Not going anywhere: Saudi women

With only months until the 2012 Olympics, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) has helpfully provided a hierarchy of prejudices for national Olympic committees to keep in mind when selecting their competitors.

The IOC’s own charter states that ‘any form of discrimination with regard to a country or a person on grounds of race, religion, politics, sex or otherwise is incompatible with belonging to the Olympic Movement’. However, it has recently been emphasised that some discrimination is definitely worse than others.

In an attempt to explain the current situation, a spokesperson from the IOC told The Wobbly Block: ‘Racial discrimination is certainly out. That is very bad prejudice. We wouldn’t allow a national committee to do that. However, things like gender discrimination and certainly discrimination against homosexuals is clearly not as bad. Everyone knows that.’

The decision by the IOC to take no action against Saudi Arabia is thought to be the first time this new hierarchy has been used. The Middle Eastern kingdom has steadfastly refused to allow any of its women to compete at the Olympics and will be the only country not sending at least one female to the 2012 games.

A spokesman for the Saudi Arabian Olympic Committee said ‘Allowing women to compete at the Olympics will inevitably lead to calls for them to be allowed to drive, travel unaccompanied or to wait until they are a teenager before being married. In other words, anarchy.’ Later adding ‘And don’t get me started on those who are the gay!’

Colin Brown, former director of London Swimming, and an expert in prejudice, unfortunately had no comment to make.

Swimming: Revisited

Many white, middle-class administrators involved with swimming are said to be ‘most put out’ that a recent report has found that swimming is a predominantly white, middle-class sport in Britain.

The report, commissioned by The Amateur Swimming Association of Swimming Federations of Great British Swimming (ASASFGBS) and Kellogs, found that a third of children cannot swim 25m unaided by the time they leave primary school. This is said to equate to 200,000 British children reaching the age of 11 each year without being able to swim. Some of these children may even be white or from the middle classes, though that is thought unlikely they will be both.

Responding to the report’s findings, David Sparkesobe, Chief Executive of the ASASFGBS, said ‘Swimming is the only subject on the national curriculum that can save your life.’

After presumably forgetting the importance of how reading affects ones ability to read the instructions on chainsaws, Herr Sparkesobe later added ‘The ASASFGBS are calling on the government to move the focus of primary education from the “Three Rs” to the “Four Rs”: reading, writing, arithmetic and swimming.’