It felt strange watching the London Olympics at such a distance. Dubious as I am about the exploitation of sporting events for the fostering of national pride, I thought the Brits maintained a reasonable balance and managed, for the most part, to be proud of things that are worth being proud of. The sheer eccentricity of the opening ceremony was a joy.
But what has made me hugely proud of my nation has been the staging of the Paralympics so far, and the coverage given in the British media. Finally instead of being shunted away into obscure corners of the news some of the greatest athletes on the planet (and I mean 'greatest' in every sense) are being taken seriously and given the treatment they deserve. They interviewed a prosthetics specialist on Sky News the other night regarding the Oscar Pistorius fracas and his delight over the serious exposure his specialism was receiving was palpable.
By the way, everyone in the 100 metres final is capable of a time below 11 seconds!
I happened to be watching one of those strange style make-over programmes tonight, or rather, the Missus was watching and I was an innocent by-stander, and the rather silly lady they were doing the business on was referred to at one point as 'inspirational' by her vacuous friend. No, she wasn't. But the guys at the Paralympics are, emphatically so. Nice to see that is finally being recognised in a big way.
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