They think it's all over.. But it isn't yet.

As it occurs every four years when the Olympics and preceding Paralympic games find their way onto our TV screens in the living room, kitchen, bedroom, and every establishment we dare to enter, we all have the old, recognizable conversation. It's a sort of tradition that I have with those who are actually interested in what I have to say, (which, I'll admit, are people few and far between.)

It hits us like a speeding train and spreads like a deadly disease. People here, there and everywhere are suddenly grasped with the notion that both events should be run at the same time because it would make Paralympians  and people with disabilities feel equal. It's as if they notice inequality for the first time and they are completely incensed about the issue. They cry out for all people to be treated as equals and point out to us that people with disabilities are just as important. It's funny how these people who become walking advertisements for equality overnight , only take note of equality issues regarding disabilities through the beer goggles of the Paralympics.  It's funny that these people spew out plans to unite the Olympic and Paralympic games as if they are the first people to come up with the ingenious idea. It's downright hilarious when they bang on about equality issues, to only go home and take the piss out of their partners with sandwich jokes and male incompetence.

Don't get me wrong - I love a good sandwich joke and I'm forever banging on about my boyfriends inability to pick his socks up off the floor or iron a t shirt once in a while, but if you're going to attempt the impossible and compel people to treat others as their equal, don't do it half heartedly. The sad truth about the Paralympics is that it works by making disability visible.

Samuel Clench, a VERY good looking Australian sport journalist posed the ultimate question on everybody's lips last week in an article entitled; "Why not run the Olympics and Paralympics together?" There's no more need of explanation on my part - he says it all in the title. Clever man.

First Paralympic Games 1948

So, let's begin with a bit of background, (we historians love all that.) The Paralympics, just like the Olympics, are built on a rich history; from its early development at Stoke Mandeville Hospital in Britain in 1948, to London 2012. We have gone from sixteen humble and injured war veterans competing in archery at the same time as the 1948 London Olympic Games, to nearly 4,200 competitors coming in from 165 countries to compete this year. Whether we agree with the Paralympics being its own entity or not, we cannot deny that those figures are impressive and that the games are clearly growing from strength to strength.

Back to Clench's article, which, I can't say I enjoyed reading. I won't go into the whys and hows - if you give it a read yourself you'll see what I mean. Why not run the Olympics and Paralympics together?

To answer his question, which will resurface again in about four years time, I have to be brutally honest. If there even were the possibility of fitting the Paralympic events smoothly into the daily schedules of the Olympics, there would be a lot more people, testing and pressure involved. There would have to be more competitors and officials to be housed in one city at one time, more time used up in drug testing, more spectators to fill up an already crowded city such as London and more tax payers money spent to fund the games. I'm sure that Clench wouldn't be too happy with that.

Personally, I think that merging the Olympic and Paralympic games is just, well, a silly idea. While it's a nice thought that we can change the face of equality, running the Paralympics events during the Olympics, when viewers are most likely to be distracted by the 'main Olympics'  isn't going to make any notable change. Airing them separately gives the Paralympics more time to shine on its own accord.

                  

Anyway, Clench claims that 'our paralympians must be used to being ignored and undervalued,' which, I'm sorry, everyone can shout about and agree with until they are blue in the face, but that is simply not true. Ok, it's a fact that disability hate crime isn't exactly at an all time low, but speaking for myself and on behalf of thousands of British people, not everyone sees disabilities as an excuse to ignore and undervalue fellow human beings. It is so annoying that I am essentially categorised with a group of people who cannot see disabled people as being equal, and I'm sure that most people would agree with that.

Clench goes on to claim that the Paralympics are effectively staged "weeks after the Olympics have ended when public excitement has abated and most of the media pack has left." Ok, he has a point - most of the Olympics media pack has left - to make room for the Paralympics media pack, you silly man. It isn't that there isn't as much coverage of the Paralympic Games as there was for the Olympics - it just isn't being publicised as much.

This is one issue that I can get on board with Clench about. After all the hype that has been leading up to the Olympics for at least the past two years, the Paralympics lead up was very disappointing. The Olympics was shown on one of the major channels for at least 23 hours a day, (I may be exaggerating, but you get my drift) and additional broadcasting repeated events that we had already watched. It was talked about everywhere, by everyone, and with good reason because we did absolutely fantastically in the games.

Meet the Superhumans - Channel 4 

The lead up to the Paralympics was an advert on Channel 4. Though I did like the song they accompanied it with - my boyfriend did me an epic favour and downloaded it for us to listen to when we drive in my car (it makes us feel gansta.) I've had conversations about the Paralympics, but it hadn't really been mentioned until the opening ceremony started, (which, I'll admit, I did not understand and therefore, did not write a blog on.) The lack of hype is the only thing that has disappointed me, considering  Britain essentially founded the Paralympics. The broadcasting of the games, however, is out there - we just need to go and find it. So quit complaining, stop being lazy and get searching the TV channels - it doesn't take too much effort to press some buttons.

Public enemy - Harder than you think  

If what Clench is ultimately suggesting in his article is true, (that people have stopped caring), then I'm sorry to disappoint him, but he'll have to tell that to the 2.4 million ticket holders who have been going to watch the events. Obviously, the 11.2 million people of the British population alone who attended to opening ceremony weren't warned beforehand that their attempts of showing interest in the Paralympics were futile. Channel 4, the main broadcaster for the Paralympics, has been receiving its highest ratings in about the last ten years. The British population, at least, clearly didn't get the memo about not caring.

And if he's pinning the apart lack of interest on his fellow Aussies, he's still sadly mistaken about the whole thing. According to statistics, coverage of the first day of the Paralympics back in Australia reached 1.8 million viewers. The first evening show on the main Australian channel doubled its regular audience and has continued to grow since.

Basically, this whole blog can be summed up in the words of Oscar Pistorius, an Olympic and Paralympic champion : "I don't think there's anything to be ashamed of. I don't think [Olympic and Paralympic integration] will ever happen and I don't think it'll ever need to.

"We get so few opportunities to publicly and raucously celebrate our community and the amazing contributions people with disabilities make. The Paralympics are ours. Hands off."

And they're off...

As I sit here watching the official closing of the London 2012 Olympic Games, I cannot help but wonder what I am going to do with my life when this long and drawn out ceremony finally finishes. I feel like I have eaten, slept and breathed the Olympics for the past two weeks. Including, of course, my fantasies of Tom Daley diving into my eagerly awaiting arms.

As an overview of my highlights of the closing ceremony, I have to say it was quite outstanding to be honest. People were moaning here, there and everywhere within the first five seconds that it wasn't going to be a patch on the opening ceremony.  Quite frankly, it was a given. More than half of the opening of the Olympics was dedicated to watching athletes representing 205 nations stroll along the track, littering flags here and there to trip up their opponents. Admittedly, there was a fair bit of flag waving and strolling in the closing ceremony, but the amount of athletes representing their countries had seriously depleted, which wasn't much of a shock. The real shock lay in the fact that Greece could afford a flag.

The choice of music was... eclectic. It was all going fine until One Direction came skipping onto centre stage. I'm sorry to all you One Direction fans who worship the ground these boys walk on, but putting them on stage in the closing ceremony is like Canada saying; "Hey! Look at us! We're great at Hockey, but here we are showcasing our shameful secret that is Justin Beiber to the world!" Not gonna happen, girls. Ever. We only got an introduction to the Bohemian Rhapsody and we get One Direction songs belted into our bleeding eardrums twice. Urgh. Big mistake, Britain, big mistake.

I loved the fact that we managed to wangle a bit of George Michael into the ceremony, especially after the traumatic year he has had. If anyone, like me, has gone gay clubbing for the evening in Cardiff, then you'll know what I mean when I say that I felt like I had walked into Pulse. Bless him, he had all the ideals that the Olympics promoted; Determination, courage, bravery, doping. You have to have that to stand up in front of the world and sing a crap new song no one want to here. It was the rare 

opportunity for me to agree with my boyfriend who was screaming at George to sing Club Tropicana.

Russell Brand did an alright job, didn't he? Though he is no Gene Wilder. Instead of telling some jokes, he brought his own personal touch of.. madness to the evening. All I'll say on the subject is that his singing can only be compared to Timmy Mallet reading Shakespeare.

To be fair though, the aftermath of Brand was incredible. Who else felt that their childhood's had been relived and summed up all at once when the Spice Girls were singing? My brain wanted to explode in protest to such awesome music. The number plates reading 'Spice', were so creative. I wouldn't have been able to dream that up.

Spice girls on the typical black cabs of London. 

When we think Spice Girls, we immediately associate that little spat they had with Liam Gallagher. Oh Liam... Do the world a favour and ring Noel up. Have a little chat. Invite the dear over for a cuppa or two. Reminisce about the good ol' days when the music industry knew who you were. Have a cry. Have a cuddle. Reform Oasis. That's all I have to say on the matter.

Though when I read that line to my boyfriend, he said he'd rather swan dive into a deep fat fryer than listen to another Oasis album.

Muse - Doing the best impression of Edward Cullen since Gary Glitter

Moving on with the choice of music that makes the rest of the world stop and think, "Did we actually believe this country was great at music and terrible at sport two weeks ago?", Muse took to the stage. What the HELL were they wearing? Look guys, you may have written some songs for the backtracks of the Twilight movies once upon a time, but that gives you no excuse to dress up at Edward Cullen. They're take on 'the dark side' of the Olympics wasn't exactly a tune that could be played when Jessica Ennis won the pentathlon, but there could've been a bit more pomp and circumstance to the affair. It's just the Olympics - no big deal.

Good old Boris made my night though. He threatened the good people of London for ages that he might do something 'crazy' during the ceremony and frankly, he kept to his word. Doing the best version of the truffle shuffle I've seen since watching The Goonies alongside our beloved David Cameron may just well be enough to ensure that we have a Labour government for at least the next fifty years.

BORIS FOR PRESIDENT

Speaking of dancing, who else immediately thought that David Cameron would be absolutely enthralled with the Indian dancing during Eric Idle's performance? Admittedly, I was hoping that the Queen would be blasted out of the cannon to EOL, but dear old Eric is more than enough to make up for that disappointment.

The whole ending that Rio de Janerio performed was alright. After the near miss with Boris waving the flag and potentially repeating 1666, Brazil promised us some samba and a street sweeping dancer. At least it wasn't as bad as our contribution to Beijing. There was also the third worlds version of Will.I.Am, running up an electricity bill with EDF energy at the tax payers benefit. Nice. Surely Duran Duran could've just come on stage and sung Rio to save the time and effort.

On that happy note, I have to say I am quite looking forward to the 2016 Olympics, if we make it past December 22nd this year. Hopefully, team GB will be just as outstanding as they have been in this Olympics, as will the brilliant support they received from the British public. It's safe to say that in years to come, I will proudly tell my children that I watched the London Olympic games. In HD. From the comfort of my sofa, munching popcorn and feeling proud to be British.

For all those who are devastated that they won't be seeing our beloved champion and idol, Mohammed Farah, running until 2016, here's a little something to stop the withdrawal symptoms.

Mofarahrunningawayfromthings