Date: Fri, 26 Jul 1996 01:06:15 +0100
From: m-14970-AT-mailbox.swipnet.se (Hugh Rodwell)
Subject: Snafu Olympics


Rahul writes, with unwonted politeness:

>Hi everyone.  I am fascinated by the Olympics and the politics involved in
>it.  Does anyone know of any good articles, historical or otherwise, on the
>Olympics.  Or any books?  If so, please do tell me their names and where I
>would be able to locate them.
>
>Thank you,

Sorry, no books. But the juiciest news out of Atlanta so far is the
completely wretched organization for the athletes and the people reporting
on them. An international brigade of rowers hijacked an Olympics bus and
ordered the driver to take them to their pond. The buses are late, or don't
turn up, and the drivers don't know the way. What a way to focus your
concentration! A bit like travelling to work in the rush hour. Three or
four year's work training in carefully calculated doses (heh, heh) down the
tubes cos the bus is late!

Nothing else seems to work either, except the advertising. The biggest
Swedish daily had half a page on the technological miracles of the
CyberOlympics -- the final solution was IBM carting in half a ton of
electric typewriters (remember those things where typing was *hard*, like
you noticed when you made mistakes cos it was such a pain to change it) and
all the reporters getting nostaligic for the old days shouting their scoops
down a crackling voice-phone line (oops, ageism creeping in there -- I
meant all the *old* reporters. No one under thirty has ever seen a
typewriter except for the one mysterious old Methuselah uses to write the
obituaries).

Some imported network guru from Canada was brought in for a couple of days
and had things going for an hour or two before they finally gave up and
brought on the lawnmowers.

What I'm wondering is where they managed to get hold of so many electric
typewriters all at once!

Anyway, it's all a useful reminder of the hollowness of most of the
technohype the imperialists try and knock us out with.

Yankee civilization has given us the invaluable term *snafu* (for our
foreign subscribers, explained by Collins as s(ituation) n(ormal): a(ll)
f(ucked) u(p)). Atlanta is giving us the *snafu Olympics*.

Cheers,

Hugh


PS Neat touch to have the best-loved Black Muslim anti-Vietnam-war (I
almost wrote anti-Vietnam, but on this list you can never be too careful!)
folk-hero as final torchman in the heart of Dixie -- it was almost 'Burn
Baby Burn!' again. I really would have preferred Tommie Smith or John
Carlos from Mexico City myself, but what the hell...

Except instead of Burn Baby Burn it was a fireworks show for the Riders of
the Beast -- Nike, Coca-Cola and the Commander-in-Chief. Quantum mutatus ab
illo ...





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