The Greatest Farce...

I blogged the other day about the start of the 29th Olympiad and there will be no doubt in anyone’s mind that I am an avid follower of the games. It is this sort of international competition that garners my attention, so it won’t be a surprise to any who know me that I am sat in front of my telly avidly watching the games.
Ordinarily I would leave it at that. I mean what would I blog about the games? I appreciate the difficulty of competing at this level and I am in awe of the skill and talent on display. I even confess a little envy because of my own lack of skills. At any rate, I would have been quite happy to let the athletes get on with it and just enjoy the show.
Nevertheless, I have been chivvied from my comfortable cocoon by the repeated airing of two particular advertisements. The first of the pair is the Olympic advertisement. I am not even sure if there is a sponsor involved, but no one will have any doubt about which advertisement I am referring to. It’s the one with this black robed old man with a bit of ‘Zeus’ complex. He stands in the middle of a Greek style pavilion surrounded by athlete dressed in dark gladiatorial style clothes. It’s not the styling of the advert that I have any problem with. It’s a little clichéd, but after all, that’s what the first Olympic games were all about – war skills. No, my problem is with the dialogue. Dear lord, such dialogue! I have never heard such sentimental, corny rubbish in all my life.
He enumerates the many things that the athletes teach us. Against varying backdrops, he starts first with the fastest man in the world who teaches us that every second is precious. The lesson is a little muted as the fastest man is not named, and you never actually get to see his face, instead you see a nondescript black man running among some stallions. Then come the real clangers. He goes on to talk about Yelena Isinbayeva, who currently holds the Olympic gold for pole vaulting. He says “You the girl who can jump the highest, if you can jump that high, there is no obstacle you can’t jump over.” WHAT??? Seriously? Who in the world came up with this line? I mean come on? Are you telling me that the only obstacles are those you can jump over? The stomach churning corniness continues with talk about ‘The Invincible Man’. Yes, you read right, the Invincible Man. And just who does he award this dubious honour to? Roger Federer, the tennis player! I mean who’s judging this? Why is a tennis player invincible? For pity’s sake, if you’re going to be handing out outrageous titles, you may as well, hand them to the right people. There are marathon runners, marathon swimmers, pentathletes, heptathletes, decathletes, long distance runners, long distance rowers, and a whole host of other athletes who deserve the title more. Every time this advertisement airs, it gets my hackles up. Honestly, the people that were responsible for this travesty of an advertisement should all go sit in the corner in a timeout.
The other advertisement that has my back up is the one that introduces us to the Malaysian athletes. Someone obviously thought it was very important that we get to know our athletes. I agree, it is an incredible achievement to qualify for the Olympic Games and the fact that we have athletes in so many categories is in itself something to be proud of. Still, whoever it was that has the bright idea to interview the athletes, should have had the follow through to make sure that the athletes then don’t go on to make asses of themselves. The interview with the archer is especially trying on the nerves. He gives the interview in Chinese, with subtitles running along the bottom of the screen. That isn’t a problem. The problem comes when he decides that at the end of the interview, he has to say something in English. This is what he says, “Aim the moon, shoot the star, be a superstar.” The first time I heard that, I had a serious WTF moment. I mean that sentence doesn’t make ANY sense. Not grammatically, not logically, not philosophically, in fact not in any way. Seriously I blame the segment producer. I mean come on, the guy obviously has not got a good grasp of English. It’s one sentence we could have seriously done without, or, someone could have told him what to say. I mean he must be capable of saying ‘aim for the stars, shoot for the moon, be a superstar.’ Someone could have written it down for him.
This is again indicative of the massive disease of indifference that is pervasive in our society. In my earlier post I spoke about the sheer stupidity of the airport authorities that announced a flight going to India. This is more of the same kind of thoughtlessness that is never ending with Malaysians.
I will probably be posting more examples of Malaysian stupidity, in the vain hope that maybe someone reading this blog will be in the position to do something. Failing which, posting it on my blog will stop me ranting about it to my long-suffering friends.
Just Me.