One World One Dream is a fine sentiment, but . . .
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THIS week, I have been wrestling with my conscience and my moral standards and wondering whether or not I should undertake an unpalatable protest against events about to unfold on the other side of the planet.
The 2008 Olympic Games begin in Beijing on Friday and all eyes will turn to focus on one of the world’s most impenetrable countries – provided they can see it through the smog.
China has a cheek using an Olympic slogan of “One World One Dream”, though. If anyone is unlikely to share a world and a dream with us, it’s them.
The build-up to the games has left me cold and I am unlikely to warm up as the week progresses. I dread a fortnight of cynically calculated PR for a country that has many questions to answer, yet turns them away with an inscrutable smile if anyone is watching and a fiercely wielded baton or a gun if not.
With few other means of making meaningful protest against the event, I have resolved, in a selfless sacrifice, not to order a single Chinese takeaway for the duration. It will be difficult and unbearable at times, I know, but I am determined.
Mind you, it seems daft to penalise the hard-working folk in my local Chinese restaurant for something they can’t control. Perhaps I could have the odd sweet-and-sour dish and refuse the boiled rice in protest? Maybe I could decline the prawn crackers with a set meal for two? Could I get away with just cutting out soy sauce? Perhaps I could order a meal from their English menu instead? That said, the human-rights record of the next Olympic hosts, in 2012, might suggest we should keep our collective traps shut and maintain a low profile. Maybe we are the ones who could do with a cultural revolution.
There’s no doubt that China will finish high on the final medals table in Beijing and that will keep conspiracy theorists debating for decades. Allegations about dubious tactics and illegal methods, coupled to fanciful theories about athletes being nobbled by anything from diet pills to death rays, will abound.
There are those, sadly, who will believe the Olympics are actually taking place on a Hollywood movie set. They are the same weirdos who believe that man never landed on the moon, that Diana, Princess of Wales, was murdered by the Royal Family, that aliens visit the Earth for day trips and that Wombles really do live on Wimbledon Common. OK, so the last one is true, but the others are rubbish.
Or are they? According to an online poll published last Thursday, almost a third of Britons believe the 1969 Apollo moon landing was a hoax. It all took place in a TV studio in order to boost US prestige during the Cold War, apparently.
Some 38% of Britons think the September 11 terrorist attacks on New York and Washington were arranged by the US government to justify declaring war in the Middle East, says the poll, and a third believe Diana, Princess of Wales, was murdered.
Spookily, 61% of us believe in aliens, 59% believe we are psychic and 52% believe that ghosts exist. No figures are available for those who worry that Wimbledon is awash with Wombles.
The poll was actually commissioned by the Fox film company to publicise its new movie The X-Files: I Want To Believe. Let me state now that if I was abducted into space by co-star Dana Scully, aka Gillian Anderson, one of the universe’s sexiest women, I wouldn’t be screaming for help. Far from it.
The poll missed a trick, though. It could have asked if Aberdeen City councillors come from another planet, will Labour will ever win another election, will the A9 ever be fully dual carriageway, can Inverness Caley Thistle win the SPL, is Donald Trump’s hair his own, and is Loch Inch the shortest in Scotland? But it didn’t.
One vital question to be asked in a week that energy prices rocketed skywards faster than a frightened UFO, however, is how to tackle the growing crisis at our own firesides? With a winter of fuel poverty looming, it’s time to get real about renewables.
Not windfarms, though. They’re next to useless, I reckon. During the recent hot and calm weather, electric air-conditioners, fans, fridges and freezers were working flat out to keep everyone cool, but the wind farms scarring Scotland’s hillsides stood impotently idle like lazy layabouts on a street corner. Pathetic.
Last week, however, Inverness-based Wavegen unveiled the UK’s first commercial wave power station, in Islay. Wind might come and go, but tides never stop. That’s where the future lies, under the sea not on the hills. Let’s scrap the science fiction of worthless windmills and support the science fact of tide turbines instead.
Still, I’m doing my bit for energy saving by switching off my TV for the next fortnight at least. No Chinese-style Olympic feast for me.
I still fancy a plate of sweet-and-sour, though.
Finally to my heroes of the week and gold medals, please, for four Inverness workmates taking part in a trek to help find a cure for Type 1 diabetes. Stephen Corbett, Glenn Dymond, Ross Mackay and Trish Maclean, from diagnostic company LifeScan Scotland, are joining a 40-strong team trekking along the Great Wall of China next week to raise more than £120,000 for the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation. A fine effort.
Type 1 diabetes, which often strikes children, is currently incurable. Some 350,000 people in the UK have the condition, including 20,000 children, and they rely on multiple insulin injections or pump infusions daily just to survive. The cash raised by the LifeScan team will fund vital research.
Amazingly, Britain’s greatest Olympian, Sir Steve Redgrave, won five gold medals, and a bronze, despite suffering from the condition. He’s a beacon of hope to all.
While LifeScan Scotland’s Great Wall trek might help change the world for millions, the long-term impact of the Beijing Olympics is less clear. I hope they blow clean, fresh air through China’s suffocating smog of secrecy.
If that helps solve the perplexing Chinese puzzle, we really will be on the road to one world and one dream.
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