The Green Man has diverse interests, when you are an ancient celtic iconic figure that sort of comes naturally. However, there is one thing that The Green Man is decidely not interested in and that is sport in general and the Olympics in the specific.

In this it seems that The Green Man, who has no Greek blood what-so-ever, is being decidely Greek. The Greeks are very enthusiastic about hosting the Olympics but not about going to them. They are not buying tickets in their droves and many athletes could end up performing to their parents, who are the only ones who have bought tickets to the event.

And who could blame the Greeks. It appears to The Green Man that, at an administrative level, the Olympics are dripping with nepotism and an athletic level they are dripping with the lastest in performance enhancing drugs that we have not found a method of detecting yet. It seems to be essentially just one massive marketing campaign for the hosting city and for athletes trying to sign multi-million dollar sponsorship deals.

There are some sports that contain an element of spectacle of course, things that mimic tribal battles like basketball, soccer and hockey but the marathon really! Is that paint dry yet? (A reference to it being less exciting than watching paint dry for those not accustomed to the Australian vernacular)

To compound the problem it seems that the current cuffufle in the middle east has resulted in xenophobia being one of the more popular amateur sports in America these days and they are staying away from Greece, and presumably the rest of the world, en masse. Even with the Olympics, American travel to Greece is down by 25% compared to recent years. There are 30% less Americans going to Athens than went to Sydney for the Olympic games there.

Americans may not like to admit it but GWB is losing the war on terror because more Americans are terrified now than ever before. This is the point of this style of military action and how it got its name.

In Australia the dreaded time is fast approaching where the Olympics, herpes like, will be causing its quatra-annual outbreak of faux nationalism across news broadcasts and TV programming generally. Looks like "Lord Of The Rings" trilogy will be shortly getting a couple of more airings in The Green Man's household.