The French, as we know, are famous for their grapes, but while the Olympics were on, they became famous for their gripes.
The poor French dears have never got over the fact that the British snaffled the Olympics from right under their noses. Naturally, the only POSSIBLE reason that Londoncould have been preferred to Pariswas that the British resorted to skullduggery in the grinning form of Tony Blair knocking on the bedroom doors of wavering Committee members to talk up London. “Unprecedented!” screamed the French. As our Frenchie friends are not types to be scandalised by nocturnal knockings on bedroom doors, the brouhaha was to do with the fact that it was a British Prime Minister who was doing it. So shocking! Such lofty personages had no business haranguing Olympic people in their pyjamas. In other words, the French were raging mad that they hadn’t thought of it first.
Actually, the Olympics were won mainly because the Committee members agreed to vote for London so that T Blair would just go away and leave them in their pyjamaed peace to attend to the voluptuous escort girl hastily stuffed in the wardrobe when Tony grinned along to knock so unprecedentedly on the door.
The massive British haul of medailles was also had by trickery, most famously those “magic wheels” on British bikes so whined about by Mme. Gautheron, directrice of the Frenchie bicyclette team, especially the fact that they were carefully tidied away in bags immediately after the race so that Mme. Gautheron couldn’t cast her suspicious Frenchie oeil on them. Naturally, other countries left their wheels scattered about all over the place for everyone to trip over.
Strangely enough, there was no mention in the Swiss papers of Andy Murray having used a magic racquet or magic sweatbands to beat Roger Federer. And no doubt the five blokes who beat the Frenchie in the 100 metres semi-final worehad magic spikes or had their shorts impregnated with magic gel. How else could they POSSIBLY have run faster than a French person?
During the Olympics, David Cameron was interviewed on French TV and told more or less straight out that the British had to be cheating. The British PM put this manque de politesse down to the French suffering gallstones (or Gallic stones) at the sight of Union Jacks festooning the Champs-Elysees to celebrate the bewhiskered Bradley Wiggins speeding on his magic wheels to win the Tour de France.
British athletes? Doped of corse. Without drugs, Britain’s Jessica Ennis, heptathlon winner, could never have finished the 800 metres looking so FRESH. It just wasn’t natural, so therefore it had to be UNnatural! Oh la la, that fabulous French logic! Well, hello France! We’re talking here about the best all-round female athlete in the WORLD. For whom running 800 metres is like your amble to the boulangerie. The person who wouldn’t look (or smell) fresh even BEFORE an 800 metres is the flabbed male couch potato (pomme de terre du canapé) Frenchie journalist stuffed full of foie gras and crème brulee who wrote that pathetic comment in the first place.
On Sunday, there was a splendid editorial in the Liberation. It offered Britain fabulously grudging congratulations for a successful Games, then went on to display what the French do best – sniffy superiority. The Olympics were an ephemeral thing n’est-ce pas – 17 days of glamour, puff and frippery that cost an arm and a leg. The French, though, had been toiling away well-behavedly at FAR more serious matters, such as being primly prudent with public money and acting all socially and fiscally responsible. Unlike Team GB, l’Equipe France was as stiff as a stale baguette with moral rectitude (excuse me while I laugh up my sleeve – wasn’t that YOUR Monsieur Hassan Hirt sent home in disgrace for gobbling EPO?)
So, dear France and Frenchies, your sour grapes do you no honour. The entire world, apart from you (that eternal exception française), LOVED the London Olympics, so off you go now and wipe all that egg off your face (oeuf sur le visage) and start preparing your next Olympic bid – if you dare. SUCH a pity you’ve been refused six times in a row.