My main issue with the Olympics, or to be more specific Team GB's success, is that it played right into The Sun's current directive: ever since about June 25th an order came from on high that the front page should feature positive fluff, for example any celebrity news that has as much substance as packing peanut but can be interpreted as "good news" so that should be slapped across the front page to distract Sun readers from actual news, not least because actual news mainly consists of how the country's been utterly ****ed up in no small part due to The Sun telling its readers to leave the EU because that's what Uncle Rupert wanted. That's why for the past couple of weeks the front page has been plastered with victorious Olympians, demands for our victorious Olympians to receive gongs, or how those who lost to our victorious Olympians should stop being such bitter losers and respect our victorious Olympians with a combination of triumphant zeal and blatant attempts to distract the populace from actual problems not seen since the days of Pravda.
As opposed to all other media coverage since June, particularly the BBC, in which all positive news has been "despite Brexit" and all negative news has been "caused by Brexit"...
And where's that news coverage been for the past couple of weeks? Buried deeper than the hole Heather Wheeler has dug for herself
If you think that's bad, here's her track record of voting in Parliament: https://www.theyworkforyou.com/mp/24769/heather_wheeler/south_derbyshire/votes Highlights include... * Pro mass surveillance * Pro rail privatisation * Pro Royal Mail privatisation * Pro academies * Pro tuition fees * Pro badger culling * Pro bankers bonuses * Anti equality * Anti gay marriage * Anti environment * Anti disability benefits
All of that is cause she sits on the heartless side of the HOC. Most of her colleagues still wouldn't claim victory for the "Empire".
A Google search for her name currently brings up an archived Wiki page with this quote: "Heather Kay Wheeler (born 14 May 1959) is a British Conservative Party politician and a very silly ****"!
The map seems to show the east coast of the US as part of the Empire - does she really want to take us back to the 1700s ?
You couldn't spare a couple for benighted US Olympic watchers, could you? Our coverage and commentators were, as usual, absolute garbage as a whole, with the occasional decent announcer and good coverage choice. A US table tennis champion went to play in North Korea, and watched the match on North Korean television later. They'd edited out every single point he won. It was like that, if not quite so extreme. If the US didn't win, there was little chance it was on. On the other hand, great performance from GB. Second in both gold and silver medals, third by a hair to China in total medals. It seems to me that quite aside from throwing some money at the problem, GB coaches are unusually good at what they do. Maybe something in the national character makes for exceptional individual athletes as well.
As a Brit in the States the US coverage was very, very annoying. I streamed a lot from the BBC via VPN in the end. The bit where they tried to claim Mo as one of their own because some times he lives in the US and has a US training partner prior to the 10k was a particular annoyance
I agree there's been very little news in the last fortnight, which just goes to show that in normal times the media are largely the creators of news rather than the reporters of news. When their attention is turned we only hear about the big stuff, and don't see every little event, economic report or passing comment blown out of all proportion to suit an agenda... back to status quo now unfortunately.
Robbie Keane has announced that he'll retire from international football after Ireland's friendly with Oman next week. The game will mark his 146th cap in which he's knocked in 67 goals. He's currently 15th in the all-time international goalscorers table and the 5th highest from Europe. Puskas, Kocsis, Klose and Muller are the Europeans ahead of him. Not a bad list to be on.
