I paid €160 for a TV licence and I expect to be able to watch live women’s 49kg taekwondo at three in the morning
01:30: Let us be clear about one thing. All Night Olympics is not in the business of aggravating Ireland’s highly proficient pugilists. No, sir. Ours is a cowardly sort of satire extending only to those we feel do not have the capacity to beat us to a bloody pulp. It is in this spirit of pusillanimous surrender that we offer our warm congratulations to successful boxers, Paddy Barnes and Kenny Egan.
01:34: On the other hand, frankly we’d fancy our chances against Jimmy Magee. The Memory Man, who actually reported live from Olympia in 776 BC, was on top form yesterday. Jimmy stopped just short of proposing marriage to Paddy Barnes, such was his expressed admiration for ‘the little man from Belfast.’ Two things you should know about Paddy Barnes, the little man from Belfast. He is:
A) Of small stature
B) From Belfast
We kept forgetting this during the 12-minute bout, so Jimmy helpfully reminded us of these salient facts on 17 or so occasions.
02:00: The BMX cycling is on BBC. And, to our dismay, nay disgust, RTE do not see fit to broadcast this important athletic event live. RTE is not broadcasting live from Beijing at all tonight. Nothing. Not the BMX, not the women’s 49kg taekwondo, zilch. Strongly-worded letters to: RTE, Donnybrook, Dublin 4.
02:11: A very tall man is riding a very small BMX bike. Imagine Peter Crouch on a tricycle.*
02:14: The voice describing the BMX is confused by the colours sported by an Italian rider. Mysteriously, he is kitted out in the very hues of his nation’s flag, green, white and red. BMX Man expected him to be wearing the blue traditionally sported by the Italian national football team. No, BMX Man, if he were any good at football, he wouldn’t be riding a child’s bicycle over a series of speed bumps.
02:22: The women’s taekwondo, flagrantly omitted from the RTE schedule, is on BBC. An Iranian taekwondo fighter ‘is representing all Iranian women,’ according to the commentator. She has just kicked her opponent forcefully in the head. The women of Iran must be quietly wiping tears of pride from their eyes.
02:48: Over at the beach volleyball, the PA announcer is inciting the crowd to make woofing noises in accompaniment to a song of intolerable dreadfulness. Please leave beach volleyball alone, it is a perfectly good sport without crowd-woofing or Chinese cowboy music.
02:55: Unbelievable. Now the Zorba the Greek song that gets progressively faster is playing. Again.
03:08: Taekwondo. The analyst keeps referring to ‘the etiquette’ of the sport. Unlike in most areas of life, the etiquette does not preclude landing a hefty kick on someone else’s cranium.
03:21: The women’s 10km open water swimming is on. ‘There are going to be some fisticuffs before the end.’ The Belligerence of the Long-Distance Swimmer.
03:30: ‘BMX is a massive sport in America.’ If by ‘massive’ you mean ‘minority’.
03:44: The all-Brazilian men’s beach volleyball semi-final is a pretty poor show, having thus far yielded not a single backheel, stepover or nutmeg.
03:48: We are confused by a comment during the 1okm swim: ‘It’s fascinating stuff.’ This is obviously some idiomatic use of the word. Memo to self: consult dictionary tomorrow.
04:00: Gold for Russian Larisa Ilchecnko in the swim. But cast this mere triviality from your mind, dear reader. Let the word go forth that Team GB added more silver and bronze to its glistening chest of medals.
04:15: The women’s softball (Japan v US) disappointingly yields neither home runs nor jokes.
04:18: The taekwondo, being a wellspring of casual violence, looks more promising.
04:23: ‘Were you a bit of a thug?’ asks the BBC man of his co-commentator. Displaying great forbearance, the questioned party does not leap feet-first towards his interlocutor.
04:53: The 10km swimmers receive their gold, silver and bronze. Why, pray tell, do winners bite their medals as they are photographed on the podium? Do they expect to find chocolate inside?
05:12: The music to If You’re Happy And You Know It, which made an unwelcome appearance at a basketball match a few nights ago, is now disgracing the taekwondo arena. Was this a recent number one hit in China? Nul points.
05:33: It’s been a quiet night (not that this excuses RTE) and we have exhausted our paltry stock of jokes about taekwondo and BMX racing. Time for bed.
* Minor exaggeration
11:04 am
All those funny foreigners with their obscure sports, eh! Who can pronounce their names or knows their capital cities. But of course it’s only ’slagging’ not racism which is what other countries do not the Ireland of a thousand welcomes.
Comment by neil