bleungberg.com

A few thoughts on the Olympics so far:

1) The Opening Ceremony was fantastic….so many people…which goes to prove that if China were to go to war with anybody, they can throw body after body into the battlefield.

2) The use of the PLA soldiers to raise the Olympic flag brought back horrible memories of massacres and repression. Stiff marching and flag-raising have no place for this digital age when they want to project a positive image of China to the rest of the world.

3) Huw Edwards is not up to the job of commentating on the opening ceremony. Nor is Hazel Irvine. Let’s have Barry Davies and Clare Balding.

4) Bleungberg sat down to watch a gold-medal match of women’s team archery yesterday…but didn’t know I was watching a bunch of women until half-way through; why do Koreans and Chinese women insist on having spikey haircuts and look like a bunch of dykes?

5) Good to see the Bushes cheering on Phelps and co poolside and at the USA-China basketball match. Wonder what type of security was required for all the spectators involved? Mind you, Bush went to the wrong meet - he shouldn’t been there for the Men’s 4×100 freestyle relay: the best single-race I’ve seen in the pool for years.

6) Sharron Davies is highly underrated.

7) Where’s the fencing? Not on the BBC (it never is); nor Eurosport, or even TVEi.

8 ) Archery is fantastic.

9) Judo is so pure.

Bleungberg has a new candidate for least favourite Belgian - IOC President Jacques Rogge. Rogge joins megalomaniac murderer King Leopold and evil paedophile Marc Dutroux on this short list. Rogge’s crime? Being blind, deaf and probably whatever you call it when someone can’t smell!

Experts have all said the air in Beijing is unfit for athletes - five times more polluted than London on a good day! - yet Rogge is still yapping on about the air being safe for competition when it blatantly isn’t. Well, he doesn’t have to run anywhere so what does he know?Knowing him, he probably comes out of his air-con hotel and gets driven everywhere in air-con cars. (though we must give him credit for checking into a cheaper hotel in order not to be seen as wasteful).

Still, this isn’t the first blunder he’s committed this past month. Rogge has been reluctant to criticse the Chinese for curbing internet access for journalists. Also, as the IOC is supposed to be promoting fairness and equality, human rights and religious freedom issues have been ducked - purposely. It’s as if he’s worried about offending the Chinese even though he’s technically THEIR boss!

Drug cheats are getting away with murder, and he’s almost turning a blind eye on it.

Jacques Rogge - you’re an idiot.

He might have won the high court battle against the News of the World.

He might have survived a vote of no-confidence at an FIA emergency meeting in Paris by intimidating the lesser confederations into submission.

He might have weathered the storm after being snubbed by sheikhs and royalty at various Grand Prix events around the world.

But this has been a pyrrhic victory for evil.

To bleungberg, Max Mosley, FIA Chairman is still a dirty, filthy, wrinkly old cunt. We have nothing against his fetish for severe lashings or S&M orgies until his saggy bum bleeds like hell. However, we really do object to his arrogance and unrepentence whilst continuing to swan off around the world in his private jet, bemoaning the stress all this had caused him, as if he was the victim of a sting.

He moane incessantly d about the humiliation he has had to endure after the tabloid’s expose, and that it had caused his family considerable heartache, in particular, his devoted wife.

Well, I’m sorry, but didn’t he bring it upon himself? As a married man, he should’ve known better and been more responsibility in controlling his wrinkly penis. His reputation is in tatters, but his long-suffering wife has to suffer far worse than just the loss of dignity. This is an unforgivable betrayal for Mrs Mosley who probably wondered what his multi-millionaire husband was upto in some of the most glamorous parts of the world.

If Mrs Mosley had any senses, she should subject her randy cunt of a sick husband to conselling, and to immediately file for divorce - sue the fucker, bankrupt him, and let him rot in hell.

Iran, Israel and the US are at it again. They’re upping the ante, increasing the rhetoric, launching missile tests and moving their strategic defenses into place as war becomes more of a possibility.

That’s interesting given how weak all three governments are - Israel’s Ehud Olmert is facing corruption charges and could lose the election in September. Meanwhile, the White House is counting the days till Bush and Cheney leave office.

In Tehran, President Ahmadenejad is doing poorly in the opinion polls thanks to his failure to combat rampant inflation, ahead of next year’s presidential election.

Three weak leaders - all hoping to go out with a bang just to win votes or secure a long-lasting legacy. Dangerous games for the rest of us - innocent civilians will die - and those along the Gulf are most at risk - and oil prices will be sure to go through the roof!

For the first time in Bleungberg’s life, the men’s singles final at Wimbledon became an unbearable - and often - unwatchable affair. Everyone said the 2007 final between Federer and Nadal was a memorable one though it was fairly forgettable in my opinion.

The 2008 renewal, however, was gripping from start to finish as so much was at stake for both players: Federer to win six on a trot, and Nadal to make it a unique Roland Garros-Queen’s-Wimbledon triple-crown.

Finals have a habit of being something of a damp squib and after a shockingly good fortnight of Grand Slam tennis, a terrible final would have been a horrible anti-climax.

Having sat through some pretty dull finals down the years - the Hewiit-Nalbadian match in 2002 springs to mind - it looked a distinct possibility with Nadal racing through the opening two-and-a-quarter sets before the rain came to the rescue of Federer, followed by a late resurgence before an unforgettable conclusion at 9.15pm in near darkness.

Great finals stick in my mind - the 2000 and 2001 versions were pretty damn good - but nothing compared to 2008’s 4h48m epic.

Federer will now have to regroup and re-focus his energy on his two remaining targets this summer: the Olympics and the US Open. He had told his critics who had predicted his demise to back off until after the summer, and frankly, so much will be riding on Flushing Meadows now.

Nadal has a habit of underperforming in the second half of the season - in fact, it tails right off the moment Wimbledon finishes as his fragile kneecaps succumb to the hard court season in the US and Canada.

We sincerely hope that he will be fit and ready for the challenge as he will now be gunning for his third consecutive Grand Slam. Federer will be gunning for his fifth title in New York, and still chasing Pete Sampras’s all-time record of 14 Slam victories to the Swiss’s 12. The number 1 status is at stake, as is Federer’s future in tennis (perhaps). So much will be riding on the final come Sunday night on the 7th September.

The next year will be very interesting for those of us who follow this wonderful sport. Will Federer win any of the Slams in the next year? If and when he loses his number 1 ranking, the pressure will be off him at Wimbledon, and on Nadal at both Wimbledon and Roland Garros. Federer could well still be in hunt for Sampras’s record but definitely not as intense as now. It could well be wise for Federer to concentrate solely on Roland Garros next year, and claim to become the fifth men ever to have won on all four surfaces.

A few final thoughts:

1) Much has been said about both men breaking or equalling Bjorn Borg’s record this year. Bleungberg was three months old when Borg won his fifth title in 1980. And it’s taken 28 years for two men to come along to equal what ONE man had achieved. Borg’s record is simply awesome.

2) Spain -how does this country produce so many magnificent champions in so many sports? Football, formula one, cycling and, of course, tennis - long before Nadal was even born.

3) The BBC is putting celebrity ahead of quality by pairing Andrew Castle and Tim Henman up for this year’s final. Henman - whiny, nasaly and bland - is no match for Boris Becker or Jimmy Connors. Meanwhile, Castle is not as authoritative as his many more-experienced colleagues and should not have been behind the mic for the final.

It sounded like a good idea for the best part of about ten seconds - a new series linking Britain’s top flat races into some kind of coherent narrative on network TV, starting in early May and ending in mid-October every summer, with huge prize-money and the crowning of a champion racehorse on the flat, beginning in the spring of 2010.

Except it’ll never work.

The brains behind the pompously-named Sovereign Series - the venerable Jockey Club and some horse-racing-ignorant marketing suits - are deluded to think that the racing and non-racing public will suddenly patch onto something to rank alongside The Open Championships or Wimbledon during the summer.

More crucially, they assume that television companies will be falling themselves into paying big bucks to broadcast ten races which amount to about sixty minutes of airtime in total. The idea is to increase racing’s value in terms of sports rights, and is modelled on what Premierhsip football and Champions League have achieved in extracting the maximum amount of cash out of broadcasters.

The problem is that this is horse-racing, a well-attended but not universally popular and fairly difficult-to-understand kind of sport. Whilst the likes of Cheltenham Festival and Grand National, the Derby and Royal Ascot have genuine appeal to the masses - more through the occasion, the history and the punting - can you really imagine people switching over from the women’s Wimbledon final just to watch the Eclipse Stakes at Sandown Park, let alone stick with it for a whole season where the same horses might not even run in every race?

No.

As for broadcasters battling to broadcast the series - well, these business suits really are retarded. The BBC doesn’t care about racing except for the few national events. Channel 4 is paid by racing to continue broadcasting. ITV doesn’t give a shit, and with the World Cup in 2010 in South Africa, it will not have airtime to horse-racing on Saturday afternoons when it’s busy with football. Sky can’t cover the series as the Derby has to be on network TV, which leaves Five, who doesn’t care.

So it’s either Channel 4 or the BBC. And if either one loses out, they might as well not bother with the sport, which means just one channel will be left with racing, and complacency will set in, allowing them to reduce coverage, and cherry-pick what it likes to broadcast - something which the BBC is already doing.

Besides, in the current economic climate, it is crazy to think that cash could be found through sponsorship of such as series. Three of the races in the proposed series currently have no commercial sponsors, and with numerous other sports struggling to attract blue-chip companies such as tennis - both the LTA and WTA are having difficulties doing that - it is hard to imagine why any company would want to sponsor this series in a third-tier sport.

Moreover, some people say the series is unworkable, as it only enhances one’s prixe-money but not - crucially - one’s stallion values - the basis of flat-racing. Who’s run their horse in the Champion Stakes at Newmarket when they could go for the ultra-valuable Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe in Paris two weeks earlier, and then attempt a double in the even more valuable Breeders’ Cup Turf at the end of October in America? The Champion Stakes just doesn’t fit it.

Maybe I’m sceptical, and I would dearly loved to be proved wrong. In the meantime, as the opening titles of the Frank Skinner/David Baddiel show goes, ‘It’ll never work.”

Poor Greg. When he was flying the flag for Britain at Wimbledon, all everyone cared about was Tim Henman.

Sure, Henman performed much better at SW19 year in, year out: reaching four semis compared to Rusedski’s sole quarter-final appearance in 1997. Added to that is probably because the press liked Rusedski less due to his Canadian heritage or accent or general demeanour and fairly abusive behaviour on court. Middle England he ain’t!

Sadly, in retirement, it looks like the pecking order hasn’t changed.

Rusedski goes on the downmarket ITV show Dancing on Ice, whilst Henman is slated to appear on the upmarket version - BBC’s Stricly Come Dancing.

Meanwhile, in their new roles as tennis commentators, it is once again Henman who emerges as the star pundit, regularly landing the plum matches on Centre Court as Rusedski languished in lesser contests elsewhere.

That’s a shame as Henman - though vastly improved since his ‘plummy-sounding’ debut on BBC TV last week - is still miles behind the quick-firing Rusedski (much like his famed 130km+ first-serves!) in terms of analysis and media-savvyness.

By being trumpted as the BBC’s big-gun signing for Wimbledon - and in the process bumping off the illustrious pair of Jimmy Connors and Martina Navratilova from the BBC commentary booth in one stroke - the pecking order is established.

Henman might have lost his voice briefly halfway through the second week, but Rusedski was nowhere near to being his replacement - that went to John Lloyd.

That settles it then: it’s Henman who once again comes out on top, with Rusedski trailing - and trailing badly - in his wake.

Mind you, Rusedski, Connors and Navratilova can’t have been the only ones miffed at Henman rapid promotion to the top; John Lloyd, Great Britain’s Davis Cup captain, who had been behind the mic for many of the big matches over the last few years, now finds himself doing more and more doubles-matches during the latter stages of the championships. If Henman hadn’t lost his voice for the Nadal-Murray game on Wednesday, ‘Lloydie’ wouldn’t even have got into an already crowded commentators’ box alongside John McEnroe and Andrew Castle for the quarter-final clash.

Whilst his place is assured for the men’s final on Sunday between Federer and Nadal, alongside Andrew Castle (why not David Mercer? Or Barry Davies? Or even Simon Reed?) and Henman as McEnroe is contracted to NBC, the same cannot be said for Boris Becker. Not so long agao, the three-time German champion was the BBC’s major signing once - until he was replaced by Jimmy Connors in the final.

Becker himself had replaced Pat Cash who has been relegated to doing radio. So, I think we’ve estabished a pattern here: Henman might be ‘in’ now but it won’t be for long; he’ll be replaced as soon as Andy Murray retires. Murray already talks and analyses better than Henman. His retirement couldn’t come soon enough o those of us who are already tired of Henman’s whiney voice.

And whilst we’re at it - can we have more female pundits on the BBC, please? Bring back Navratilova, or even better still - the imperious Pam Shriver.

NBC’s respected Washington bureau chief Tim Russert has died of a sudden heart-attack in his office at Washington. Tribute programmes and retrospective shows are all over the cable new networks. Naturally, colleagues and friends are contributing to those shows, with the usual suspects Barbara Walters, Bob Schieffer, Ted Koppel lining up to pay tribute to the anchorman.

And then there’s Senator John Edwards.

Good grief, this vain, vanquished politician just pops up whenever the opportunity arises. Someone should tell him that he’s not running for president of the United States anymore, and has next to no chance of being the next vice-president.

Relatives of the five British contractors held hostage in Iraq did their rounds with the British media yesterday to mark their first anniversary in captivity.

It led the national bulletins briefly - including an exclusive interview with the BBC - but the hostages’ plight was soon sidelines in favour of fuel protest.

Shame on the media. We have a horrible feeling that the next time we hear about this will be the beheading of one of the hostages.

Former White House press secretary Scott McCllelan has a new book out criticising the Bush presidency and his idiotic characteristics. McClellan also commented on the way Bush and his advisers mishandled and then lied about the invasion of Iraq.

This coming from a man who not went along with the Iraq war throughout his tenure as the face of the White House, defending the president and the American government, but lied day-after-day, and was therefore complicit in deceiving the entire world behind the reasons for going to war.

By publishing damning allegations of his former boss’s incompetency and now arguing that he can finally see the truth - in the form of a book which he needs to sell - tells us everything about this man: he’s a snake, a coward and crook. And totally blind as well. How can it take an intelligent person so many years to work out that Bush had lied about everything in order to wage war against Saddam?! Don’t buy his book. He’s fat enough as it is - if the book continues to sell, he’ll become morbidly obese within a few years.

Anyway, as you can see in the title, Bleungberg’s main target here is Karl Rove, Bush’s former advisor, and not McCellan. Whilst we hate McCellan, our loathing for Rove remains unsurpassed and undimished. Rove - who got away with being indicted for leaking the identity of a CIA agent, Valerie Plame, has wasted little time in appearing on conservative talk shows to lay into McCellan’s book.

Rove is unhappy at allegations levelled at him by McCellan that he and Bush bungled over Katrina. (Er, that’s true, isn’t it??) Anyway, this cretinous weasle not only used the opportunity to slag off McCellan, but reiterated his innocence over the Valerie Plame affair - over and over again… ‘As you know, I wasn’t the source of the leak..”, “History will show that I am not a liar, McCelllan is…”

Oh, what a snake! What a fucking weasle! What a cretinous cunt this Karl Rove is! Death by clutter-bombing, arse-rape and arsenic-poisoning on his man is too good a death. He deserves to be locked up in a bunker and incestuously molested for the rest of his sorry life by that Austrian monster Josef Fritzl.