So much doom and gloom surrounding Rio’s Olympic opener it was all a bit of a Copacabummer
NO doubt you also had a moment that sent you trudging to bed in the early hours of Saturday.
Mine was the bit when Hazel Irvine got hold of an old Railway Gazette and told us they’d spent £300million upgrading the rolling stock between Burkina Faso and the Ivory Coast, just so she could chortle: “No one will now poo-poo the Ouagadougou choo-choo.”
No Samba party in the world can lift the mood after that sort of silence.
So, after a few hours of fitful sleep, it was back downstairs for the full Opening Ceremony of the Olympic Games 2016, an event which hasn’t had its troubles to seek.
Zika virus, drugs scandals, raw sewage in the Rio harbour, Helen Skelton’s arrival, then we discovered Pele had withdrawn, possibly due to illness, possibly due to embarrassment at tipping England for the final of Euro 2016.
But his absence certainly didn’t lift the mood of the ceremony’s light-entertainment segment, which sought to encourage all those people who don’t actually need any encouragement at all.
Rappers, street-dancers, children’s choirs, parkour runners, Gisele Bundchen, Garrincha’s ex-wife, who was the warbling old pencil gonk in the special chair.
Apparently, there was also a male-to-female transsexual, the first to appear at an Olympic opening gala probably since Moscow 1980, when the Eastern Bloc made it pretty much compulsory, and a doom-laden message as well.
“CO2 emissions.” “Melting of the Polar ice caps.” “Sea levels rise.” Amsterdam’s screwed. And Dubai. So it’s not all bad news, I suppose.
Turd-ridden beaches or not, though, you gather we’re in big doo-doo when Brazil gets political correctness. Fortunately, as a heavily-oiled Tongan flag-bearer demonstrated, the parade of nations is traditionally the moment when the opening ceremony becomes really foreign and funny. I’d reckoned, however, without the presence of BBC1’s commentators Hazel and also Andrew Cotter, and our beloved state broadcaster, the only organisation on Earth that thinks what the Rio carnival’s been lacking is a health and safety lecture and a proper world view.
Don’t get me wrong, I wasn’t expecting anyone to wolf-whistle Italy’s Federica Pellegrini, let alone suggest it would’ve been a right laugh if the Refugee team had been driven into the Maracana in the back of a lorry. I do know the PC rules. But, man oh man, what a downer.
“Nauru — 40 per cent of the people have Type Two diabetes.”
“Central African Republic — a humanitarian crisis is unfolding.”
“Rwanda — not just a nation of genocide.” (As the tourist board posters don’t read).
The one that finished me, though, was South Africa: “Bert le Clos and wife haven’t been too well.”
First Pele, now Clare Balding’s mate.
Naturally, there were some joyful moments as well. “Madagascar — Probably best known for cartoon animals.”
The main thing in the opening ceremony’s favour, however, was the fact it was avoidable. This is not the case with the rest of the Olympics. The Beeb’s now carpet-bombing us with some fairly hit-and-miss coverage on BBC1, BBC2, BBC4, the red button and half a dozen new channels it’s invented for the duration.
Some people will love this, I realise. The rest of us will just have to lump it and get our kicks from filling in Hazel’s pregnant pauses.
“And there’s Lithuania’s Gintare Scheidt, who’s married to sailor Robert Scheidt, who later on . . .” will be down at the harbour, which is full of Scheidts.
(The Olympics 2016, BBC1, round the effing clock).
GREAT Sporting Insights. Sir Steve Redgrave: “Everyone’s beaten everybody this season. But our girls haven’t beaten anybody.”
James Cracknell: “John Collins and Jonny Walton need to end this race on a positive, even if it isn’t positive.”
Mark Hunter: “You need to remember the two rowers in the two-man boat are two different individuals.”
Jane Lewis: “The Olympic Park is two and a half million metres square feet.”
(Compiled by Graham Wray).
OLYMPIC Filth Corner. Michaela Breeze: “Chen Wei-Ling’s got wear and tear in her knees and has had an operation that would explain her power snatch.” Though don’t go asking for it on the NHS just yet.
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It's Bigg bother for CBB
BLIMEY, Emma Willis was solemn on Friday’s Celebrity Big Brother.
Biggins had been removed, she told us gravely, for unspecified reasons. But he was believed to have caused “widespread offence” to what was laughably described as “Britain’s bisexual community” and, if we watched Saturday’s show, all would be explained.
So we did and it wasn’t. The nitty-gritty – his Holocaust joke – was, as ever, left to tabloids to unearth.
All we were trusted with was Biggins making some more ill-informed comments about bisexuals, which couldn’t even raise much outrage on Twitter, home to Britain’s indignant t**t community.
Channel 5 viewers were free, then, to wonder why it took them so long – four days – to decide the joke was a dismissible offence and speculate that there might be another motive at play here.
Because getting rid of the likely winner not only saved them £150,000, it created huge publicity and removed an amiable old fool who stood in the way of more conflict, which is, after all, literally this hideous show’s currency.
And if you doubt that claim, then I’d suggest you weren’t paying proper attention when Aubrey spat in Bear’s sarnie. No real surprise something like this happened, of course. The show does everything it can to provoke such vile incidents.
What genuinely stunned me, though, was that it was actually punctuated by CBB product-placing a bottle of L’Oreal Elvive shampoo.
Why? Because it’s worth it.
CELEBRITY Big Brother, Bear: “To be fair, geography isn’t my strong point.” Great. Then head to Raqqa. It’ll blow your mind.
CELEB Big Brother nominations, Sunday, Saira Khan: “Heavy D, he’s loud and over-bearing.” RIP, irony.
Legend of Fiona Phillips
IF Hollywood ever makes a female version of Anchorman – and I think it should – there’s no shortage of role models on British television.
The blueprint, obviously, is Kay Burley.
But they shouldn’t ignore Dame Fiona Phillips, who’s been covering for Lorraine this past fortnight, as well as thinking out loud, fluffing links and conducting some squirmingly awful interviews with the likes of James Murray, from Suspects.
“I can’t believe your dialogue is improvised.” “Yeah, there’s no script.” “How does that happen?” “Well, no one writes one.”
As thick as the Jolly Green Giant’s member, is Fiona, and research isn’t exactly her strong point either, as Angus Deayton discovered last week.
“The late Geoffrey Perkins was responsible for Have I Got News For You, wasn’t he.”
“No.”
The real issue, of course, could be that she’s simply not in full control of hormones.
She does seem to fancy anything in trousers, including, we gathered, some poor sod called Andre, who’s currently “refitting the bathroom”.
Female guests, on the other hand? Well, “On tomorrow’s show Bryce . . . I’ve forgotten her name . . . will be in the studio.”
So stay tuned, viewers, and stay classy, Fiona.
COMEDIAN Omid Djalili has been expanding on the humble role of the travelling minstrel in modern society, on Good Morning Britain.
“As comedians we are like the Olympic Games makers whose remit is to promote joy. It’s the most important thing we do.
“It’s such a complex world, all these awful things going on but we try to make sense of it and we’re also still trying to promote joy.”
Sentiments to which I would add only one word.
C**k.
RANDOM TV irritations: Naked Attraction breaking for a Burger King advert at exactly the wrong moment.
Channel 4 using the Goggleboxers to have an anti-Brexit hissy-fit.
ITV’s bone-idle main channel screening Skyfall twice within a week in the same prime-time slot. The BBC’s horribly mistaken belief that Helen Skelton is an Olympic anchor rather than the flustered holiday rep of TV presenters.
And Channel 5 claiming that “Borderline is the show critics are calling sharp, topical and funny”.
Because, as far as I can see, most critics think it’s as sharp and topical as the great yellow fever epidemic of 1793, but not quite as funny.
PROGRESS at last on All Star Family Fortunes. Vernon Kay to one of Charlie Lawson’s team: “Name someone who might tell you off?”
“Your wife.”
Correct. And I don’t care what your sodding survey says.
TV Gold: The return of Britain’s greatest ever sports presenter, Jeff Stelling, on Soccer Saturday.
A female sculler, from Togo, actually managing to get lost and go the wrong way on the Olympic rowing lake.
Panorama’s excellent Inside North Korea investigation.
Lee from Gogglebox summing up Labour’s Angela Eagle: “She talks like Una fookin’ Stubbs.”
And Celebrity Big Brother’s monstrous playground bully, Stephen Bear, threatening to “turn this gaff upside daaaahn”, until he was confronted by a brick s**thouse security guard. At which point he shrivelled like a salted slug.
INCIDENTALLY, the Least Necessary Trailer of the Century competition is suspended following this announcement from Loose Women’s Andrea McLean: “Coming up, we’re talking the menopause.”
Lookalikes
THIS week’s winner is boozy layabout Carl from Channel 5’s On Benefits: Britain’s Most Hated Woman and Alf Garnett.
Sent in by D Stillie, Glasgow. Picture research Marta Ovod.
