If Michelle Obama was upset at an American Olympian gold medallist eating an Egg McMuffin imagine how unhappy she would be if Bradley Wiggins was an American.

Luckily he is a Brit and a few weeks ago he won one of the toughest sports competitions in the world – the 2,500 mile Tour de France. Then he came back to the Olympics and won gold in the cycling time trial.

He is now relaxing on holiday in Spain with his family and was pictured sitting outside a bar enjoying a glass of wine …and a cigarette……

Hey – someone needs to tell him how to keep fit!!!!!!

Confession time….I was a cynic and doomster about the London 2012 Olympics. In 2005 I was hoping Paris would get the time bomb and we could avoid all the expense and inconvenience. It seemed a classic piece of Blairite New Labour grandstanding, as empty and vapid and meaningless as the Millennium Dome.

In the weeks beforehand my pessimism meter dial hit the red zone as transport unions blackmailed extra bonuses, private security companies failed to deliver and predictions of traffic chaos and empty seats filled the pages of the Daily Mail eager, as always, to always play Cassandra.

Then it all changed. An brilliantly orchestrated opening ceremony that captured the essence of our quirky, eccentric, self deprecating British spirit segued us into a fortnight of sporting drama. No transportation problems, no security breakdowns, no violence, just day after day of pure unadulterated enjoyment.

We were on holiday in Italy for most of the time so just got to see bits and pieces of the action from screens in the restaurants and bars surrounded by Italians and Germans. Imagine how good it felt to gloat (inwardly, of course) as our sportsmen and sportswomen piled on the gold medals….

And, after that magnificent Olympic cauldron was finally extinguished and the Mayor of Rio took hold of the Olympic flag I suddenly remembered……..Mitt Romney and his cheerleaders at the US conservative blog Hot Air. Even with the rest of the world praising London 2012 resident blogger Allahpundit was sustaining his glass half empty schtick, pursing his lips and flaring his nostrils at the closing ceremony…..

Sorry, Allah (as I commented at his post), I think the rest of the world will pay more attention to the response of the Aussies whose 2000 Sydney Olympics have, up till now, been regarded universally as the benchmark of success. Down under they rate the 2012 Games as even better than Sydney and, coming from Oz, that is praise indeed.

As for the closing ceremony it is always more of a party atmosphere and the audience and the athletes in London obviously enjoyed it. In lengthy celebration there will always be low spots and Russell Brand fits that bill admirably. The rest of it, however, was great fun.

But then Hot Air has systematically waxed eeyore over the London Games. That might be because of an inbuilt tendency to regard anything outside the USA as weird/outlandish but it is more likely to be due to the fact that Atlanta 1996 was not one of the best summer Olympics or that Salt Lake 2002 winter Olympics had to be rescued from a bribery and corruption scandal.

As for Mitt, is he man enough to eat his own words and offer his congratulations to Lord Coe, the man who organised the best ever summer Olympics, and to the British people who embraced the Games with a fervour unmatched in modern times?

Just askin’ as our American friends might say…..

My Tea Party friends in the US have never held Mitt Romney in high regard. Until the autumn of last year (coincidentally when the Republican presidential primary campaign began) his public rhetoric against the Obama administration was strangely muted and he has always retained an aloof distance from the tea party.

His ascension to the probable GOP nomination was strangely lacking in public warmth from ordinary voting Republicans. But it was certainly well organised with legions of surrogates doing their very best to undermine potential rivals even before the 2008 presidential election was over.

Romney didn’t win the campaign with love, but he did win it with money – and the support of a seedy coalition of GOP “consultants/strategists” , RNC hacks and those Washington/New York “conservative” media pundits apprehensive of the tea party and the new media which was beginning to break the old news monopoly.

But when I heard that Romney was coming to Britain ready to build bridges I thought maybe the guy had a bit of steel in his backbone

Members of the former Massachusetts governor’s foreign policy advisory team claimed that as president, he would reverse Mr Obama’s priority of repairing strained overseas relationships while not spending so much time maintaining traditional alliances such as Britain and Israel. …….
……..The two advisers said Mr Romney would seek to reinstate the Churchill bust displayed in the Oval Office by George W. Bush but returned to British diplomats by Mr Obama when he took office in 2009. One said Mr Romney viewed the move as “symbolically important” while the other said it was “just for starters”, adding: “He is naturally more Atlanticist”.

Then I read this

But he told US television there were “disconcerting” signs about Britain’s readiness. “It’s hard to know just how well it will turn out,” he said. “There are a few things that were disconcerting: the stories about the private security firm not having enough people, supposed strike of the immigration and customs officials, that obviously is not something which is encouraging.”
Nonetheless, Mr Romney questioned the enthusiasm of the British public. “Do they come together and celebrate the Olympic moment?” he asked. “That’s something which we only find out once the Games actually begin.”

For crying out loud – if that’s his way of building a bridge I think I would rather deal with some fruitloop from Iran….at least you know the guy is a viper right from the start.

If he knew us better he would realise that it is in our very nature to moan and complain until the event actually starts. We did that with the royal wedding and the diamond jubilee. Indeed a lot of us were never that enamoured of hosting the Olympics anyway. But now the thing has arrived our enthusiasm has already started to show….witness the crowds in every village and town to greet the Olympic torch. Why didn’t Romney’s crew do some research on that?

…and maybe Romney (as well as Allahpundit at Hot Air) forgot about the 1996 Atlanta Olympics

If International Olympic Committee (IOC) President Juan Antonio Samaranch’s address to the closing ceremonies of the 1996 Summer Olympic Games is remembered at all, it is for his unwillingness to bestow Atlanta’s Games with the honor of “the greatest in Olympic history” – that coveted rhetorical flourish lauding the host city’s organizing efforts. Unbridled commercialism, poor and unreliable public transportation, a deadly terrorist attack on Centennial Olympic Park: such significant failures shaped Samaranch’s verdict that these Olympic Games were “most exceptional,” but not “the greatest.”

Romney’s gaffe about the London Olympics, bad mouthing them even before they start is in itself of little consequence in the great scheme of things. But it does tell us something about the man…. say what you like about Sarah Palin she knows the difference between being forthright and showing good manners. Maybe Mitt Romney is really Edison Carter….

Max Headroom was shown to have been created from the memories of Edison Carter. The character’s name came from the last thing Carter saw during a vehicular accident that put him into a coma: A bar with a sign warning of low clearance, marked “MAX. HEADROOM: 2.3 M”.

Mitt Headroom, anyone?

It happens every two years. The England football team go to either the Euro Cup or the World Cup and the hype begins….this time our team will reach the final and win…lol..

Forget that the last time we won anything was the World Cup nearly half a century ago….

Trouble is that the media now bigs it up because they assume everyone is a football fanatic – and that’s not true. But a lot of people pretend to be interested to avoid being labelled a dork…

But one woman hasn’t been afraid to speak out. She was obviously not best pleased when “Chris” decided to fork out several hundred pounds to to go with his mates to the Ukraine to watch England win Euro 2012….and missed their anniversary. so she chose just the right place to voice her displeasure…a bridge overlooking a very busy road near their home.

What a doughnut…not only has he been publicly humiliated by his girl but he had to watch as the inevitable happened and England also got dumped by Italy…

Now we are in the cold light of day I think “Chris” has got a lot of crawling to do……..

h/t African Seer

Abu Qatada, the Jihadist hate preacher who hates our country and its culture of democracy so much is still fighting his deportation order to Jordan despite even the Kafa-esque European Court of Human Rights saying he could go. He is making an appeal to the ECHR via a very expensive lawyer (naturally – after all he is one of our privileged elite, living on benefits and thus subsidised by we the taxpayers) and asked for bail.

IT WAS REFUSED!!!!!!!

I’d love to say that Theresa May, the Home Secretary, backed by a former PR man for a failed TV company (aka David Cameron) had suddenly discovered spines and said don’t give him bail because we are going to bundle him onto a military plane and fly him to Amman, economy class with handcuffs within two hours at the same time we send the ECHR a message saying “Whoops, sorry but you can stuff your decisions where the monkey keeps his nuts….come back in a thousand years when your legal system is as mature as ours”

Unfortunately that wasn’t the reason..

It was because if he was given bail it might upset the Olympics…

That’s right folks – we have to allow these Britain haters plenty of elbow room to facilitate their “rights” to encourage vicious scumbags to blow us up but when it comes to interfering with a festival of sweaty over hyped narcissists strutting their stuff at the public ‘s expense (and that’s just the politicians and celebrities) even an al Qaeda groupie must stay banged up.

No wonder they despise us and think we lack the will to resist – I sometimes think they may be right…..

Since they were founded in 2002 they have one of the best playing records in English soccer, gaining 5 promotions in 9 years. They have done this with one of the lowest budgets in competitive football – and also excellent onfield discipline. Above all the team is actually owned by its fans.

Too good to be true? Not if you are AFC Wimbledon.

The big difference between professional football in England and pro sport in America is that for the loyal supporters who go out in all weathers to watch their team through thick and thin dreams can sometimes come true. This is because, unlike the US where places in the top tier are allocated by franchise, there is much greater fluidity of movement since we have a system of promotion and relegation – at the end of each season the top 2/3 teams move up to the next level and are replaced by the clubs who drop down.

Top level English football operates with four tiers. At the top is the Premiership (Man U, Chelsea etc), then the Championship, then League 1 and 2. Below League 2 are the semi pro teams in an assortment of minor and regional leagues.

In 2002 the bosses of one top level club, Wimbledon in South London decided to move to a better stadium in Milton Keynes, on the northern edge of London. They renamed the club MK Dons.

The local fans in Wimbledon were furious. They straight away formed their own new club called AFC Wimbledon and managed, eventually, to get a nearby ground share. But they had to start at the bottom of the ladder in a very lowly local league amongst works clubs and teams that played in parks.

The fans formed a Trust to run the club and appointed officers to manage the day to day operations. The officers were all unpaid volunteers who regularly reported back to the Trust – and that is still the way it is done today. It must be effective because not only has the club been victorious on the field next year it will have the lowest operational costs in League 2.

But cost effectiveness does not mean a lack of professionalism. In an age when sportsmanship seems to be a thing of the past the team plays hard – but has been the cleanest this season in terms of discipline.

Most pundits thought the club would fold after a burst of initial enthusiasm and forgot about them. But as the years went by AFC Wimbledon moved steadily up the ladder gaining promotion to the upper levels of the semi pro leagues until they ended up in the Confererence, one step below the top four.

Now their dream has come true. Two teams from the Conference are allowed into the big boys at the end of each season – and AFC Wimbledon, with Crawley (my local club, for many years a joke team) have clinched it.

The move from semi pro Conference to pro League 2 is a very big jump and many sides, after one or two seasons, fizzle out and return to obscurity. So, for AFC Wimbledon it is in the lap of the gods.

But who knows – 2015 they could be in the Premiership playing Arsenal and, sweet thought, MK Dons who this season just missed out on promotion from League 1 to the Championship.

Now, however good they are, nobody in Allentown Pa. will ever see the Lehigh Valley IronPigs play major league baseball…

Sorry, Americans, only in English football will you ever have the chance to see your local small town team step out onto the field of dreams….