British Ambition

Eddie The Eagle, in this season of the Winter Olympics, should be remembered as the English failure that the crowds took to their hearts.
Here in England, this working class hero was 'adopted' by the class-ridden echelons of the British sporting scene, and used for all he was worth.

How was he used?
Ever hear of the 'exception that proves the rule'?
Eddie was one such.
He was the exemplar of classless popularity in a country that fair stinks with snobbery; he was the benign face of England adopted for his ability to be precisely that.

The reason I have never been interested in the marvels of Winter Sports(or most other sports for that matter),is that in England sport is aspirational, the ambition being to meet with our alleged and self-appointed 'betters' in a way which permits them to feel superior in wealth or breeding if they lose, or just 'superior' if they win.

They've killed the fun.

And the mass of sportsmen aspires and aspires and aspires, hoping upon hope to reach the day when they 'belong'; but they never will, for what is a skilled man but a servant in this culture?

And so the desperate game goes on, snobbery with no saving graciousness, snobbery without humour, without hope.

And when they are rejected?
They in turn find someone else to look down on.

To hell with them.