Saturday, March 18, 2006
Commonwealth Games Fever
At the time of writing, the Games For Countries Ruled By England At Some Point are in full swing. Things may change (and probably will once the track and field starts) but at the moment it's as one-sided as the 1984 Olympics with AUS substituted for USA. You might be forgiven for thinking the average punter would find this a bit of a yawn, but lunacy and sport go together in Australia like a beer and another beer and so everyone is going nuts over our dominance of traditional sporting rivals like England, New Zealand, and ... er ... Mozambique.
BUT NOT ME! I find the whole exercise jingoistic and trite, and so I'm not going to barrack for Australia. Yes, you read right; I'm not going to support Australia. Instead, I'm offering my support to the one, plucky nation that sits up and absolutely commands respect ... the Isle of Man.
Last time I checked, they were tied for 14th with one bronze. GO, ISLE OF MAN.
UPDATE. 21/3/06: Isle of Man have taken cycling gold and are currently lying 10th on the medal tally with 1 gold, 0 silver, and 1 bronze. Woo hoo!
UPDATE. 22/3/06: No more medals, and they have slipped to 16th behind Papua New Guinea and Cyprus. Still ahead of Nauru and Seychelles though. Whew. Also, I notice Trinidad & Tobago are competing as one country. Can they do that? I might write a stern letter of protest about this.
Medal tally here.
UPDATE. 27/3/06: The Games are over. Australia headed the medal tally with 578402986 medals or something, followed by England, South Africa, New Zealand perhaps, and probably Canada. Maybe. Look, to be honest I neither know nor care, although on something that IS near and dear to my heart - the performance of the Isle of Man - I am quite upbeat, for although they won only 2 medals they finished a creditable 19th, so well done and congratulations to all from the Isle of Conjoined Legs.
BUT NOT ME! I find the whole exercise jingoistic and trite, and so I'm not going to barrack for Australia. Yes, you read right; I'm not going to support Australia. Instead, I'm offering my support to the one, plucky nation that sits up and absolutely commands respect ... the Isle of Man.
Last time I checked, they were tied for 14th with one bronze. GO, ISLE OF MAN.
UPDATE. 21/3/06: Isle of Man have taken cycling gold and are currently lying 10th on the medal tally with 1 gold, 0 silver, and 1 bronze. Woo hoo!
UPDATE. 22/3/06: No more medals, and they have slipped to 16th behind Papua New Guinea and Cyprus. Still ahead of Nauru and Seychelles though. Whew. Also, I notice Trinidad & Tobago are competing as one country. Can they do that? I might write a stern letter of protest about this.
Medal tally here.
UPDATE. 27/3/06: The Games are over. Australia headed the medal tally with 578402986 medals or something, followed by England, South Africa, New Zealand perhaps, and probably Canada. Maybe. Look, to be honest I neither know nor care, although on something that IS near and dear to my heart - the performance of the Isle of Man - I am quite upbeat, for although they won only 2 medals they finished a creditable 19th, so well done and congratulations to all from the Isle of Conjoined Legs.
