The limpics

Now that Britain has done so well in the 2008 Limpic Games, everyone is looking forward with hope in their eyes and vigour in their trainers to the London Limpics in 2012. I kind of understand this sporting euphoria as I, too, have been quietly chuffed whilst watching the Team GBs victories (Team GB? What's all that about? It's a very annoying turn of phrase. What's wrong with 'The British Team' , that's what I want to know?) But then anything where we beat the French is okay with me.

I'd like to suggest a couple of new sports for 2012 and I shall be championing their inclusion for, oh, at least the next week or two, or until I get fed up and move on to something more interesting. The first is 'Whinge Surfing'. Now, our success in this will very much depend on the weather. If the forecasts are for bright, sunny days where everyone can get outside, go to the beach and barbecue, we won't do very well. (And neither will the Aussies!) But, if the weather is typically British and changeable - rain, sleet, sun, snow, plague of frogs all on the same day, then we can employ our native ability to whinge about the weather and should win gold, silver and bronze hands down!

The second is 'R'cycling'. Granted, we aren't very good at this at the moment , but we have been improving of late, especially since following the Daily Mail training programme. This involves heavy weights being placed in your rubbish bin by government spies aka bin cleansing operatives, when you aren't looking and the first thing you know about it is when you get an additional council tax bill because the weight of your bin suggests you are disposing of a small elephant every week and it's playing havoc with the dustcart suspension. This encourages the skill of spreading your load over a variety of individually colour coded receptacles which improves hand/eye co-ordination - glass in green , unless it's brown or clear, tins in brown, paper in blue and card in yellow. Food waste into compost bins which helps build the muscles as you wield a broom to kill the rats that will invade your garden. And finally, plastic avoidance at the supermarket when you attempt to outrun the manager having just left a load of excess packaging at aisle 9 for them to clear up.

I don't like sport, myself. I'll watch Wimbledon, provided there isn't too much grunting and I'll tolerate anything vaguely artistic like gymnastics and diving. I'd probably watch line dancing, too, if that was a Limpic option. But generally speaking, I think way too much fuss is made about flinging yourself around and getting hot and sweaty. And it's a well known fact that PE teachers have only just stopped dragging their knuckles along the ground and discovered speech - although not coherent speech , but give them space and evolution and I'm sure it will happen some time in the next couple of hundred years.

I'm off to practise the lesser form of 'Whinge Surfing' - the kind where you lose internet connection for no good reason in the middle of writing a really good blog entry (not this one, obviously). And we say 'Oh, it'll be the weather, or something.' Because Team GB are good at that.