Cure for Balding?
Couldn’t be Moor clear
AWESOME casting by First Dates, giving us Tourette’s Barman: sufferer Damian. you?”Damian: “What can I get Whoop“Any lager will do. Click! Woowhoop! (Whistles.) woo-woo! woo-woo-woo-woo- I’m on Wacko-bap! (Whistles.) not loads of drugs! I’m you actually.” Damian, had me at“Wackobap”. MUCH has been written this week about the BBC’s choice to front its Olympic swimming coverage.
Yes, her outfits are indeed skimpy, and people have noticed, but let’s cut to the chase here.
Helen Skelton couldn’t anchor a boat, named Anchor, that was already anchored, in Anchorage.
She has two lines of questioning – “Tell us about…” and “How does that make you feel?” She conducted a cringe-worthy interview with gold medallist Adam Peaty’s family and, at one point, turned proceedings into a Fry & Laurie sketch: “No one in Uttoxeter is going to sleep tonight.”
So what she’s doing in Clare Balding’s 2012 seat is beyond me.
Or rather it would be, had I not spotted a pattern in Rio.
The Beeb’s target audience appears to be prepubescent Blue Peter viewers.
You see it’s not just Skelton lton treating us like kids with sentiments such as: “James Guy’s final is at 2.30am but ut it is Saturday night so you’re allowed to stay up late. It’s not a school night.”
Because BBC4 have over-promoted Ore Oduba from Newsround.
He’s been busy stalking the Olympic Park, photo-bombing unsuspecting tourists posing at the Five Rings for once-in-alifetime snaps, and fluffing links: “London 2012 was a very good year for Team GB – nine rowing golds, including four gold medals.”
He also helpfully pointed out the difference between volleyball and beach volleyball: “Volleyball is the one without the sand,” and dropped this bombshell: “Water polo is not a sport for anyone who’s not that good at swimming.”
For her part, Clare Balding, who lest we forget is the main presenter basically because she sent Mark Foster to usher Bert “Unbelievable!” Le Clos to her London Aquatics Centre studio four years ago, is disappointing, spoiling the dramatic finish to Johanna Konta’s last-16 tennis match immediately before BBC1 showed it. Give the gig to BBC4’s Dan Walker, broadcasting from Copacabana Beach’s “Fishermen’s Corner”.
He’s having a blast, interviewing passers-by in broken English, dodging bin lorries, making a bloke running the circuit training behind him a cult hero by calling him Antony Worrall Thompson and i ntroducing t he Twitter hashtag “Copacabanter”. To which, he read out, Michael on Twitter posted: “What on earth are you doing?”
And for every new Team GB Olympic champion, he spends £1.10 on a coconut, sprays it gold, scrawls on their name in pen and hangs it on a hat stand.
At least he did, until the “golden coconuts” quietly disappeared on Wednesday night in what I can only assume is an edict from on high via BBC Sport’s fun police. In the words of Bert Le Clos: “Unbelievable!” OVER to those tireless troupers in the BBC’s Rio 2016 commentary boxes. Adrian Moorhouse, left: “James Guy needs to be exactly where he needs to be.” Leon Taylor: “Great facial expressions on the divers’ faces.” (Of all places.) Ore Oduba: “Tests don’t come less tougher than Australia.” And Patrick Winterton: “No Swede has ever represented Sweden in the canoe slalom before.” Then who the heck has? Uzbekistanis?