OLYMPIC CON-TRICK.

What is all the fuss about tickets for the Olympics ? Anyone with half a brain knew that tickets for anything worth watching would be like gold dust, while tickets for Graeco-Roman wrestling, rhythmic gymnastics and tiddlywinks would be theirs for the asking. The entire ticketting process also seems to have been a laughable mess, overseen by the slimy and egregious Lord Coe.

The whole thing is a massive con-trick, simply devised to try to ensure full arenas at all of the events while extracting the maximun amount of cash out of the idiot punters.

The Olympics as originally envisaged no longer exist. Instead, it's a platform for highly trained professional athletes plus an enormous range of participants in so-called sports that the Greeks had never heard of; instead of being competition between individuals, it's now a competition between nations. Countries import performers and short-cut their naturalisation procedures in pursuit of gold medals, happily aided by their governments; in reality, it's war without the guns.

Of course, I like to see our people doing well, but by 'our people' I don't mean the latest import from the US or Somalia; I mean someone brought up in this country. I also see the Olympics as being an occasion for proper sports, not volleyball, synchronised swimming or mountain biking, and also not the sports the Greeks never played - football, rugby, golf, tennis etc. None of these have any place in the Olympics and their inclusion is nothing more than an ego trip for the organisations than oversee them worldwide. How long will it be before we have a 'Formula 1' Olympic event ?

Those who applied for tickets are idiots. The Olympics are now an occasion for the political classes to show off at; they all get tickets, free, gratis and for nothing, because of their positions. The real people of the country have to pay through the nose for tickets to see events they've never heard of. It's a con. It's a disgrace, but it's also headed by another FIFA, the IOC, with its vast array of delegates, members and officials, all guaranteed tickets for whatever they want to see. It's also another corrupt organisation that seems to be wholely unaccountable. Thank god that 2012 will be the one and only time we have to endure this grotesquely bloated nonsense in this country in my lifetime.