Land of the Rising Rings

Boris, 'The Animal' Johnson, in defence of his Telegraph column whilst London mayor, said he dashes it off on a Sunday morning, so it does not interfere with his mayoral duties.    This may be why these past few years, the quality has declined appreicably from before he assumed office at the Glass Bollock, only a sentence or two of any real merit survives precariously like an intrepid explorer amist the thicket and bracken of balderdash, the entangling creepers of bluff and the overall oppressive foliage of verbiage.  Bear Grylls next suviavlist challenge should be to survive in a BoJo op-ed.
I hope at least to provide bit more enlightenment than our capital's esteemed principal representative's sinecure.  It is so tempting to merely read the news and idle away the years/decades than to actually react constructively to them.  England win The Ashes - yay!  England win the Ashes only 3-0 against this Australia side - boo!  In fact, the whole series reflects, Homer Simpson's "that's bad, that's good" exchange with a creepy shopkeeper in Treehouse of Horror.  England should thrash Australia in the first test but in the end only just nick it - that's bad.  England trounce Australia at Lords - that's good.  Australia roar back at Old Trafford and England are only saved by the rain - that's bad.  In the next test, England wrap up the win, reaching 3-0 - that's good.  England go to pieces in the final test, selecting rookies who are subsequently roasted, England are set a generous target by Aussie captain Michael Clarke and fail to reach by just 20 runs (with 20 balls left) when poor light stops play - that's bad.  Some England players subsequently wee on the pitch in their victory celebrations - derivating from the wisdom of Homer, that's very bad, though to be fair they were probably getting their revenge on the Oval groundsman who cut the lawn ridiculosuly short, inducing Alastair Cook (who has proved to be a lucky rather than excellent captain) to field debutants Kerrigan and Woakes instead of Giles Tremlett (apparently Tremlett prefers a slightly hairier matt on which to bowl), handing Australia an unexpected advantage.  3-0 should be an amazing acheivement in an Ashes series for England but had they been on full throttle (as they were only at Lords), it could have been 5-0 and one has to look at the poor leadership of Cook for that.
Of rather more importance to the whole world is the award to host the 2020 International Olympic Games.  And the winner is (as Jacques Rogge slowly enunciates ev-er-y sin-gle syl-labl-le) Tokyo.  Interestingly, the USA failed to bid this time round, when against troubled ccandiates like Tokyo, Madrid and Istanbul, it would almost certainly have won.  The lingering bad smell of the 1996 'worst Games ever' at Atlanta and the Salt Lake City bribery scandal for the 2002 Winter Games has tainted the American brand, plus they were burned in 2005 with New York (in bidding for the 2012 Games) and in 2009 with Chicago (in bidding for the 2016 Games).  Noting that France will probably bid in 2024, Paris will be the runaway favourite on the centenary of the last time it hosted the Games, meaning the USA, if successful in 2028 will not have hosted a Summer Games in 32 years. As it is, the Japanese capital might be Neo-Tokyo in seven years time the way Fukushima refuse to go away.  To have a Chernobyl on your doorstep and still win indicates the paucity of the other bids.  Madrid had also bid in 2005 and came a creditable third behind London and Paris, but they had the immense influence of Juan Antonio Samaranch behind it (who subsequently swung his influence behind London as a thank you to Lord Coe for defying the 1980 Moscow Games boycott).  However, much infrastructure is creaking (the Madrid Metro, as it was in 2005) and that which is sparkling and new, may not be as safe as it appears, as witness the recent Galcian high-speed train disaster.  Plus, they are in the throes of economic depression (the reason Rome withdrew from the process) and could scarcely afforded it (though it might have given a boost to the legion of unemployed).  It is unbelievable that Istanbul, that crossroads of continents has never hosted an Olympic Games, but the summer unrest in the city with the subsequent authoritarian crackdown plus the general crisis on its eastern borders (Syria, Iraq, Iran and the Caucasus) counted against it.  Though essentially Tokyo itself would provide a trouble-free Olympics and could in theory host it tomorrow (notwithstanding the ever-present danger of a radiation cloud), this is its third successful bid (after 1964 and the cancelled 1940 Games) and I would have preferred the other two to have succeeded, neither having been host previously.