A gold medal in reality

[CHIMO]

Watch and learn, Brits. In 2012 you'll be like us: curled up like a shrimp on the couch, screaming as your prime minister – whoever he may be at that point – embarrasses you in public at the opening of the Olympic games.

Whenever Stephen Harper's big boxy grey-lidded head appeared on screen, with its wet smile (note on his hand: Try to grin like normal human), I would rant at anyone within hearing, ie, no one. "He's Bush with a mean streak, he's a Slytherin, we only gave him a minority government in a prolonged fit of pique." (Then I'd say it in French, out of bilingual idealism.)

That's what Olympics are for: to blow a wad of money massively bigger than the government promised, to create ad space for the McDonald's crème brûlée crunch McFlurry, and to give powerless citizens a chance to vent in the privacy of their homes.

In Canada, we normally we have a House of Commons where our MPs vent on our behalf, but since Harper prorogued parliament (governing is so much more efficient without it, as one of his ministers put it) with the permission of the governor-general, we have nowhere else to go but the sofa.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/feb/15/canada-olympics-grim-britain