A giant leap backwards for mankind!

A GIANT LEAP BACKWARDS

 FOR MANKIND!

 

BARCELONA may not be synonymous with badminton or baseball, but incredibly these two popular pastimes are set to make their dubious debuts as Olympic events.

Call me a traditionalist but I thought the Olympics were running, jumping and throwing things (Chariots of Fire and all that). After all, that’s what the Ancient Greeks had in mind and so it should be. 

But already we have rhythmic gymnastics (small girls bouncing balls), synchronised swimming (older girls smiling a lot) and dressage (horses dancing). 

Then there is weight-lifting (fat men falling over), fencing (people prodding each other in masks), water polo (one team splashing another) and shooting (bang - all over! Great sport, eh?). 

 

I was annoyed when they let tennis in. All these millionaires pretending all they ever wanted was to be athletes. Messing about in boats (yachting, rowing, canoeing etc) also undermines the Olympic ideal. 

But now it seems if enough people play it, it qualifies as an Olympic sport. I hear there was even a concerted bid to include snooker this time (funny, I don’t recall Zeus ever potting a 147). 

If they allow an athletic game like snooker, they might as well include bowls (or marbles for that matter), not to mention darts, dominoes or Crazy Golf. Watch out for Trivial Pursuit and Synchronised Subbuteo in four years’ time! 

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AN ‘EL’ OF A LET-DOWN! 

After initial curiosity, viewers already find BBC2’s costly sunshine soap Eldorado a big turn-off, with ratings nose-diving from eight to five million. 

With its obnoxious character stereotypes and ‘exotic’ locations which could have been filmed on a windy beach in Clacton, this is hardly surprising. I’ve seen better acting in Thunderbirds! 

The only vaguely interesting character is the so-called villain Marcus, but compared to the rest of the cast, he’s about as nasty as Cliff Richard. Bring back Crossroads - at least THAT was good for a laugh!

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DIET THAT’S A FAT LOT OF GOOD!

HUNDREDS of silly slimmers who fell for a bogus diet which piled weight on should have known scoffing hot dogs, peanut butter and ice cream was bad for them. 

It was claimed the disgusting mixture of junk food would spark off a fat-destroying chemical reaction. So who dreamed up this brilliant plan from America - Elvis? 

 

(This column was originally published in the Northamptonshire Evening Telegraph on Saturday, 25 July, 1992)