Back online!

Months, MONTHS have passed since I was able to even view this page, let alone use it. BT's dismal customer service cut us off from mid-February til the very end of July, although of course they're lightning quick setting us up again as new customers. Not so happy that they're simply the foundation on which we use Sky for everything, but twats can't be choosers as the saying goes.

So it's another year in Bournemouth, the second in a row post-Uni and into a new job, new flat to mark the occasion. The job: Marketing Assistant at Emap Glenigan, the first rung of the ladder, step in the right direction and so on. The flat: four lads, Sky TV, a beer fridge, a back garden with a goal already lined up against the flowers, first name terms with the curry house round the corner. It's the centre of everything that's happening in Winton. Big deals, yeah?

Olympic fever will grip the country for three weeks from tomorrow, Britain's drugged-up athletes (heroes) expected to win around 40 medals. Typically last-minute British fuss, though a strange lack of mass promotion as global companies try not to appear supportive of China owing to the regime's human rights and Tibet issues. At least we can all get behind Andy Murray as one of our own, and ignore the fact he is actually Scottish. Elsewhere, since there's no football (yet! We'll be there in 2012) there's a few other high points, notably proper British idols such as 'attractive woman in epic contest' (Kelly Sotherton), 'talented youngster and underdog' a la Britain's Got Talent (Tom Daley) , 'heroic, nearly-woman' (Paula Radcliffe) and Christine 'innocent after all' Ohoruogu, who, should she win a medal, will bravely fight back tears as the justice becomes all too much.

It's the fleeting frenzy of it all that disappoints, the bandwagon jumping on names who enter into the daily language simply through hype. These people devote their normal working days and weekends into getting good at something, just for the odd event that peaks in the public eye, then disappears again. They're supported not for the hard work, sheer determination and natural talent that goes into their competing, but for being British. But it is their Britishness that is craved: I doubt many people watching the Olympics actually feel proud to be British when they do so; for one thing, it's just sports. It's (usually) thousands of miles away and there's no personal involvement. And many of the events are rubbish to watch: a lot of waiting, something happens, there's perhaps an exciting flourish, the end. It's not (of course) like football or tennis, which no doubt will be the most attractive Olympic medal contests.
I also tend to feel physically inferior, jealous of someone else's obvious talent and muscle, and generally less of a man. So anyone analysing this rambling is immediately diagnosing 'inferiority complex' and putting it all down to me being jealous of muscly men (and women). But it's more an irritation with the over-the-top interest, the hysterical highs and gut-wrenching lows that 'everyone feels' when really, apart from the athlete's, and their coaches and families, come September no one will really be bothered again.