Jade Seah says F*** on Ch 5

Check out what Jade Seah said during this broadcast of "Today in Beijing" at around 51 seconds during a technical error. A Ch 5 classic.

But she looks good on camera anyway so whatever, even if she has a potty mouth that doesn't go with that pretty face.

Singapore is in an Olympics final!

Let me say it again. Singapore is in an Olympics final! However, when I searched the news online, I saw this article on BBC. http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport2/hi/olympics/table_tennis/7562910.stm

What's wrong with it? Well, nothing except for this line they just had to include. "Feng Tianwei, who, like the rest of the Singapore team, is an import from China..."

Okay, so our whole team is imported from China. Like much of our food, electronics, pirated goods and Geylang chicken. But do they realise that is a moot point for table tennis? Which top team in table tennis doesn't have imports from China? I mean the Dominican Republic had two players called Qian Lian and Wu Xue, and the US had Wang Chen and Gao Jun. Tell me they are not from China. The names are a dead giveaway maybe?

It is an issue with some Singaporeans too, I've been hearing this a lot in the past few days. "The final is basically a Chinese team vs. another Chinese team, played in China. It's more like a domestic event."

However, I'm not going to let a little issue about country of birth affect the overwhelming patriotism that has been inculcated in me since I was a wee toddler. And certainly not for something this rare. This is the moment I was taught to sing the national anthem and wave a Singaporean flag vigorously for. I'm going to fish one from my NDP '08 goodie bag.

When the athletes are on the podium, the national flag is raised. If you're Singaporean, you'd better watch the victory ceremony. It's your only chance to watch the Singapore flag raised in an Olympics final. You can add the obligatory tears and rush of pride. GOOOO SINGAPORE!

I've even hung a Singaporean flag on the gate of my house to showcase my patriotic fervour. Although I still lose to the MP across the street who has it on a flagpole. Permanently.

However, I felt that the behaviour of Li Jiawei was disappointing. She actually conceded the final to China, saying that they played the semi final like a final, and hence they have nothing left to take the game to the Chinese. Maybe this is a psychological tactic, but knowing how she has a reputation for choking, I think she really feels the team won't win.

She didn't exactly have the most nerve wracking experience of the 3 players who played. That was Feng Tianwei, who had to play the opening match, AND the decider. If Feng isn't conceding, why is the team captain and flag bearer doing so? We may not have the top seeds, but finals are not always won by the top seeds. Even Zhang herself said they were taking nothing for granted because the skill levels were very close.

If you want to concede, don't play for Singapore. Here, we throw everything at the Chinese team till we can honestly say we lost to the better team. Nothing is over till the Merlion pukes and Li Jiawei chokes.

Immortality is yours! Take it.

Yet another article on the Olympics. Its hard not to blog about it. It pervades your home TV, headlines your newspapers, your friends talk about it, you watch it on the bus on the way home, and on top of all that, you have Phelps.

So much has been written about this guy that the thesaurus has already run out of superlatives, and personally, I think people are getting tired of reading about him. At least I am. I just want to watch how the entire Olympics is being overshadowed by his personal quest. So much that the thousands of others taking part become sideshows, dwarfed by the enormosity of the Phelps, a leviathan among sportsmen, who is also fortunate to be talented in the right sport.

He makes it seem so easy, he almost cheapens the value of the Olympic gold. Then you realise that Singapore is still looking for its first gold, and the value goes right back up. Despite all our investment, we're happy that Tao Li finished fifth in one final. I mean, not that it isn't a major achievement, but the fact that we consider that a major achievement says a lot about our sporting excellence. Basically, we suck at sports.

But really, you know what sucks? It sucks to be in the same events as Phelps. No one gives a shit about you, you have no chance in hell of winning, and when he wins, you have to declare that its an honour to swim with him. Yeah, that's what you trained four years for. All that pain and sacrifice, for the honour.

Somehow I don't think that when they trained, the thought in their heads was, I want to swim faster! So that I can be second to Michael Phelps and swim next to him in the pool! The honour! But we need people like that. There are after all, 8 lanes in an Olympic swimming pool and we need 7 others who are after that honour to make Phelps an even more awesome spectacle.

You can't really appreciate how awesome Phelps is until he leaves 7 other world class swimmers floundering a whole body length behind him. Or more. Especially when you see how the cameraman struggles to put the 8 swimmers in the same frame for our reference. Or when they put that green line behind Phelps to show how far ahead he is.

Phelps is lucky that his is a sport that allows the individual to really showcase individual brilliance. If you are good in the butterfly, you can win the 100m, the 200m, and probably the team relay too. So that's 3 golds already. Unfortunately, he's good at everything, so for all those swimmers of his generation, it's basically GG thank you very much try again next time. And I'll still beat you anyway.

In fact, he's so good he's rewriting records that only he can set. It helps that he's actually a freak of nature, with numerous trivia websites online detailing how he's actually descended from fish rather than apes. That torso! The long arms! The flipper legs! The big ears! The gills! Okay maybe not the last two but you get my point.

Being a perfect blend of nature and nurture, it is almost his destiny to be placed upon a pedestal for others to strive to. Now, Phelps is 3 golds away from immortality in the Olympic annals. And in 3 days, he will be the greatest Olympian swim king ever.