Well by Olympics' standards the women's football matches in Glasgow aren't of much importance, indeed they are happening before the opening ceremony, when the "mythical flame" hasn't even been lit and the Queen hasn't given it her blessings, away in a cold dark land in the far north. They haven't even necessitated Zil lanes, presumably because no one of any importance was there.
Interest in buying tickets was so abysmal that the organisers gave away tens of thousands to schoolchildren for free...and even then, tonight when I saw it on tv, the stadium was almost empty.
Coca Cola will be unhappy.
Before tonight's match Scottish Secretary, Michael Moore said: “The Olympics is of huge importance and the fact Hampden will be front and centre as the world turns it attention to the UK is great news for Glasgow and Scotland as a whole."
Well, as I said, front and centre may be just a little bit of an exaggeration. There was hardly anyone there. It may have good viewing figures in North Korea, but I'm willing to bet that's the exception.
Mr Moore continued: “The Olympics is our chance to show the world what we are capable of as a nation and the hard work of people across the country is helping ensure the success of the Games."
Barf. No. The Olympics is only one of a thousand of ways that Scotland can show what it is capable of, which is just as well, because one thing it would seem we are not too hot on, is geography.
The Scottish Secretary went on to say that he was looking forward to watching the game and hearing the first-ever Olympic roar at Hampden.
Well I hope he enjoyed it, because it was actually a boo.
So yeah, in what in most cases would have been an relatively minor insult, Logoc managed to show the wrong flag on a big screen as players were introduced. The trouble is that they displayed the flag of South Korea, a country with which North Korea is at war, and has been for around 60 years.
They really couldn't have got it more wrong. The North Koreans walked off and the kick off was delayed for over an hour.
A statement by the London 2012 organisers said:
"Today ahead of the women's football match at Hampden Park, the South Korean flag was shown on a big screen video package instead of the North Korean flag.
"Clearly that is a mistake." (Nah!!!??? Well, I never!)
"We will apologise to the team and the National Olympic Committee and steps will be taken to ensure this does not happen again."
Thus far no one seems to know who prepared the offending (and offensive) video package.
Top flag: North Korea; Bottom flag: South Korea. They're not even vaguely similar, are they?
What do you mean they're not similar? :D
ReplyDeleteThey both have RED WHITE and BLUE in them. Oh all right the SOUTH KOREAN flag does have BLACK as well! :lol:
The BOA do seem to have some confusion about which country is which.
ReplyDeleteThey can't even tell the difference between England and Britain.
Ah... now you mention it, I can see the similarity... and it's the same size, and it's printed on material...silly old me.
ReplyDeleteAmazing that they got in such a twist about the Scottish flag; it's pretty much the same too.
Move along please. Nothing to see here.
:)
LOL Doug. John Humphries just did the same thing on the Today Programme. He sort of corrected himself, but couldn't remember what the team was actually called. "England...er...United...er, Great Britain...."
ReplyDeleteWell done England I say for winning against New Australia.
I see there are no Scots in the English men's football team.
I hear too that the translators translated a sign in Westfield shopping centre (through which people are being fed into the Olympic park, in case they want to spend some money there buying Coca Cola and McDonalds) into Arabic, with the help of Google translate (or some such thing) and messed it up so much that no one had any idea what it was about.
pffffffffff.....
PS: James has a report on the two matches along with photographs of the crowds over at his place.
ReplyDeletehttp://scotgoespop.blogspot.co.uk/2012/07/in-pictures-opening-day-of-2012-glasgow.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed:+ScotGoesPop+(SCOT+goes+POP!)
or Scotgoespop in the sidebar =>
I'm beginning to think these olympic games might be worth watching after all, it looks as if its going to be a two week long episode of Who's Been Framed.
ReplyDeleteYou can't buy chips in the canteen? Seriously? Because they're not McDonalds? And reading Ian Bells bit in the Herald, we can't use words like 'summer' or '2012' (ok that's a number) lest the locog nazis think you're trying to associate your business with the olympics for profit?
Seriously, at this rate, who'd want to?
Who was that bloke that did....It'll be alright on the night? He should present the Olympics.
ReplyDeleteThe trouble is they have never had anyone at the top who could organise anything, or inspire any confidence.
Coe is useless, Jowell, and Hunt are pathetic and it seems to percolate down.
They have tried to paper over cracks. They should have done something serious about transport and they haven't; they've paid off people from borders, and then demand that they work twice as hard as normal for no extra money; they antagonise by having Zil lanes and changing traffic lights in the weird belief that no one minds being HUGELY inconvenienced for the benefit of Coca Cola and McDonalds.
Pile of idiots.
I admit to being totally anti London Olympics. Not because of the Olympics, I usually enjoy watching them, but because of the incessant ass licking as expertly demonstrated by the BBC!
ReplyDeleteLike Pa I was seriously going to give the Olympics a miss BIG time, however, with all the cock ups in the last couple of days it might be a bit of fun.
Lets see now:
Danny Boyle is told to cut 30 minutes from his "opening ceremony". WHAT no one at LOCOG "thought" to tell him how long his "ceremony" was to run for or start the ceremony EARLIER? Oh wait a minute LOCOG don't do thinking!
ZIL lanes opened up and the REAL people of London have to fight through traffic chaos. Nice one LOCOG!
It's too hot for the tube trains to stop at Stratford station a.k.a. Olympic Central. JEEZ!
Greek athlete sent home for making a racist tweet. Good start.
EIGHT athletes are banned from athletics for 2 - 4 years because they FAILED drug tests. Getting Better.
MORE military personnel involved in the "Olympics Security" than we have stationed in Afghanistan. Getting even better.
Hampden "sold out" for its first football matches. O.K. I was stretching the point there a bit. O.K. O.K. I was stretching the point quite a lot actually! :D
You know what the London Olympics might really be worth watching after all! :lol:
I like some of the stuff too, and time permitting I try to watch the diving and some of the gymnastics along with the weights, Arbroath.
ReplyDeleteNot too interrested in people running round tracks, or cycling, or swimming, not that I'd put their efforts down; just not my taste.
And I quite dislike the elite sports.
But the cock-ups are going to be more fun than the athletics, methinks.
But I'd be far more interested if Scotland were completing.
Shpeaking about North Korea - did anyone see the pictures of Kim Jong wee-man with his wife, Ruth Davidson?
ReplyDeleteIt explains a lot - the taekwondo, the idiotic policy statements (it loses something in the tranlation from dog-muncher to Weegie) and the absolute cock-up she's making running her Party because she's jetsetting across the globe every night to make her man's fish and rice tea.
ha ha Anon...
ReplyDeleteGood one.
Some ways you look at her she does look a wee bit like Ruthie. I personally think she is much prettier.
I see Jim Murphy made a bit of a fool of himself, by immediately blaming the Scottish staff at Hampden for the blunder over Korean flags.
ReplyDeleteYou'd have thought as an (albeit unwilling) ex-Scottish Secretary he might have stood up for Glasgow as a default position. But no, he immediately stood up for London.
Unfortunately for him LOGOC had to admit that the video was made there by them and had nothing to do with Hampden.
The SNP has suggested that Murphy might like to apologise to the national stadium staff, upon whom he jumped with no evidence whatsoever.
Let's see if that happens.
Labour apologise hell will have to freeze first.
ReplyDeleteI hear team England where winning, er team GB, when the BBC pundits remember their scripts it must be so difficult for these overpaid dears.
CH, Engerland, oops I mean team GB, might have been winning at one stage but the game ended up a 1 - 1 draw against SENEGAL!
ReplyDeleteGO SENEGAL! :lol:
By the way I think Hell will freeze over before Murph the Smurph EVER apologies for ANYTHING!
Oh well, CH... it's his call, but he looks a complete twonk, and a rather unpatriotic one too.
ReplyDeleteJimmy Cranky should call him in and give him a good dressing down... OK, I can't type any more, I shaking with laughter.
It's very difficult to remember to say GB when what you MEAN is England. They only get £100,000 a year...struth.
Is that the same match Arbroath... in Wales?
ReplyDeleteHumphries said England won.
BTW: I see when it comes to the men's football (big mistake leaving Beckham out....VERY unpopular with the fans), there are no Scots in the squad.
@ Tris:
ReplyDeleteI have no interest in sports, (except for the beach volleyball of course.) And all the hoop-la over the modern Olympics and Hitler's Olympic flame strikes me as silly.
But a mix-up in the South and North Korean flags is a HUGE deal. Imagine if such a mix-up had occurred in the depth of the cold war between the USA's Stars and Stripes and the Soviet Union's Hammer and Sickle. That would have initiated a major international incident. If anything, this is more serious than that. Involving two nations that ARE at war.
The comments on here have been quite reasonable. But other media comments have sometimes been along the lines that it's all just a silly mistake, and the flags look similar anyway. Now just how brain dead do you have to be not to know the difference between the North Korean and South Korean flags? AND know that mixing them up is a big freekin deal?
I would expect this of Americans who hardly recognize a world outside their borders, but not of the British. Of course there IS the matter of whether the fault belongs to the Scots or the English. Or of some underpaid and undereducated stadium staff functionary who was just told to go get the Korean flag.
The game Humphries was talking about was the Engerland, sorry, Team GB Women's football game in Cardiff.
ReplyDeleteThe game CH was talking about was the Engerland, sorree, Team GB Men's game played somewhere else, in Engerland, Old Trafford.
Confusing, isn't it? :D
Ahhh, yeah, confusing with men and women both paying football... tsk....
ReplyDelete