Stupid Cupid

Hello! Yesterday I got to spend one of my least favourite days of the year doing one of my favourite things: watching Olympic Figure Skating. With everyone else in Strasbourg, I curled up on the couch in the boss's office and clicked through "European Parliament Live" in 8 languages to get to "EuroSport Live" in 8 languages. Yesterday was the men's short program.

I had originally planned to watch it in Swedish, but at the last minute opted for British so that I could understand the-what I hoped would be- insightful commentary. I should have stuck with the Swedes. The British commentators were better than NBC's eye-crossingly awful line up, but that is the ONLY good thing I can say about them.

Here are a few choice quotes:

(After a skater falls) "He is not a happy bunny right now"
"This guy is a pocket battleship both mentally and physically"
"It seems as if no one wants to win gold medal"

More remarkable, though, was the interaction between the 2 commentators-both men-whose relationship is, um, undefined. (BTW, whoever heard of not having a woman commentator for a sport whose audience is 80 percent women?)

Commentator 1 "The ice is a bit less cold here than skaters are used to. This can give them a nice spongy feeling while skating.'"
Commentator 2" I'm getting a nice spongy feeling sitting next to you right now."


Commentator 1 (Reacting to a skater's gets exceptionally low marks for a decent performance) "He is having trouble thinking of the things he did wrong to deserve this."
Commentator 2 "I'm having trouble thinking of the things I did wrong to deserve working with you."
Commentator 1 "Keep thinking"

Commentator 1 "This skater will be a big star in a few years. He looks really good"
Commentator 2"Yeah, he looks better than you.
Commentator 1"Hey, watch it!"

What to make of these statements?

Unfortunately, I have to admit that the commentators were onto something when they said it seemed like no one wanted to win a gold medal. It was a pretty lacklustre night of figure skating.

I had seen all the competitors live a few years ago when the Figure Skating World Championships were held in Washington DC. So I had been very much looking forward to seeing them again at the Olympics.

The highlight of those World Championships was Evgeni Plushenko winking at me. (He really did! I was quite near the front. I saw it perfectly.) But now, alas, Evgeni has let me down. He skated perfectly, but...I think he's lost some of his "soul." He used to be this sort of eccentric outsider, but he seems to have become part of "the establishment." He still has his awful haircut, but for the rest he has turned in to Mr. Visa Coca-Cola corporate Olympian. (Sigh)

oh well.

The final is Thursday and I certainly plan to watch. I didn't get back to my place till 11 last night. So tonight will be a good chance for me to chill out and take a break. I stopped by a little second hand bookstore and bought a copy of "The Good Earth" by Pearl s. Buck (my Dutch grandma was a big fan of hers.) My friend Theresa lent me a murder mystery but I think I'll wait to read that till after everyone gets back from Strasbourg and it's not quite so empty around here.

Also, when they come back I will ask the native Britons if they know anything about these 2 weird commentators: Who are they? Is this normal figure skating commentary? And what -for crying out loud- is a "nice spongy feeling"??????