Watching the Five Ring Circus
Published: July 29, 2024
The Olympic Games is upon us again. They come around fast when you’re busy looking out the window but watching them on the teeva brings back great memories of when I was a member of the Olympic shuffling team at the Canadian Olympics in Banffph way back in 19umpty-um. We had a fucking great team of dodgy old codgers; some of those old coots could wear out two pair of slippers in one event! My, but we had some fun over there Banfffphff. In much the same way blah blah blah. Couldn’t be bothered writing what I was going to say.
Anyway, I see, in these froggy Olympics, there’s some new events: skateboarding, for one. This is apparently for the younger generation of new-age sporters and I think it’s a good thing. It’s interesting having skateboarding in the olympics — a ‘street sport’ gone legit. And there’s more of that ilk to come in future Olympics, I hear. A kid from the apartment block over the road was training for another new ‘street type’ event possibly premiering at a future games: Urban Train Surfing. When I say: was’… he was doing his practice last week and he slipped off the southbound at the Goodwood interchange and fell in front of the northbound.
Well, sporting activities always carry a risk and you have to live — or die — with that. However that skateboarding event has caused me to recall with a certain nostalgia — and neuralgia — some of the interesting events from our Banfffphffff Olympics. One of these was the ‘torch relay’. This long, frustrating event takes place in a country pub and involves competitive drinking. When the team members get down to the “fuck, I love you mate” end of the night the publican takes the Torago keys and chucks them out in the car park whence the team, if it wants to get back to the accommodations, has to use the only portable light on offer: a wind-up torch… to try to find them. It’s supposed to be a team effort with the inebriated torch-bearer passing the illuminating device to the next drunkard who yells out: “Hey, hey, hey…I think I see something over here!”
One of my favourites at the Banfffphffffphf games was the ‘Push and Shove’ event which also takes place in a bar. It involves the team members and participating locals and can get pretty exciting, even for the spectators. There are various opening gambits but the most common one is, in Canadian (in our case): “Que the jiggy-jig allez-vous (translate: are you) looking at, mon ami?” The response from that point can direct the course of the game. The traditional — and easily the most provocative — response is you say: “Nothing, mate”, whereby the antagonist pokes you in that hurty, bony part of your chest (see what I did there: “bony part” …Froggy Olympics…?” with his lumberjacky wooden finger and replies: “Avez-vous vouchsafing moi ees notting, mon ami!” … with another wooden jab in the bony chest area, kicking off the event proper.
When it was my turn I chose a different response to the opener which was: “Sorry, but I’m not looking at you — I’m looking behind you!” Caught off guard the antagonist said: “Que, mon ami??? Qua ees a mon posterior?? A fokkin’ bear??” I said: “Yes!” And as he was about to knock my head off with his lumpy, wooden lumberjack fists the great brown bear standing behind him ripped his head off and ate it. Gold medal to me.
Great times. Anyway, back to the froggy Olympics and I’m thinking of submitting a new event for old codgers at the next Olympics: ‘Find the fukkin’ remote’… ‘cos I’m already fed up watching the stupid fukkin’ games.