Queen Victoria

The best thing about the Olympics is definitely Victoria Pendleton.

That was the end of that paragraph and I don’t feel the need to justify it. The worst thing thus far has been some of the journalism. Aside from the fact there are a lot of people who are just not very good there is a lot of intrusive stuff. I don’t like how people are interviewed within seconds of finishing a race where they have ‘lost’. Rebecca Adlington has apologised after both races to everyone for ONLY getting a bronze medal. Tonight’s none-first was more unexpected than the one the other day but still it was an Olympic bronze medal; she was the third best in the world at two things and she is apologising for letting people down. If that is the cost of the mass hysteria of the gold medals then I can live without both of them.

We live in a world of extremes. Everything has to be the best thing ever- or the worst thing ever now. People are either heroes or villains, generally of course that caterorisation fluctuates depending on the whims of the popular press. I am not saying don’t treat the winners like heroes and encourage everyone to do their best, but (and I can feel this sounding wank before I write it) we should be lifting people with support and cheering and not putting pressure on them with it.

And when someone has only got a bronze medal how about cutting them some slack, just interview the people looking happy. And if you are going to interview them make getting bronze sound like a brilliant achievement (like it is) and not “aren’t you gutted you didn’t get the gold? You must be really gutted. Gold is a lot better than bronze, Shit..why did you bother?”

19th Shade of Grey

I know – where have the updates about 50 Shades of Grey gone? You’re all really gutted that a really poor writer’s re-telling of a really badly written book isn’t moving on at pace. Well I’ve definitely got to a point where I can say, hand on heart, that it’s neither as good nor bad as anyone is saying it is. To anyone has said it is amazing then they really need to have a word with themselves as it’s NOT amazing. It’s really badly written – the subconscious thing is still going on. It’s also not the worst thing ever published as some people would have you believe. I should add that I have read just over 40% of it (I don’t do pages you fucking losers, get with the Kindle) and haven’t got to any kinky sex yet.

So, what’s been going on then? Well they’ve had ‘vanilla sex’ [what sadomasochists call sex] a couple of times and he’s told her that he wants her to be his submissive. She wasn’t so sure about it but he’s so dreamy that she’s going to give it a go. While there is nothing terribly original about some charming, powerful man pulling some virgin it’s not been done in the most horrendous way.

Basically imagine if The DaVinci Code had no mysteries in it and was about a young virgin being buggered by an old man and you’re half way there. There was a paragraph in it where she made him breakfast. And it actually described some of it, this isn’t verbatim but it was along the lines of “She turned over the bacon on the grill as she waited for the pan to heat up, then she whisked some eggs and poured the mix into the pan and began to make scrambled eggs.” At least while the author is describing characters do pointless things in more detail than required she is not describing someone thinking has that person having a conversation with their subconscious.