The Olympic flame travels through old London town today, bringing with it images of great sporting triumph, hastily papered over a less appealing vista of human rights being slowly eroded. The torch is travelling from Wembley to the O2 (OK, the Millennium Dome) on public transport, so don't expect it to be back in Beijing by August. The torch will be passed through a frankly insane 135 cities in 20 different countries, and comes equipped with 3 flame attendants and all manner of gadgets to ensure it doesn't go out:
The Olympic flame can keep burning through 65mph winds and rain of up to 50mm an hour.
It made it all the way to Athens last time, only to go out in the Olympic Stadium. So what happened next? Well, they relit it. The Olympics did not have to be called off. All of which makes you wonder what the point is - even I can't feign interest in watching an artificial fire being marched through Stratford on a wintry Sunday afternoon, and I can get excited about pretty much any meaningless sporting event. Also, in this era of supposed climate change awareness, hauling an inanimate object around the world and booking it plane seats and hotel rooms just makes me want to throw my recycling into the garden and start a bonfire with it. Anyway, if you're in the capital and fancy glimpsing this majestic symbol of human oppression and carbon carelessness, it's currently approaching the British Museum before an in-no-way-tokenistic trip to Chinatown...
No comments:
Post a Comment