Buy An Olympic Torch

Is there no end to the absurdity of the Olympic Games. High on the list is, surely, the nonsense of the Olympic Torch. The idea of parading the Olympic Torch around the host nation was dreamt up by the German government for the Berlin Olympics in 1936 in order to boost the image of the Nazis and the Master Race. This torch thing for the 2012 Olympics is being carried over 7,000 miles around Britain and, apparently, needs a team of 350 people, lots of police, several vehicles and a couple of dogs to "organize" the trip. It is an honour, we are told, to be selected to carry this torch for a few hundred yards and anyone so honoured can buy their torch at a reduced price of £250.00. Some have bought them and immediately stuck them on e-bay with prices from £500 to £150,000. The highest figures are I think, intended to be part of money raising for charities. I know that the Olympics these days is all about extracting money from ordinary punters, while the suits and the hangers on and the officials and the politicians and Sepp Blatter and his crew get complimentary tickets to all the main events, 5 star hotels and chauffeur driven cars. In fact it is so corrupt that many of the people paying for the whole shebang can't get tickets at all — unless they are bought abroad. I will be glad when the whole sickly business is over and forgotten and we just have the memory of the empty stadiums left behind and various committees trying to think of some possible future uses — in the manner of The Dome

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