A proud and dangerous moment in time.

August 20, 2012

Despite being away in France, I sat glued to the Olympics every night. Personally, I absolutely loved both the opening and closing ceremonies. I understand if they weren’t to everybody’s taste, but I’m still surprised when people are deeply critical of them. This was a moment when the eyes of the world were on England, and a time for us to really take pride in our culture and country. Given all the predicted problems that we’d encounter during the games, none of them really came to pass. We came out triumphant with many a meddle to be ridiculously proud of during the sporting events. We displayed an amazing array of musical talent from the rock guitar of Brian May to the swinging tight leather pants of George Michael, to the hilarious humour of Eric Idle. And it’s surely a testament to the success of these games, that for the first time in history, the paraolympic games have sold out.

The hope is of course that these games will inspire a whole new generation to really embrace sport, to compete and reep the rewards for hard work. In a culture where the current wave of celebrities are made up soley of reality stars, we have new idols to pin up like Mo Farah, Jessica Ennis and Andy Murray. We have shown the world that we are not afraid to weep, and hopefully the image of the stiff upper lip will disappear. Team GB emphasized that we are a country where foreigners can be embraced, can prosper, can become one of us. I read last week that 100 more languages are spoken in London that in New York City. I am truly proud to call myself a Londoner at this current point in time, and will remain glued to the games when they resume at the end of the month.

Before the games, Mitt Romney said that it was hard to know just how well they’d turn out…

Well Mitt, your countrymen won the most medals of anyone. And many of those medals were won by women. This is of course the man whose views on equal pay are extremely dubious, who wants to scrap Planned Parenthood and who has picked a running mate who thinks women should be forced to give birth to their rapist’s baby, even if your rapist is your own father or brother. The anger I feel that a man like this can even be in the running for president cannot be expressed. The idea that women across America could end up voting for him as president is even worse.

We’ve just passed the anniversairy of women getting the vote. So, women of America, when the time comes, use your vote wisely. Unless you want to live in 1950.