Olympic Rejection

In today''s Independent was an article that initially was not surprising in today's nanny state but on further reflection given the people involved became rather confusing.

The article was referring to athletes who have either already missed out on 2012 selection or are likely to do so in the next few weeks and their tirades against their sports governing bodies who are failing to give them support or counselling to help them through these tragic times,those recounting their stories from the last Olympics talked of turning to anti depressants to help them through such terrible rejection.

Now the initial reaction was that these are people in the 18-25 age group who are the first brought up in the “Non Competitive” era whereby everybody wins there are no losers and kiddies get a prize for finishing last so they don’t get looked down upon by the winners. Yes I am starting to sound cynical because these are not 7 year old 's at school sports day we are talking about these are International sportsmen and women who are competing in and around the highest level so should be used to the highs of winning and the lows of losing,they will have known for some time that unless their name was Philips Odowu,Jessica Ennis or Dai Green that there was a possibility that they might not make it so why the bleating now.

Is it a case that the early indoctrination of “No losers” has stayed with them over the years and they feel they have a right to compete in their home Olympics,well that’s life there are winners and losers so instead of moaning about counselling maybe they should think more about Kipling

“If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same:

you’ll be a Man, my son! “

A New Musical Revolution Needed

Been watching Punk Britannia over the last few weeks and enjoying an interesting look back at one of the most defining periods in British musical cultural history even though the slagging off of my love of Prog and Rock,”Dinosaurs”, did not go down well but it did make me think that maybe we need a Punk revolution again.

Many of those of a certain age who saw the Jubilee concert will I guess have been saddened by the fayre that was put before us,putting aside the excellent Tom Jones the other oldies,Cliff,Elton & Macca proved little more than the fact that they are well past their sell by date and really need to admit defeat and hand over the mantle to a new generation.

But who are the new generation where are the international mega stars in waiting the Who,Stones,Queen etc who will influence the world of music in the next 20 years,Punk gave us the Pistols,Clash,The Jam and The Dammed all of whom were hugely influential in the years that followed Punk but sadly that type of band no longer appears to be around in the music world.

Now I appreciate that with the Internet and Digital TV mean that we do not see much of the interesting music entertaining many of today's younger music lovers but something needs to be done to get something half decent and potentially influential onto the mainstream in place of the dross that abounds on The Voice,X factor etc etc.

Is it possible or are we doomed to inhabit Simon Cowell world for the rest of our lives,I can only hope that out there somewhere is a new Johnny Rotten,Joe Strummer or Paul Weller that can put a bomb under the music world so that as I sit in the old folks home in years to come I dont have to watch Lord Cowell present X factor series 35 without the ability to hold a knife and slash my wrists