Winning gold in Olympic yawning The Olympic Games is one of the most boring and futile spectacles yet invented by humans, so the approach of the last day will bring no dismay. Every four years the best athletes in the world join together to compete in running, jumping, and falling over while their non-running, non-jumping, non-falling over compatriots ecstatically cheer them on. My, what a fuss those compatriots kick up, painted and draped in the national colours, cheering, waving flags as if it were an Olympic sport of its own. The fans don't seem to be celebrating that their athletes are the technical best at running, jumping, and falling over, but that they and their nation are innately, inherently the best in the most absolute and fundamental way possible; that they are racially, culturally, morally, naturally, spiritually, genetically superior to everyone because of their abilities at running, jumping, and falling over. Each victory, near victory, or humiliating loss being greeted with such emotions, such screaming, cheering, crying, and raised arm salutes as to suggest that all this running, jumping, and falling over actually matters to the universe and everyone in it on a very fundamental level. Never mind that the victors and losers are separated by microseconds, by millimetres, by quantities of time and distance that cannot be measured by humans alone, that require the most sophisticated of machines to calculate, the kinds of machines that normally would be employed measuring the amount of gravitational shift caused by a butterfly flapping its wings on a small planet orbiting a star the other side of the galaxy. In other words, amounts that normal people shouldn't give a fuck about. And never mind that the winners in four year's time will be from totally different countries which makes the nationalistic hoopla look as silly as it is. The Olympics are thought to have been first held in 776 (when, sensibly and mercifully, there was only one event) so you would have thought that in 2,792 years people would have noticed that the outcomes are a wee bit arbitrary. Bill Murray tweeted that every event should include an ordinary person as a measure
and that's a very good idea because Michael Phelps just swam the equivalent of the distance from my house to the end of the street in the same time I could walk it; well, I just pulled a bogey the size of a rat out of my nose: where's my medal? And the Olympics are a very, very expensive exercise in futility indeed. The stadiums in this year's games cost millions that could have been better spent on drugs in Rio's favelas — which is entirely the Russian team's approach to the games. And what's more, once the games are finished, the sites will go back to the jungle like Angkor Wat or Chernobyl. For all the energetic running, jumping and falling over, let's not forget that the games are celebration of obesity because each run, jump and fall is branded with the Coca Cola and McDonald's logos, purveyors of fine sugar, fat, and heart attacks. Eat enough of this stuff and you too can run, jump and fall over — or at least fall over, and at this top-flight level, one out of three is pretty good. Then what about the International Olympic Committee itself? Committed to building a better world through sport, or as the rest of us would call it, rampant bribery and corruption. Given the amount of money that's being sloshed around on Rolexes and little girls, cheering the Olympic athletes is a lot like cheering the gunmen during the St Valentine's Day massacre. However, there is one mitigation of the games, and to be honest it's a pretty big mitigation, one reason to actually feel a bit grateful, and that's a prompt to go to YouTube and remind ourselves of Eddie Izzard's vision of the stoned Olympics.
Now, do I get any kind of medal for this rant? August 20, 2016 |
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British comedy at its finest
There's a new farce in town and it's hilarious.
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The story so far: as a result of an internal squabble, the government of Britain calls a vote to decide whether to leave the biggest, most affluent trading bloc in the world. This triggers the most divisive and rancorous campaign anyone can remember. Both sides try to outdo each other in telling outrageous lies. Nationalism and racism stain the air. A woman is murdered. In a painfully close vote the nation chooses to leave the trading bloc. The prime minister resigns but refuses to trigger the legal process that will actually take the UK out of the trading bloc, whose top dogs are now telling us to hurry up and piss off. The media reports that large numbers of people now regret their vote, didn't know it would actually be counted, thought they were protesting at something but didn't really know what, and even ask if they can change their mind. Google reports that the top five search terms in the UK in the day after the vote were all questions about what the EU actually was, suggesting that millions of people had voted without knowing what they were voting for. Three million people sign a petition demanding to have the exact same vote they just had.
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Nationwide, there is a spike in racist incidents. It turns out that the referendum wasn't legally binding anyway, and since the police are investigating the ruling party for electoral fraud in the general election, the legitimacy of the government and the referendum are in doubt. Politicians run around looking for a way to back peddle or just pretend the whole thing didn't even happen, while the leaders of the victorious leave campaign back peddle on their promises on funding the NHS and on immigration. The same clique claim they would negotiate a deal with the EU that would give the UK the same benefits and terms of membership without actually being members, and a flock of pigs were seen fluttering overhead. The opposition party gangs up on its leader and attempts an internal coup. Scotland insists on another vote for independence, pretty much guaranteeing the break up of the UK.
Oh, yes, high farce in the best British traditions of Ealing comedy and as surreal as Monty Python. I can't wait to see what happens next but, for sure, this one is set to run and run.
June 26, 2016
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Brexit: that fairytale ending
Oh, what's that sound? Oh, it's you. Yes, it's safe, you can come out of your hobbit hole, little hobbit.
Yes, Littleshire has been made safe.
The Sun is shining righteously. All the brown people are gone. There's a pot of Elvish gold outside your door which fell by a fair-minded wind.
Best of all, all the Eurorcs have gone back to the smoky undemocratic wastes of Brussdor.
It is I, wizard Boris Faragedalf, and I confess I have made this land a utopia by magic. I waved my magic wand and made it so — fancy that! Fancy a fag and a pint?
Yes, come out … Oh, it's you, Fraido Muggins. Yes, little hobbit, fear has been banished from the land and so have your other enemies: reason and humanity.
Oh look, the folk of Littleshire are having a fete to fete their fine victory. There's morris dancing and dwarf tossing, and various wholesome activities to do with sheep and pigs and wellington boots.
That smell? That's the smell of roasted fatty-eurocrat, you know, the animal that's been eating all the food you've grown and traded to him for so many years — what a foul, greedy beast! And just desserts, don't you think? We've got it turning on a spit.
Oh, yes, like I say, you are snug in your hole in the Shire. Why, I can see rose vines growing on your nose, even as I speak.
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| Chris page was interviewed by his very own sock puppet and managed to get through the whole conversation without once mentioning darning. |
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The Underpants Tree is the second volume of The Underpants of Fire trilogy, the first volume being King of the Undies World. The Underpants Tree was published in July 2015.
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Just because it seems silly not to.
Weed: Chris Page's first novel
For Japan orders of the paperback, click here to email me.
Un-Tall Tales: collected short fiction, flash fiction, poetry and references to sausages by Chris Page
Un-Tall Tales paperback Europe
Un-Tall Tales paperback North America
Un-Tall Tales paperback on Amazon Japan
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