You’d think there was one bloody event we’d be in with a chance for, and given as the hosts we could add four of our own then I would have put money on us winning Prog. It’s not that no one else has put together a team – that’s part of the problem – but whatever you think of Prog Rock then it gets a lot weirder when you cross the channel. Unlike the Eurovision we should have been in with a chance here, our entry (pictured) are all young lads with long experience and classical training, and our coach is James May. Our entry is actually the theme to the 2012 Olympics and does not stop until the games do. When we win anything then on the podium we will hear Jethro Tull’s Aqualung instead of the National Anthem and Whispering Bob Harris is to do the commentary to all the track and field events.
But no, we bottled it. We couldn’t even get Prog right. Because the Dutch team have already started and the entire nation, all of them, everyone in Holland, without exception - is at the gig. Our effort that is to last only the length of the games is already being considered ‘pop’. Our only hope is that the German team (a hardline krautrock anarcho-capitalist community-dictatorship called !Bumsen!) interferes.
Still that still leaves the cake baking, the giant vegetable, and the punching people events to do well in. I have faith. No tickets. But faith.
Art - Robert McGinnis
It'll come as no surprise that I've been asked to step in and add some much needed 'oomph' to the British 2012 Prog team. As I said to the chap from the Olympic committee the other day, I like the look you've got for the lads in the band, but everything else is wrong, wrong, wrong. Sadly I had to kick things off with a lengthy presentation (with a laser pointer and some nifty power point slides of the Top 10 Prog charts from 1971) where I patiently explained exactly what Prog Rock is to the committee, many of whom kept mentioning 'A Momentary Lapse of Reason' by Pink Floyd for some reason. Having listened to the Dutch work in progress I can reassure you we have nothing to worry about on that front. They've gone for a lengthy jazz Prog instrumental that is so 1975 it doesn't have a hope in hell. More worrying is the fact that outside contenders, Italy, have drafted in Goblin to rework their main theme to Suspiria ( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iJUaCAIxSk4 ) into a dark brooding ballet in a forest full of back lit pine trees. The Germans of course are set to create a whole new form of Prog that won't be recognised or appreciated as such for at least twenty years. More fool them. ;)
ReplyDeleteWell you've got a year to stroke them into new and experimental shape. Watch out for their new direction.
ReplyDeleteI was hoping for an Airfix event.
We surely have hope for some sort of medal (1/8th original size) in the miniature model painting?
ReplyDeleteWe don't have a chance. Spain would sweep that without breaking a sweat.
ReplyDeleteOn the subject of Airfix... I of course got to speak to the Prog coach, James May, and my first words were - "you made an entire programme about Airfix and you didn't mention HO/OO scale model soldiers even once? Are you gay or something?" ;)
ReplyDeleteSo whats left?
ReplyDeleteThe bare breasted blond girl sitting on someones shoulders and waving arms ? Yeah, that will probably go to the Americans.
Tinnie hurling is probably totally Australia dominated.
Spitting? Have we any chance in the distance spitting?
Cakes, giant vegetables, and with any luck - Airfix.
ReplyDeleteWe're a shoe in. Which is more than we are for the shoe event.