dah-na-na-nuuuuh, dah-na-na-na-nuh....
Crunch time. The Olympics are just a few days away, and everyone is stressing. Athletes are nervous over their training, tourists are anxious about bookings, embassies are occupied with visiting delegations - even I'm having sleepless nights over what to do with the LLDD-Hyphen-L and LLDD-baby during the games.
"anak, wala talagang ma-score na tickets si daddy"
The one who's under the most strain, of course, is London. To bring you up to speed on what's going on, here's a quick special Olympic edition of "Travel Advisory":
- When I said London was under a lot of pressure and cracks were starting to show, I didn't mean, you know, literally.
- Immigration officers will go on strike the day before the start of the games. In an obvious wala 'yan sa lolo ko move, train drivers vote to strike for three days during the Olympics.
- You know how in the movies, military types like to say "failure is not an option." Well, London just discovered that thousands of its hired Olympic security personnel consider work "attendance-optional"
- Maybe if the bus drivers here operated on a "boundary" system...
- I heard the non-stop rain turned Hyde Park into a mud pit, forcing the cancellation of several Olympic run-up concerts including...oh...oh God, no...NOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!
Puts the whole "CICC has a leak" hysteria into perspective, doesn't it?
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(UPDATE! By the time you read this, you would have heard of the Korean football flag flap. The funny thing is, just a week earlier, organizers had expressed confidence nothing of the sort would happen during the games. The whole thing is a cautionary tale for all FSOs and protocol officers out there, and "Borat" should forever haunt them in their sleep. High five!)
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Still, I have faith London will pull through and stage a great games. Why? Because I had the privilege of joining Team Philippines' Olympic Village Welcome Ceremony -- the delegation's first and defining impression of London organizers -- and it was one of the sharpest, happiest, trippiest things I have ever seen up close. By the time it was over I was skipping along and bursting into uncontrollable fits of laughter. Like all Olympians should.
Because if performance art and "Don't Stop Me Now" don't work, what hope is there for humanity?
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