Wednesday, August 13, 2008

Smoke and Mirrors

I am still trying to work out the best option for car hire in Scotland. We have kind of complicated requirements. This has led to me producing a spreadsheet with the various options laid out. At the moment the winner is Enterprise, but I await their response to an e-mail. I also have sent an e-mail to a friendly sounding Glasgow firm and will see what they come up with. I think perhaps I chose the wrong occupation and should have gone into logistics –or something that allows you to draw up spreadsheets of information and highlight bits of it. It would probably be best if it wasn’t very mathematical though. I am not sure there are many jobs that allow you to look up lots of things n the internet, put the results in a spreadsheet and then do some colouring in.

One of the things I find about the Olympics is that I end up watching all sorts of sports that I would never consider watching under any other circumstances. Canoeing, archery etc. Anyway, I think we’re doing pretty well at the moment in terms of medals and I think it is good that people who are relatively unknown have won most of our medals, as that feels like some of what the Olympics should be about. I am not so sure that the Olympics is mean to be about choosing the ‘prettiest’ though. Apparently the Chinese substituted a prettier girl for the one who was meant to be appearing to sing in the Olympics opening ceremony. The less attractive one was still allowed to sing though and the pretty girl obviously wasn’t quite up the job as she had to mime along. The Chinese justified this by saying "The reason for this is that we must put our country's interest first[…] The girl appearing on the picture must be flawless in terms of her facial expression and the great feeling she can give to people." Because clearly anyone who didn’t reach physical perfection would ruin the whole of the Olympics. If the Chinese are so controlling over something like this then it gives just the tiniest indication of how they are likely to deal with other less public issues.

6 comments:

jumpinginpuddles said...

im still reeeling from the shock we awarded a communist country the olympics yet again, the same people who slaughtered all those people in tieneman square, are given the rights to host a amazingly old tradition of honour and freedom.
CRAZY

Kahless said...

I was mesmerised by the opening ceremony. As I watched it I felt the power of China; kind of scarey.

I was disappointed to learn after aout the girl, that the firework footprints were superimposed on the tv footage and that fired a load of cloud dispersal rockets (poor environment.)

Did you was Maestro on BBC2 last night? Thought it might be your kind of programme.

Spudgy said...

Try Carhire 3000 - dont know how they do it but they ar usually good value.

Random Reflections said...

jumpinginpuddles - it has also turned into a massive publicity stunt for them and it feels as though there is a lot of manipulation going on. But you only have to chip away a little bit to start to find all the things they would rather we didn't see.

kahless - yes it's a shame that they have done so much that has turned out to be faked. It detracts form the Olympics itself, which is an amazing event.

No I didn't watch the programme, but I just checked and it is being repeated on BBC4 tomorrow night.

spudgy - thanks for the suggestion. I have just had a quick look and they seem good value.

Kahless said...

do watch it - see my cousin in action. I wont tell you whom but let you guess!

Random Reflections said...

kahless - oh yes, I certainly will then. Although I might have to tape it, as it finishes past my bedtime!