London 2012 Olympics

In the wake of the news last week that some people in Iran have noticed that the 2012 Olympic logo looks a bit like the word "Zion", causing no small amount of controversy, let's have a look at the many things that have been pony about the preparations for the London Olympics so far, and the many pony things that are no doubt yet to come to pass.

First of all, let's talk about that logo. The logo was designed at a cost of £400,000. I must admit I find it hard to see where it looks like it says "Zion", because when I look at it, I'm afraid I can only see Lisa Simpson fellating Bart. Seriously, never mind an Iranian boycott, they are lucky Bart and Lisa haven't sued them for libellously suggesting they are into incest. Well, or Matt Groening hasn't sued them for copyright infringement, anyway...

Even if you can't see the beloved cartoon character porn, and it could be that I just have a sick mind, you have to admit that this logo is shit. £400,000 for that. They could have had a competition in any given primary school for nix and come out with something better. It was designed back in 2007, when economically we were all a lot less fucked than we are now, but even so, how did nobody look at the invoice without the phrases "having our pants down", "some kind of joke" and "fuck off!" coming into their baffled minds...

But no. Having unveiled this piece of shit to an unimpressed nation, they thought they would have another stab at capturing the public's imagination with the launch of the freaky one-eyed metal mascots, named Wenlock and Mandeville, after some towns in England that have something to do with the Olympics so boring that I only just looked it up and I can't remember what it is now.

Again, the general consensus among those in the media who didn't have some kind of obligation to be positive about the whole stupid enterprise, and er, my Facebook friends, was that the mascots were as rubbish as the logo. I actually think they are kind of cute, but could do without the shitty, contrived symbolism such as having the London taxi lights (supposedly, they look nothing like the lights on any cab I've ever seen) on their heads and the Olympic rings worn as "friendship bracelets" (all the other one eyed metal aliens say they're gay for having friendship bracelets, but Wenlock and Mandeville, they know they're cool).

So, the promotional stuff hasn't really been getting the nation on side, and the phrase "white elephant" has been bandied about almost as much as it was back when the excellent O2 Arena was the terrifyingly lame Millenium Dome. I doubt they will be able to sell off Wenlock, Mandeville and dirty Bart and Lisa as a venue for Miley Cyrus concerts after the Olympics, though, sadly.

Another source of bad feeling about the 2012 Olympics being held here, is that no matter how much money we throw at it (and as a country whose budget is down to ribs and dick already, we should be throwing less money at this than is spent on the average infant school play about how head lice spread) we are still never going to make the opening ceremony look as good as China's. They may have, rather meanly, had a pretty little girl lip-synching to an ugly little girl's singing. They may have Photoshopped in a lot of the fireworks afterwards for the TV coverage. It may have involved a lot of very boring, drawn out (but nonetheless weirdly impressive) mass dance routines. But what are we going to do? It'll be Katherine Jenkins singing the national anthem (which is fine, she's done it lots of times before and can be trusted with such a thing, unlike that creature that used to be Christina Aguilera doing the American national anthem at the Superbowl...), and then probably a presentation about global warming, then maybe that kid off of Britain's Got Talent doing some break dancing.

Plus, we for some reason have had to build a shitload of stuff. Velodromes and whatnot. Surely there are enough leisure centres dotted around London that we could just cobble it all together with what we've got. You know, given we are fucking skint and will probably have to bulldoze all these new stadiums down immediately afterwards to make room for, I don't know, mass graves for all the people who, by 2012, will probably be dying of scurvy and rickets.

That was the difference with our World Cup bid. Well, aside from the fact that football is way better than cycling. Yes, I know they have football at the Olympics, but there's nobody you've heard of playing and England and Scotland are the same team - where's the fucking fun in that? As a football loving nation with the strongest domestic league in the world we already have a wealth of stadiums with sufficient capacity to host such an event. But then, so did Qatar, so we didn't get it.

The Olympics could be great fun. It may surprise us all, by reviving the economy, capturing the imagination of the next generation of British sport legends, and giving us all a welcome distraction from being pissed off with bankers. But to give it a fighting chance they need to stop wasting money and try and make it an Olympics that reflects modern Britain. So, er, cheap, basically, with all corporate hospitality catered by Iceland. And the logo should just be "2012", in 12 point Arial. Done, and done.

Once again, plugging time - you can follow me on Twitter at www.twitter.com/Pony_and_Trap.