The Winter Olympics have begun. In Pyeongchang, South Korea. Not Pyongyang, that’s in North Korea. Who used to be ‘the enemy’ but now are best mates with their neighbours to the south, even sharing sports teams in a joint-Korea friendliness. Its like having a new best friend in the playground who has beaten and bullied you for the past 10 years and carries a knife in the hand that’s not wrapped around your shoulders. Nothing nervy about that at all.

And to show this new accord, this new solidarity, the games are attended by Kim Jong Un’s sister, Kim Yo-jong. I never knew Kim had a sister. I knew he had a brother. (Emphasis on the ‘had’). Because Kim had him murdered with a deadly nerve agent at Kuala Lumpur airport last year. But a sister? Where’d she come from?? How come she’s still alive? Why doesn’t she have a silly haircut? Not genetic then, that hair thing, obvs.

The winter Olympics is not, if I’m honest, my preferred sports viewing. I love a ski like the next man. But watching hours of it? Speed skating? Shooting whilst on skis? Yet this event is now effectively the Oscars ceremony for the pharmaceutical industry. They can test not only the effectiveness of all their wonderful, performance-enhancing and muscle-building shit, but also its detectability, or lack thereof. And whether the athletes (or ‘guinea pigs’ as they’re known in medical circles) are playing for ‘Russia’ or using an acronym of ‘The Country that Used to be Russia Before it got Banned for Sytematic, Industrial-sized, State-Compulsory Drug-Abuse and Fucking Cheating’, its still wrong. The last games was a joke. Except in Russia. Putin don’t joke.

But the 3 athletes who are emphatically Russian but didn’t fail drug tests (don’t mean they didn’t do it, like everyone else, just means they didn’t get caught), competing under some novel ‘state-flag-of-convenience’ is even funnier.

So that’s why we love football. Where drug abuse is purely recreational, where cheating is done by hurling yourself, arms spread, into the penalty area, and where we don’t let the Russians play.

Happy Monday

A xxxx