Olympics are a cocoon of good news in a bad world

What are we going to do when the Olympics are over? For the last couple of weeks they have provided a cocoon of human warmth, inspiring stories and against the odd tales. Newspapers everywhere have been wrapped up in the warm embrace of the Olympics, radiating all that sporting joy and happy nationalism.

The Advertiser has carried daily 12-page wraparounds on the Games. It means more or less every front page for the last couple of weeks has carried good news. Which has been nice. The website has been the same.

It has meant all the bad news has been relegated to the inside. Out of sight, if not out of mind.

Because, if you, sensibly, haven’t been paying attention to much beyond the Olympics, let me tell you, it’s getting rough out there. It’s a world that seems to be falling apart faster than an Australian basketball team at the Olympics.

A quick rundown of non-Olympic news then.

England is ripping itself apart as the racists and the fascists riot in the streets. The riots themselves were sparked by a truly horrific murder of three young girls at a dance class. Rumours spread online the alleged perpetrator was Muslim and a recent arrival. He was neither. A Christian born in Cardiff.

But the rumour was spread by some of the worst people on earth, including Andrew Tate and Nigel Farage and that was enough excuse for violent people to do violent things. And stupid things. Like burn down libraries. A real Nazi throwback there. And loot shops. Nothing says ‘I am so outraged by immigrant crime that I will smash the front window of a bakery chain and steal a few pies.’

The idiot’s idiot Elon Musk predicted civil war in England.

Closer to home ASIO put up the expected terrorism threat level to probable. Excellent.

Elsewhere, the Middle East continues to deteriorate. The chances of a full-scale war between Israel, Iran, Hamas and Hezbollah rising all the time. Meanwhile, the misery of the people in Gaza continues.

In Bangladesh, hundreds of protesters have been killed and the country’s authoritarian leader Sheik Hasina has now fled.

Speaking of authoritarian. After a rigged election Venezuela’s president Nicolas Maduro has said he will stay in power, sparking more protests. Russia’s war in Ukraine rumbles on.

And the US election keeps going, although there is now some chink of light that democracy is back on the ticket and that Donald Trump won’t win in November. Trump defenders are fond of saying that those against the former president (people like JD Vance possibly) are exaggerating when they call the orange monster a threat to democracy. Really? This is a bloke who still hasn’t accepted the result of the last election. Who won’t accept the result of the next one, unless he wins. Who talks about being a dictator for a day. That is a pretty clear-cut threat to US democracy I would have thought.

But enough of that, Back to the Olympics and the pretence that we can all just get along. Back to the sheer exuberance of Arisa Trew in the skateboarding, back to watching people running up sheer walls or Jessica Fox steering down some rapids. Of a 100m men’s race where it was impossible to tell who won.

The outside world can wait a little longer.

So, I broke that promise to be a more regular poster. But here I am again. I was going to keep a reading list down here, but there’s been a few books between the last post and this point in time and I have already forgotten most of them. I think the new Michael Robotham was in there. Enjoyable as ever. There was an old Don Winslow called California Fire and Life. Now the book in my bag for the daily bus journey in Graham Greene’s The Heart of the Matter. Half way through, still working it all out.

Hope I am back again here next week.