I just read on Twitter that Eddie Izzard, (apparently but not surprisingly in nail polish) is dishing out medals at the Paralymics tonight.
So you are an elite athlete having won a gold medal. At the moment of your greatest triumph, probably a bit of TV you will want to revisit for posterity up steps the Hooded Claw, in the guise of an unloved politician. The applause for you is shared with boos for them. Next night, some other elite athlete get their award from a much loved popular entertainer. That athlete gets to enjoy their moment of unambiguous rapture.
One of the justifications for using unpopular politicians was that the demand for medal givers was so high they had to shake all the crumbs out of the cookie jar. If it has to be that way maybe the athletes should get a say in who hands them their gong?
On a related theme, I hear Horse and Hound Magazine (a journal that looms large in my life) is in the doodoo for sticking a New Zealand rider at the Burghley Horse Trials on their cover, instead of a victorious British Paralympian.
Their justification was that on their website they got more hits on the Burghley article. Fair point really though I feel they are missing the zeitgiest. The Paralympians don't need a sympathy vote. H&H is free to put what their readers want on the cover. I am free to think that they are a....
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