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I just love watching Sky News commentators waffling on about how well their guys did at the Olympics and how you can figure out exactly how much money each medal costs by taking the amount spent on a particular sport and dividing that by the amount of medals won.

So I figured that seeing as I wasn’t doing anything anyway, why not try out a more intricate calculation for our lot using the amount spent against our solo silver.

Get out your calculator and check my workings. I got 92% for Maths at school. (3% in Grade 1 + 12% In Grade 2 — great year I remember it fondly … anyhow the aggregate of all my marks for Maths over my entire school career comes to 92%).

FORMULA:

Think of a number between 1 and 10 then add R500 000 000 (we think … unless some of that went on submarines), then divide that number by two (because you can), then add 678 909 (number of administrators, families, friends and assorted nogshleppers who went to the games on our behalf) but subtract 65 456 (number of persons who went missing from the touring party, never to be seen again on account of it being hell trying to read Chinese road signs), times your answer by 2 (do we blame Sascoc or the Minister of Sport?), add 568 000 (the number of times we heard it was a personal best or a local record as if we give a flying F…) subtract 0 (number of people who will be held accountable for the spending or lack of success), take away the number you started with and your answer is 12.

Of course all of this will pale in comparison to those awful committees, sub-committees and assorted inquiries there are going to be into the reason why we achieved, Mokhotso aside, absolutely nothing. The cost of those (submarine sacrifices permitting) will run into the billions while actual money spent on sport, including the Ront (like a rand) I just put into the tin above my head, will be (just turning the tin over) one Ront forty cents and a shiny red button marked KFC.

Dear oh dear oh dear.




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5 Responses to “Olympics: every clown has a silver lining”

So true. :(

(Report abuse)

Po on August 27th, 2008 at 11:33 pm

Never mind Po, if you’re feeling grim why not visit today’s topic on TL :

The Post Office :

http://www.thoughtleader.co.za/traps/2008/08/27/sell-a-submarine-save-the-post-office/

(Report abuse)

Michael Trapido on August 28th, 2008 at 7:47 am

Eish.Future generation will be laank baffled about how the ANC got tied up in the arms deal so soon after coming into power.

(Report abuse)

Siyabonga Ntshingila on August 28th, 2008 at 8:37 am

Morning Bonga yo biscuit!

Did you get my email yesterday?

If so - reply by email if

not sms me.

(Report abuse)

Michael Trapido on August 28th, 2008 at 8:41 am

Well some of us paid attention at Highlands and got much higher marks. You really should have spent less time at smokers. The real winners at the Olympics were The Bahamas. This is based on the number of medals (3-2-1) divided into the population. The top 10 were as follows

Bahamas, The 305,655 101,885 1
Jamaica 2,780,132 106,928 2
Iceland 301,931 150,966 3
Norway 4,627,926 220,377 4
Slovenia 2,009,245 223,249 5
Australia 20,434,176 229,597 6
Bahrain 708,573 236,191 7
New Zealand 4,115,771 257,236 8
Estonia 1,315,912 263,182 9
Trinidad and Tobago 1,056,608 264,152 10

(Report abuse)

Chutzpah on September 5th, 2008 at 11:57 am

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Mike Trapido is a criminal attorney and publicist having also worked as an editor and journalist. He was born in Johannesburg and attended HA Jack and Highlands North High Schools. He married Robyn in 1984 (Mrs Traps, aka "the government") and has three sons (who all look suspiciously like her ex-boss). He was a counsellor on the JCCI for a year around 1992. His passions include Derby County, Blue Bulls, Orlando Pirates, Proteas and Springboks. He takes Valium in order to cope with Bafana Bafana's results.
Cell: 072 123 9011
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