THE TEDDY BEARS' PANIC

IF YOU GO DOWN TO THE WOODS TODAY, as the song goes, you would hardly get a surprise to see the panic that Britain's decision to leave the European Union has provoked among the foreign ministers of the six founding nations, aware as they are, no doubt, that there may be some intelligent and honest politicians and people lurking in other "member states" (sic) who have now seen that it is possible to leave the union and still be alive the next day and may wish to follow.

THUS, LIKE LITTLE TEDDY BEARS off on a picnic, Paolo Gentiloni from Italy, Didier Reynders from Belgium, Jean-Marc Ayrault from France, Bert Koenders from the Netherlands, Frank-Walter Steinmeier from Germany and Jean Asselborn from Luxemburg went a-wandering in the woods to presumably find some manner of avoiding further exits from their corrupt club.

INTERESTING IN THIS PANIC-PROVOKED situation is the similarity between what I am describing as a Teddy Bears' panic and the lyrics to the song I am quoting. "They love to play and shout, they never have any care;" goes the song, a description almost perfect for our Eurocrats, and then the ominous warning to children everywhere, one that Britain has fortunately understood: "It's lovely down in the woods today, but safer to stay at home."

EUROS 2016

I NOTICE TODAY, SATURDAY 25th of June 2016 -- incidentally the day that my European Union/British Passport has expired -- that there is some dissymmetry in the fact that only one full day after what is being popularly called "Brexit", Britain is still in the unlikely position of having three of its four footballing nations playing in the Euro 2016 competition.

SCOTLAND IS, AS USUAL, THE EXCEPTION, having used her seventeenth-century opt-out clause to withdraw from football in the nineteen seventies, although allowing any Scots who show talent the freedom of movement to go and play football in England, where there is money.

OF COURSE LATER TODAY, barring some sort of absurdity, this state of affairs will be reduced to a mere two teams, England and Wales, paradoxically the two nations who voted most strongly to leave what is mistakenly referred to as "Europe" in a lot of the vulgar press coverage of the event.

I HAVE ABSOLUTELY NO FAITH in either of these teams winning this competition, but, as strong as my glee in the vote on the historic day of the 23rd of June was, it would be stronger still to see the egg on the face of the unelected corrupt bunch of swindlers and crooks who run the arrogant, aloof European Union if the criminal François Hollande has to hand over a trophy to the captain of either one.

(My photo shows European Commission president Jean-Claude Juncker taking a break from drinking brandy and discussing the rules of fair play with Michel Platini)

FLYING DOWN TO RIO

PERHAPS LIKE MANY PEOPLE, I enjoy a little bit of the Olympic spirit once in a while, and, as has been revealed in Sunday Mornings passim, I fully expect none of this to be on display in the pestilent city of Rio de Janeiro later on this summer. Although I am pleased to express my surprise at the speed of construction of the Olympic Village, above.

MY DISTRUST OF THIS YEAR'S OLYMPICS is not simply because of the legacy of Brazilian legend Jean-Marie Faustin Godefroid "João" de Havelange, former president of FIFA, member of the International Olympic Committee and once described as "the most corrupt man who ever lived", nor by the fact that the former President of the Brazilian Republic, Luiz Inácio "Lula" da Silva and the current one, Dilma Vana Rousseff, have been or are being hauled over the coals for charges of corruption in the extreme.

NO, IT PERHAPS HAS MORE to do with the recent spate of doping scandals in sport and the fact that the Olympics this year are going to be held in a city where it is easier to acquire drugs than it is to find clean drinking water.

YET ON A MORE PERSONAL LEVEL, I am amazed that drug-taking should be deemed illegal in sport. When I see some of the "events" that these athletes practice it is extremely difficult to imagine any sane human being wishing to indulge in them without some form of consciousness-changing stimulant.

WHY ELSE WOULD SOMEONE wish to do the pole vault, charging along a track with a flexible pole and hurtling twenty feet into the air then crashing onto a bouncy castle without the side protection parts? Or speeding down a hundred-and-fifty yard snow piste and flying off into the air with a couple of plastic planks tied to one's feet? Wearing spandex and a Smurf costume to ride a bicycle? And why a grown man would want to enter the 10,000 metres race, running round in circles for half an hour is beyond me.

I HAVE ALWAYS ASSUMED that these people were on drugs and that trying to prevent them from taking whatever it is that they need would be as foolish as attempting to get a jazz musician to play without (at least) a little hashish. Sport today is entertainment, as it used to be in Ancient Greece, when chaps and ladies would delight in watching naked men indulge in Greco-Roman wrestling after a few glasses of wine (all round). And, to be honest, not very many tennis fans care what Maria Sharapova has inside her body, as long as she can inspire someone to want to carry out a good backhand smash, as seen above.

IN FACT, I WOULD GO SO FAR as to say that sport in general, and the Olympics in particular, should take its lead from American football, basketball and ice hockey, and introduce drug-taking as a compulsory element. One can imagine the possibilities of sponsorship and the entertainment value of, say, the 400 metres hurdles on marijuana, the cocaine triple jump event, the 4 x 400 metres passing the joint, the heroin synchronised swimming or the legal high jump.

OF COURSE, THERE MUST ALWAYS be safety concerns: javelin and hammer throwers should be restricted to methadone, speed should be kept out of some pool events, and opiates, acids and such derivatives should not be allowed in the Marathon, as, in their confused states, even more athletes might get lost than usually do. 

(My last photos show a non Olympic event that will, coincidentally, be taking place over the summer. This is the three-legged bicycle race in which major British political figures will compete to see which of them (if any) still have a job when parliament reopens next September. Unfortunately, Andrew Mitchell (bottom), former chief whip of the Conservative Party, was disqualified when found not to be respecting rules over helmets.)