Why I won't be watching the Olympics

Another long hiatus between posts. Life and TV getting in the way again. I've been a bit down since Easter - probably too much sugar!

Anyway, back to the Olympics and my lack of watching thereof. This isn't all about China & Tibet/human rights etc., though that's part of it.

The fact is I've never been a big fan of the Olympics; I see it as being about propaganda, the so-called Olympic ideal is a myth, and it has always been linked to the political situation both globally and in the host country.

All these people who go on about keeping politics out of sport are living in cloud-cuckoo-land. Sport is not somehow immune from, or above political realities. Sportsmen and women are part of the human race and cannot opt out of morality and reality.

This was seen clearly in the sporting boycott of South Africa during the Apartheid era. Some people said this was pointless; but it hurt the South African establishment - why else would they have gone to such lengths to persuade various rugby and cricket players to go on 'rebel' tours of the country.

It's not just the Beijing games I will be avoiding I will also be keeping away from the London games in 2012. I don't think 'democracies' are immune from the temptation to use sport for political ends - look at Gordon Brown trying to be English football's biggest fan and Rhodri Morgan cashing in on Wales' grand slam triumph (at least Wales is actually his country!)

What really disgusts me about the London fiasco is that huge amounts of money are being taken from the rest of the country to develop parts of London and the Southeast - the richest part of Britain. Once again the Southeast-centric government shows its utter contempt for the rest of us.