You’re An Embarrassment

Much as I’ve enjoyed Boris Johnson’s various idiosyncratic performances on the BBC’s Have I Got News For You and find it reassuring that even rabid Tories can have a sense of humour (and thus stand a chance of becoming human) I have to say I cringed during the Olympic handover ceremony yesterday.

Am I the only Brit to have found our Olympic reps utterly embarrassing?

Boris looked a complete scruff-bag. Whilst everyone else ponced about in suits so sharp you could slice bacon wafer thin on the lapels Boris shambled about in what looked like one of Patrick Moore’s old cast-offs. His suit plainly didn’t fit him. His trousers looked like they’d collapsed inwards at the knees and the jacket looked like it had been used to smuggle African elephants through Chinese customs. To make it worse Boris sauntered around with his jacket undone, his shirt scruffed up and even slouched around with his hands in his pockets at one point. What must the world have been thinking? Is this the best Britain can offer? Is this Britain’s much rumoured but rarely seen sartorial elegance?

When Boris grabbed the Olympic flag he looked like a tramp on a stick.

And then came our much-vaunted “artistic interpretation”, designed to whet the Olympic village’s appetite for 2012.

Jesus. I’ve never been so embarrassed in all my life. Is this how we wish to portray ourselves to the world? Double Decker buses. Privet hedges. Umbrellas and David effing Beckham?

Is this a true representation of Britain? Of London? Is this all we amount to? An Austin Powers pastiche of lazy stereotypes and Mary Poppins tomfoolery?

I have real fears for 2012. Fears that we are going to embarrass ourselves hugely.

I can see it now. After the spectacular glories of Beijing the Olympic community will stand agog as they witness London’s Pearly Kings and Queens ‘rolling out the barrel’, gag as they consume their free bargain buckets of whelks and jellied eels, guffaw as Boris Johnson and all the Olympic big-nobs conduct their speeches from within the centre of a giant bouncy castle and all the athletes will compete dressed up as giant dogs and cats in the style of It’s A Knockout. Sooty and Sweep will host the televisual coverage and the relay race will be accompanied by multiple shouts of “He’s behind you…!”

Oh God.

Is it too late to apply for Chinese nationality?

Feline Fine

A “shock” ending to The F Word last night (though not that shocking really given the nature of the industry that Gordon Ramsay works in): one of Gordon’s young lambs was killed and half eaten.

So just an ordinary day at Chez Ramsay then...

Actually to be fair – and because I do actually like Mr Ramsay – poor Gordy was quite cut up about the ad hoc butchery that had befallen his beloved Charlotte (the Welsh bred lambs were named rather fittingly after Charlotte Church and Gavin Whatever-his-name-is-who-got-her-up-the-duff).

And to make matters worse Gordy’s sheep had been paddocked in the extensive and expensive grounds of Beckhingham Palace, the nouveau riche pseudo ancestral home of David Beckham and his clothes-hanger wifelet, Posh (formerly known as Spice).

Geez. If you can’t be safe in the grounds of Posh Towers where can you be?

The carcass (like Posh) was not a pretty sight – everything below the exposed ribcage (like Posh) seemed to have been stripped clean. It was odd to see someone who must be so used to chopping up cuts of meat turn almost green at the spectacle of a freshly eviscerated lamb. I guess context played a big part in it. Maybe if Charlotte had been shoved onto a sparkly white plate and garnished with a bit of parsley and mint Gordon would have been waxing lyrical about the "juicy freshness" and the "moist bloodiness" of the meat.

But maybe not so happy about the teeth marks that were plastered all over it...

Anyway, veterinary investigation didn’t rule out the possibility that Charlotte had been mauled by a “big cat”. Indeed this view was backed up by a big cat expert who just happened to be lying around Hertfordshire waiting for Gordon to call him.

Further investigation (i.e. talking to local people at the nearest watering hole) garnered loads of anecdotal evidence regarding Panther-like beasts slinking over the neighbouring fields and carrying off young bullocks and occupied people carriers in their slavering jaws... never to be seen again.

Ooh! Spooky!

Personally, given the location of Gordy’s lambs, I can think of only one big cat malnourished enough to gobble up half a live sheep and then leave its carcass totally fleeced in the middle of a Hertfordshire field...

And that’s Posh herself.

Miaow!