I swear four years between Olympics just isn’t enough.

For the last month or so every time you turned on the television there was something about them on, first the torch run, then the athletes being flown over, then the event themselves.  It’s been finished three days, yet still they’re bleating on about them like something stupendous has just happened.

Maybe I’m just getting old, crabby and cynical, but I truly don’t get it.

Today it was the return of the athletes in the news, or as they said on the news “The triumphant return of our heroes”. But I’ll get to that in a moment…

Then you had all the parades, pomp and ceremony over them returning.  I might be missing something, but don’t they already have the achievement of being the best in their chosen field of sport, a choice they made, and for the most part have been paid to perform in, plus they have the joy of now owning a gold coated chocolate medallion (could they look any less real?).  Do they really need to be wheeled out and paraded around like freaks whilst being given keys to the city and probably recommended for a knighthood?

OK, so they are fast at running, swimming, rowing or really good at whatever it happens to be, but it’s not like they’ve suddenly solved poverty or created world peace…

So…

A Knighthood?

For being good at something?

Like I said, maybe I’m just crabby, jaded and cynical.

There were even people being interviewed, saying how they just “had to come out to see them return after the games had gone so well.”

Now don’t get me wrong, there are several “celebrity” type people I would love to meet… But for all the same reasons I like to meet “normal” people, they’re funny, they’re interesting, there’s something in particular I’d like to talk with them about, or, in some cases, just because I have the feeling we’d get on like a house on fire.

But these people were rushing out in their droves to watch people ride by… On a bus!?!?!?

Erm… They’re on a bus, you’re seeing them at a distance…

Why?

Am I missing something?

Oh and then there’s the whole “return of our great heroes” approach.

Soldiers go off to war and come home broken, damaged or dead… They’re practically smuggled into the country, yet here’s athletes being paraded around like they’ve just sorted out the problems in the Middle East in the space of a week.

There is clearly something wrong with that somewhere.

I like to think of myself as a Conciencious Objector, I don’t agree with warfare, but I’m still able to realise that those who do feel they have to do their part should be welcomed home with a whole lot more than a “here’s your discharge papers, you’re no use to us broken…”

It’s just all wrong.