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.’

A thing of the past: Endorsement tweets

Some of Britain’s top swimmers have been warned about endorsing brands via their personal twitter accounts.

Respected academic periodical The Daily Mail has reported that some celebrities, including many of Britain’s aquatic Olympians, mention individual brands without confirming that they are being paid, either in cash or gifts, by the specific companies involved.

This practice, ‘deceptive advertising’, while common across the internet, is technically against the law and has already been the subject of warnings from the Office of Fair Trading.

In light of these warnings, The Wobbly Block has taken the decision to abandon all its philanthropic plans for gifts in the run-up to the Games, so as not to cause any difficulties for our potential medallists. Dame Rebecca Adlington will no longer be receiving 28 miles of standard-gauge Wobbly Block railway track and Liam Tancock will have to do without 25 Wobbly Block Siamese fighting fish.

Anyone looking to purchase 28 miles of standard-gauge railway track (including sleepers) or over two dozen Siamese fighting fish (not including aquarium) should contact @wobblyblock via twitter.

Swimmer: Winning

After 183 years of waiting, a swimmer has finally triumphed in The Boat Race.

Rowers, the sworn enemies of swimmers, have been successful in each of the previous 157 outings, but on this occasion Trenton Oldfield, a 35 year-old from east London, emerged from the Thames victorious.

Teams from Camford and Oxbridge had valiantly battled through the heats and the qualifying rounds to make final of this year’s contest and both had high hopes of winning.

Many experts believed that Oxbridge’s team of Americans and Australians in their late twenties studying eight-year courses in Aquatic Self-Propulsion might have the edge over Camford’s team of Australians and Americans in their late twenties studying nine-years courses in  Targeted Hydrodynamics.

However, it was Oldfield, representing the London School of Economics and the one person who did not need a boat, who will be taking home the plaudits.

Speaking after his triumph to fans, journalists and the Metropolitan Police, Oldfield said that he hoped to use his success to boost interest in his recently-published manifesto.

The degree to which he succeeds in this aim remains to be seen,  but given the ease with which he achieved his position and the publicity he has attracted, it is likely swimmers will become an annual fixture at the Boat Race in future.

Shortage: Water

It has been announced that two lanes of London’s Olympic swimming pool are to be emptied in order to save water.

The decision was made in response to the recent introduction of a hosepipe ban across large areas of southern England. Under the controversial plan, the outside lanes 0 and 9 at the London Aquatic Centre will be emptied, while lanes 1 to 8 will be left unaffected.

With no substantial precipitation forecast beyond the usual ongoing drizzle associated with British summers, it is likely that the measures will stay in place well beyond this year’s Olympic and Paralympic events.

The British government has already said that everyone should be ‘smarter about how we use water’ while the drought continues and Olympic officials have emphasised this is the ‘very least they can do’.

Potential Olympics competitors who are worried by the implications of the announcement were originally advised to keep some spare water in a jerrycan in their garage. However, this advice was withdrawn after a woman nearly drowned when trying to decant water from her bath into a carrier bag.