Come on, let’s give poodle clipping a go

THE appeal of the Beijing Olympics so far is the thought that even ordinary people could compete in a few of the events given enough practise.

Of course, ‘could’ is the operative word. If I could pull myself up off the sofa and away from all these red-button viewing options I’d have a bash at archery, for example.

How hard can it be to strike the middle of a big round board? Kevin Costner managed to nail his shot even after attaching a video camera to his arrow in Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves — goodness knows what he would be capable of given one of those laser-guided, heat-seeking, ultra-modern bows they use these days.

Archery is merely a souped-up version of darts for ramblers, which makes you wonder why Phil Taylor and his band of merry men are still barred from competing in the modern Games.

Polo (with horses and sticks) is also off the agenda, so which sports or pastimes happen to be granted inclusion isn’t a down to class politics.

It seems that it is instead all about the International Olympic Committee’s peculiar tastes.

They must be a humourless bunch, when you look at the events which have disappeared from the Games over the years: the horse long jump, pistol duelling and poodle clipping have all mysteriously fallen off the agenda.

Yes, poodle clipping. Given the general strangeness of the entire Beijing caboodle, perhaps bringing back competitive pooch-shearing wouldn’t seem very bizarre at all.

Plus it would give hope to those of us campaigning for endurance television viewing to be embraced in time for 2012.

Imagine how Great Britain would shoot up that medal table if such sedentary pastimes were given just recognition.

DID someone slip something in my green tea, or are the BBC really using footage from the cartoon version of Monkey in their opening credits?

It is definitely great viewing and it ties into the surreal opening ceremony, the organisers of which should certainly be the subject of a not-so-random drugs test.

Apparently, 1.2 billion of China’s 1.5 billion population watched the frantic, spectacular curtain-raising display at the weekend — from the looks of it, the remaining 0.3 billion were actively involved.