China has so far excelled itself during the 2008 Olympics which it is hosting.  The hot topic of discussion and jokes at the moment is just how Britain can possibly out do, or even match,  the Chinese opening ceremony when 2012 comes around.

The pride the Chinese feel for their nation is quite staggering.  Not only did they pull off one of the most breath snatching firework and dance spectaculars I’ve ever seen, but they’re topping the medal tables by a long shot too.

One could suggest that the amount of effort put into it was a necessary price to pay, what with their questionable ethics having increasingly been brought to light over recent months.  So determined are they to put forward an image of perfection and national unity that they would not allow a little girl to sing before the masses because she wasn’t deemed ‘cute enough’.

The girl in question, with a voice brilliant enough to sing the national anthem to the world, was allowed to sing but was not filmed doing so.  Instead a girl with the face to fit but not the voice was enlisted to lip-sing the anthem, thus creating the “perfect” voice/face combination.

Meanwhile, on the other side of the globe, Britons are making a mockery of their own Island in front of the rest of the world.  British tourists have been labelled as the most violent and most drunk of all nationalities at popular tourist destinations.  More arrests are made of Britons, more Britons are killed by excess alcohol and the accidents resulting.

With such a deplorable lack of patriotism and unity being displayed by the British, I hope for the sake of our pride and our egos that we do have something truely spectacular up our sleeves come 2012.  We will need something amazing, just like the Chinese, in order to recover our reputation from being the laughing stock of Europe to a position of more standing.