporate excesses. The staging of them has broken cities, and even countries – witness Los Angeles and Greece- and the benefits are only short term in relation to the return on the investment. When the Olympics are finished the host city is generally left with an excess of sporting facilities that become dormant and end up a millstone around the neck of the city authorities.

The process of selecting the locations is corrupt in the extreme with well-documented bribery apparent in many of the past choices. And, of course, this corruption extends onto the track where doping scandals have destroyed the reputation of the Olympic Charter.

The amateur ethos is long since departed and with the rewards for success so high, the temptation to use drugs to enhance performances is huge. As soon as more stringent anti-doping measures are put in place, the scientists are inventing methods to defeat them. It has got to the stage that if a world record is broken, then rather than acclaim the athlete, the public wonder how he or she avoided being tested positive. It is a bit like the suspicion in which we hold the husband of the murdered wife: Guilty until proven innocent, in other words.

This year Ireland travelled with a team of 57 athletes. RTE travelled with a team of 93 personnel, none of them athletes and most of them not broadcasters either.

What an utter waste of money in both situations.

Of the 57 athletes, about 14 are there on merit. All of that 14 have only outside chances of making a semi-final, much less win a medal. The balance are there because that arch-dictator, Pat Hickey, head of the OCI in Ireland, needs to justify his position and the money that is given to his organization by us, the taxpayers, through Government funding.

No disrespect to the athletes, but in all honesty, most of them shouldn’t be there and are only embarrassing the country. The much-maligned and oft repeated mantra that the importance of the Olympics is the taking part is historical bullshit. That was fine when all the athletes were actual amateurs and went back to their day jobs when it was over. Now the Olympic Games are a professional event, thinly disguised as adhering to the original principles. The fact that ladies beach volleyball is regarded as a sport worthy of Olympian merit says it all. This is soft-core porn parading as a sport. What next? Olympic lap dancing?

As for RTE, one would be forgiven for thinking that Ireland was a world-class athletic nation, judging by the number of people they have covering the occasion.

I doubt CNN sent as many staff! What do we get in return for this grossly extravagant waste of our money? Colm Murray eating Chinese food as though it was a new found cuisine. He couldn’t even use the chopsticks, for Gods sake! May we suggest he visits Kites, just around the corner from RTE, for authentic Chinese food and they will also teach him how to use the chopsticks?

We also had the cringe-inducing sight of him trying to perform a native dance with a posse of Chinese girls. Is this what we pay our licence fee to see?

A suggestion that would save RTE and us a lot of money: leave them all out there and see how they like it when the Games are over and they are despatched to the paddy fields!

LEARN TO PLAY THE GAME, TV3

I had the dubious pleasure of watching for the first time on Sunday last the coverage of the All Ireland Football Championship from TV3.

Last year the GAA auctioned the rights to provide coverage of the games in both football and hurling codes. Previously RTE had a monopoly on coverage since time began, with the exception of BBC Northern Ireland, which covered some of the All Ulster clashes.

I sat down to watch the Kerry-Monaghan qualifier clash at Croke Park. Initial impressions were good with sound analysis from the studio team, headed by Matt Cooper.

Cooper and TV3 impressed when handling the Rugby World Cup in 2007 so a similar refreshing take on GAA games was not an overly ambitious aspiration by the viewer.

There the professional presentation unfortunately ended.

The viewers were sold a pup. We had the bland and entirely unsuitable Trevor Welch commentating on the game. Is TV3 living on such a shoestring that they must employ this excuse for a commentator on GAA games as well as soccer matches?

He is bad enough at that pedestrian game because firstly, it is as slow as a caterpillar in the Olympic 100 metres and secondly there are only 22 players to identify instead of 30.

On Sunday, the commentary and camera work was appalling. You would see and hear better at a county final of a Junior Championship, when the committee would ask the least illiterate of its number to do the job for the sake of the club. This lad would then borrow a handy cam from a friend and bellow his way through the game. You can be sure though that he would know his players and those of the opposition. The viewer would be at least entertained.

The Kerry-Monaghan was a great match. Welch and his camera crew were a disaster and an embarrassment. Constant mistakes with identification of players followed by hasty corrections made the viewer cringe. The monotone voice that might as well be commentating on a particularly tragic state funeral, failed to grasp the important scores and events throughout the game. Poor judgement and opinion on pieces of action were constant throughout. It was an utterly incompetent display of commentating made worse by the fact that it was a good game.

Worst of all was the camera work. The panning of the action was atrocious. At one stage, the Monaghan corner forward was bearing down on goal and the camera stayed fixed in close up mode. The viewer was screaming for a wider view to see the context of the play, and the options available to the Monaghan forward. He could have been hurtling towards his own goal for all we knew. The dreadfully inept camera crew must have been on their first assignment after college – that is if they went to college at all.

TV3 paid a lot of money for the rights to broadcast GAA games. They should now go out pay good money to hire decent staff to protect their investment.

STAY AWAY CHARLIE

Charlie Bird is a national institution in Ireland. He is far from a national treasure but he is getting up there. When he dies, he will probably be deemed as such. RTE describe Charlie as their Special News Correspondent. This gives him licence to turn up on our screens with breaking news on any subject under the sun. It must really piss off other journalists dedicated to politics or crime that when something big happens in their field, Charlie has first handle on it.

Charlie has this breathless urgency about him when reporting. He can make an orderly bus queue sound like a riot; a report on flash flooding generates such excitement that the viewer expects to see Noah and the Ark in the background.

He was in Rome for the election of Pope Benedict and the resulting dispatches put Dan Brown and his TheDe Vinci Code novel in the category of boredom occupied by Becket’s Waiting for Godot. When his sources told him that the odds were on the German to win, we half expected Hitler to appear from the white smoke and announce there was no Heaven.

When his prediction about Cardinal Ratzinger proved correct, Charley delivered his “I told you so” report with all the smug pleasure usually reserved for the doctor who tells a patient they have three months to live and thumps the table in satisfaction when they die on the 90^th day.

We can therefore assume that RTE place great value on the contribution of Charlie to the broadcaster’s archives. So much so that they, in effect, give Charlie a free holiday every year, at the taxpayers expense, to indulge in his hobby of exploring the great rivers of the world.

Last year RTE viewers were treated to Charlie exploring the Amazon. This year it is the Ganges. We can only imagine what all this is costing the national broadcaster, which usually brings us American junk TV.

To listen to Charlie rowing his boat down the Ganges or the Amazon, you would be forgiven for thinking he was the first person to discover the place. Looking suitably dishevelled with a nice beard growth, Charlie tells that he is approaching a place that poses real danger because of the presence of some obscure tribe who like to eat people. He informs us in hushed tones that he is all alone in this wicked place. What about the camera crew Charlie? Cue an advert break and we are left wondering (perhaps even hoping) that we may see Charlie being turned over on a blazing spit after Vodafone tells us about another great deal. But, lo and behold, there is the bould Charlie talking to the cannibalistic natives. They are all smiles and Charlie is making wild gestures when they run into difficulty with translation. They all love Charlie and before he leaves for the next dangerous assignment, they are kissing him and the women are all shaking their exposed breasts at him. Obviously, they get the RTE News out there in the jungle because Charlie is feted like a hero.

The series runs for weeks and we learn very little about the Ganges or Amazon and a whole lot about Charlie. What a load of semi-state institution cobblers. What a waste of money that could be put to better use doing real and relevant documentaries. RTE insults their viewers with a series devoid of any real information. This crap just caters to the whims and desires of their egotistical chief news reporter.

If they really wanted to provide us with in-depth information on both of these great rivers all they had to do was pay a small royalty fee to the National Geographic Channel or Discovery Channel, who both have done many wonderful documentaries about all the great natural wonders of the world.

Instead, tens of thousands of euro are wasted on paying for Charlie’s holiday.

Do us all a favour RTE: leave him out there in the jungle and hope he never comes back.

SARKOZI – THE THREE-MINUTE MAN

French Prime Minister, Nicolas Sarkozi came to Dublin recently to talk down to the Irish people about their abominable behaviour in rejecting the Lisbon Treaty last month.

Sarkozi is the current boss of the EU by virtue of the fact that France holds the rotating Presidency for the next six months and before his visit was loud in his condemnation of our failure to bend the knee to Brussels.

Thus, he arrived in Dublin for a one-day trip and holed up in the safety of the French Embassy rather Government Buildings, as is normal protocol. In true Napoleonic arrogance, he granted various lobby groups three minutes, (three minutes!) to make their point before being despatched with dismissive Gallic flourish.

We are a bit concerned at this three minute business and wonder is it anything to do with his personal life and his high profile marriage to Italian model Carla Bruni. One of our intrepid spies managed to infiltrate the “speed dating” meetings and reported as follows:

Well Sarkozi came to Ireland this week

and told us all that we must be meek

and adopt the Brussels glorious master plan

or else our little country would be an also-ran.

He stood therein in all his pomp and grace

and told us we were a fucking disgrace.

How dare we turn around and just say No

when he Bonaparte Sarkozi was running the show.

I will give you all three minutes each

To explain this unforgivable breach

and I want a change of heart then

said he rising to all of his four foot ten.

Tell me now that you’ll say Yes

and put an end to my embarrassing distress.

I have no time, I must be home before night

Or else Carla will kick up an awful shite.

That’s why I can only give you three minutes to decide

Because Carla loves, how you say in Ireland,”le ride”

She is very demanding, so hard to satisfy

So many orgasms, but I try, how I try!

She is very tall, six foot two, mon amour

Thirty lovers she said, but I can’t be sure

Standing by her side, her tits are level with my head

One swing from her and I am fucking dead!

So you see the reason I ask for a Yes decree

Will you awkward Irish hoors please agree?

So that to the Elsyee Palace I can swiftly retire

where my Carla lies panting with desire.

Nobody told me politics would be like this

And that you Irish would take the piss

By voting No to the Lisbon Accord

And spot my clever little French fraud.

I must be off, away now from this place.

Sacre bleu, you Irish are an ungrateful race!

We gave you subsidies and the finest of wines

now you thank us by ruining our grand designs.

Bring me now to my private jet

Home to Carla, my very big pet

But first a consolation, a treat I cannot miss

“Le Biffo Big Lips” will give me a kiss!

TWO LOSERS PART COMPANY

I see that Eircom are to discontinue their sponsorship deal with the League of Ireland/ (LOI) and the Football Association of Ireland (FAI). They have a relationship, which spans nearly a decade, and now finally the penny has dropped with Eircom that the money was being washed down the plughole.

If ever two organizations (an unwise term given that neither could score in a brothel) deserved each other, then these two did.

Eircom is one of the most inefficient of the ex-semi-state companies that could be found. If you had the equivalent of an efficiency Geiger-counter and scanned all the companies in Ireland the beeping would be at a peak when tested against Eircom.

For years, it was known as Telecom Eircom, a public-body monolith that was as lazy and slow moving as a rhinoceros mating in the mud.

Then the government of the day decided to privatize it and sell the shares to an unsuspecting Irish public. Mary O’Rourke, then Minister of Telecommunications and Various Other Things, urged the public to buy shares in this great new venture where everybody would become rich. She even convinced the banks to lend money to those who had none to buy the shares, using the shares as collateral. Which of course the greedy banks gladly did, smelling the scent of a killing.

In hindsight, O’Rourke was ahead of her time – in effect, she introduced what is now known as sub-prime lending.

Of course, everybody took a bath with the shares and the Geiger-counter beep merely increased in intensity as Eircom lurched forward in private ownership, dragged down by the millstone of the unions.

In its distracted state, the LOI managed to convince it to sponsor their league championship. Millions poured in with little return. If Eircom was useless at making money, the LOI/FAI was even better at losing it.

In the last decade, the combined entities have become farcical. There had been more internal strife and wars in soccer administration in Ireland than there has been in the entire continent of Africa for the last century. They had to start buying red carpets in Merrion Square so that the blood wouldn’t show after every meeting. Des Kelly had made a fortune supplying replacement green carpets until that fateful decision!

It should be called the SOI – the Scandal Association of Ireland.

Directors embezzling funds, tickets being sold by officials on the black market, senior clubs not paying taxes due on inflated player wages, all the FAI reserves being depleted by planning and consultancy fees for the aborted Eircom Stadium. Add the ego trips of Chief Executive, John Delany, the latest being the boast that the FAI could write the cheque for €74 million in the morning for their contribution to the new Lansdowne Road Stadium they will share with the IRFU. He couldn’t write a cheque for the €74 he spends on his lunch everyday!

It will be interesting in these troubled times to see who will have the balls or the foolishness to sponsor a game that is about exciting as watching the polar ice cap melting. A funeral undertaker might be a suitable possibility.

Truth is that the country would be better served if both the FAI and Eircom became extinct tomorrow, and headed for the dinosaur’s graveyard.

WHO SAID CAVAN PEOPLE WERE MEAN?

I am not from Cavan so I have no hidden agenda when I make the point that I find Cavan people generous, friendly and helpful.
The popular myth throughout Ireland and the greater outside world is that Cavan people are mean, bloodsucking, hard-necked leeches who would eat you for a cent if they could.
I can claim thirty years experience dealing with the people of Cavan in business and social settings and, whilst like any good businessperson they drive a hard bargain, I can honourably and safely say that I have never had a bad experience with them.
I often wonder where the myth started as to the meanness and cute hoorism of the Cavan brethren. Of course, Niall Tobin, actor and comedian from Cork, has made a successful career from taking the piss out of Cavan people and perhaps this has influenced the notion. No better people either than those same Cavan folk to take the jokes in the spirit they were given.
Way back in the seventies, when things were bad and your only recourse to comfort was a couple of pints in a Dublin pub, chances were you would served by a Cavan man. Every pub in Dublin it seemed at that time was either owned or managed by a Cavan man. Conventional wisdom had it you would never see an old Cavan barman for the simple reason that by that stage they would own the bar!
I find the Cavan people warm-hearted, generous and great company in any setting.
On top of that, they can drink for Ireland and need only the flimsiest excuse to have a party. Contrary to popular myth, they will stand their round of drinks when their turn comes around.
Thrifty, perhaps, would be a better term to describe the Cavan people. They do not waste money on unnecessary purchases. In the current economic down turn, such attributes are bound to stand the in good stead.
As a friendly, warm-hearted people who would bend over backwards to help you, Cavan people come top of the list, in my opinion.
So I don’t want hear any more of those silly jokes about Cavan.
Make some jokes about the Dubs or the Meath people for a change. There is plenty of scope there!
Oh! By the way, did you hear the one about the Cavan man who found a crutch and proceeded to cut off his leg in order to put it to some use? See what I mean by being thrifty!

A SPORTING TRIUMPH LIFTS THE SPIRIT

The Sunday newspapers in recent times are full of doom and gloom as to the future of the economy and the various potential disasters awaiting us all in a variety of forms due to the worldwide financial crisis. It has gotten to the stage with me that I am reluctant to read them at all. They would spoil your entire weekend. It is bad enough trying to please the bank manager during the working week without it impinging on your Sunday afternoon.
Today however, the Sunday papers did not receive any attention at all.
To hell with the doomsayers, when your life is enhanced by a wonderful sporting achievement.
A beaming Padraig Harrington, with a wonderful display of nerveless golf, not only won the Open Golf Championship at Royal Birkdale, but also took the Old Claret Jug by the scruff of the neck and marched to sporting immortality by winning back-to-back British Opens.
Until last year, our only Major winner in golf had been Fred Daly over 50 years ago.
At Carnoustie in2007, Harrington beat Sergio Garcia in a play-off after the Spaniard missed a five-foot putt on the 18th to win it.
It was known as the one that Garcia lost rather than the one that Harrington won despite the fact that the Irishman produced a miraculous up and down at the 18th after being in the water twice. He dominated the four hole play-off to win by two shots and bring joy to Ireland. Now, he is only the fifth player of all time to win back to back Opens.
Today, no begrudger could deny Padraig the acclaim he was due as he won by four shots, with some stunning back-nine golf in very difficult windy conditions.
Harrington is an ambassador for both the game of golf and for Ireland. A true gentleman with a permanent smile on his face whether dealing with triumph or disaster on the course, unlike the boorish Colin Montgomery or the sulking Sergio Garcia.
A more modest and humble superstar you would not see in the world of sport. His feet are firmly on the ground and his acceptance speech today would make any Irish heart swell with pride.
The bad news can wait until later in the week. The doom merchants can take a few days off and the country can feel rightly proud. Triumphs like this do matter.
Today, Padraig, you lifted the spirits of all Irish people. With your attitude, we can do anything!
Well done and thank you!