Queen Elizabeth

4290 days ago

Reasons to celebrate: Australia trails Ethiopia at Olympics

The Olympics has caught fire for me at last. Do not get me wrong, I have nothing much against Australians. Okay, half of them are descended from convicts and most of the rest claim to be Greek. They are a bunch of philistines. And you would not want many of them (apart from Clive James, Germaine Greer and perhaps Peter Tatchell) in your pub quiz team. Why is it that the few really smart Australians feel the need to emigrate?

But generally they are an okay bunch. It is just that when they win at sport they are insufferably bad winners. And, damn it, they are normally pretty successful on the sporting field. I reckon that in 44 years on this planet I have suffered enough Australian sporting triumphalism for one lifetime and so I admit to taking an extreme vicarious pleasure in Aussie sporting humiliation.

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