Team Libya

The date was Friday 08/08/08 at 8pm Chinese time, I was at work the time was 1pm in London, I wanted to watch the Olympics opening ceremony but being at work didn't help plus it was Friday, I started watching BBC online who were showing the entire live event but 15 minutes later I had to drive my work colleagues to the local mosque for the Friday prayer, I thought OK plenty of time to watch the Olympic teams parading but most importantly see team Libya, I was back at my desk at 2pm just in time to see the teams, I thought it was easy to work out team Libya entry but the Chinese used their own system which depends on countries length of names or something! for the next 3 hours I was glued to the PC monitor waiting to cheer the Libyans but where are they?? I never saw them! how annoying? I watched non stop for 3 hours EXCEPT for 1 minute when a colleague of mine asked me how to switch the scanner on, I showed him quickly then back to my PC, can you believe it that in that minute I was away team Libya passed!! how is that for bad luck, first I thought Libya didn't take part but my daughter phoned me and told me that she saw them and that the ladies were wearing beautiful Libyan costumes.

Yesterday I watched the swimming heats on BBC but they never showed the 100-meter breaststroke that Asmahan Farhat took part in, the picture on the left is Asmahan getting ready for her swim, she did not do that well although she did manage to break her own record but she enjoyed taking part, you can read her blog entry, it was funny reading how she was dressed in an east Libyan costume by old ladies, to me this is the best and most beautiful Libyan costume.

Read her blog entry Here. It was annoying to read on some American websites some ignorant comments calling her a traitor and that she should be given a one way ticket to Libya blah blah blah... it is a common practice for countries all over the world to naturalise people of other countries so just that they can participate in sports, the UK has done it, even America naturalised the Sudanese man that was carrying the American flag at this Olympics, at least Asmahan does have Libyan blood, her father is Libyan after all, anyway she did her best and good luck to her.

The opening ceremony which has been described as the greatest show ever staged in history apparently cost £1 billion pound to stage, the budget the Chinese spent on these games is $40 billion, I am sure many Chinese people could think of a better way to spend this money!! in 4 years time London will host the Olympics, how would the British beat the Chinese to a more spectacular Olympics? they probably wont but I am sure Britain will still have a good tasteful games.

Of course there has been a lot of talk about the Chinese government's lack of human rights, many protests all over the world, I thought the following image which uses the Chinese Olympics logo is good and to the point.