Troll

All posts tagged Troll

“It’s all gone a bit flat here.”   These were the words of BBC 5-Live’s chief football correspondent George Riley in his report from Rio this morning, following England’s rapid exit from the World Cup at the hands, or should that be feet, of Costa Rica – before we had even played them!  As might be expected, his report was heavily cliché-ridden, focussing particularly on the need for facing uncomfortable Truths.

World Cup

Last night’s message from the Costa Rica fans

He was making his comments from the comfort of the massive World Cup Media Centre in Rio de Janeiro, but was he reflecting the mood of England fans in Brazil, or the atmosphere among the thousands of two-bit Fleet Street hacks whose long summer holiday watching the Girl from Ipanema had just been cut drastically short?  Because the greatest Truth to be faced here is that, were world cup success for our soccer team measured purely in back-page column-inches, then we would have won more trophies than Brazil and Germany put together. Continue Reading

Well, at least the BBC Doom-Mongers gave us a day off before they transformed their bulletins back to the news equivalent of Leonard Cohen songs.

Volunteers from London 2012 still Feeling Good!

Today we were told that rail fares will be going up, that the Eurozone is almost in recession and that 54% of people think the Olympic spirit will be short-lived.  The first of those subjects was delivered with a technique that had been temporarily-retired for the last two weeks – the ratchet.  Continue Reading

Day Fourteen was a nearly day for Team GB, with two Silvers in the Sailing, in both the Men’s and Women’s 470 classes, plus Bronzes for the Women’s Hockey Team, Anthony Agogo at Middleweight in the Boxing and Lutalo Muhammad in Tae Kwondo.  There were a few heartaches as well, as both BMX riders comfortably made their respective finals, only to lose-out in the winner-takes-all one-race finals, our men’s hope Liam Fields crashing-out heavily on the last-but-one bend having held a medal position up to that point.

The BMX team from Brodo Asogi return home after receiving a phone call

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Day Twelve, and the first medal-less day for Team GB since that very first day of the Games.  But as we all waited in anticipation of the expected deluge of negativity on the BBC’s Ten o’clock News last night, details began to emerge of an even greater mystery surrounding the whereabouts of their Doommonger-in-Chief, David Bond.

No, he’s not in there – the BBC’s latest miniaturised death star is minutely examined for traces of their missing sports editor

His obvious absence at such a time of negative opportunity was clearly unexpected, and the BBC even took the unprecedented step of drafting-in the Governor of the Bank of England, Sir Mervyn King, to create the atmosphere of doom so badly needed at the end of such a disappointing day. Continue Reading

If it is possible to have such a thing as a spectacular Bronze Medal, then that was what the Team GB Men’s Gymnastic Team achieved yesterday, not only because it was the country’s first team medal in the sport for a hundred years, but also the manner in which it was won.

Over The Moon – one of the GB Eventing Team jumps them into second place overall

I was lucky-enough to arrive home in time to switch-on to see that last discipline, the Floor, live on TV.  At that point, Team GB were in fourth place and needed to better their equivalents from Ukraine, who were on the Rings, by at least point-two on each performance to get into the medals.  To put that in perspective, that was the Gymnastic competition equivalent of me giving Usain Bolt two metres start in a hundred-metre dash – and I’m not only flat-footed, but old enough to be his Grandad.

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