Aussie Aussie Aussie
(Recycled from the House of Love)
Week one of the games: some random thoughts (updated every hour or three) …
- If archery is an olympic sport, why isn’t darts?
- Bruce McAvaney’s opening comments at the opening ceremony: "Three point seven billion people — that’s more than three billion people — will be watching this telecast…"
- Apparently we won a gold medal in The Madison … no doubt we have a chance in the Charleston too.
- Those absurdly fake Coke ads which supposedly show ordinary Aussies celebrating our successes … my favourite is the ecstatic response of "Belinda, Jason and workmates — Architect’s office, Adelaide" to Australia’s Archery gold medal. Yeah, all the architects I know are big archery fans.
- Bruce again, this time to our gold winning equestrians: "You couldn’t have done it without the horses…"
- Matt Shirvington: no sign of that nagging groin injury
- If Dressage is an olympic event, shouldn’t they have a dog show too?
- Solo Synchronised Swimming debuts at the Athens games. Synchronised with what?
- Found myself standing about 3 feet away from silver medallist Russell Mark last night. Considered saying hello but decided the risk of saying something inapprorpiate about his sport (he’s a shooter) was too great.
- The whole country united in cheering for two teams: Australia, and whoever’s playing the USA.
- Still no sign of the Hungarian Water Polo team, but I’ll find them if it’s the last thing I do.
- Aussie pole-vaulting couple Viktor and Tatiana: can’t wait to see the babies.
- That closing ceremony: "a fiesta so camp even Liberace would have blushed" (BBC); "like a Macy’s parade on acid" (Washington Post); "if Salvador Dali held a homecoming parade, this is what it would look like" (Someone else).
Oi oi oi!
