Olympigs

Such is the miserable state of the world - global warming, the war on terror, murdering bullies, kids on drugs - that light relief, when it comes, is a rare, welcome visitor. My internal clock was already up into the multiple GHz at too early a time of day, watching and reading about the Suffolk serial killings, Israel/Palestine, North Korean nuclear talks or America's new defence secretary Robert Gates and his Iraq exit strategy. These vibrations had sent me spinning around the room in a blue funk, wondering where on earth it was all going to end? I needed something to calm me down.

Thankfully, in Moscow, they're holding the Pig Olympics.

There was a time - and, bubbling away in the background since Mr Litvenenko's untimely and appalling demise, probably still is - when all that came out of Russia was bad news. Georgian terrorist attacks, black ops within the government, oligarchs being made overnight by purchasing entire utilities networks from a crumbling constitution, whole communities poisoned by the overweaning search for anything worth dollars, Chernobyl. It pleased me that today's menu from the former USSR was nothing but porky fun. And so I play the video. This is gonna be great. I sit back to watch the drama unfold, as all of the squealing contestants don their competitor jerseys, complete with numbers and sponsors. There is much hullabaloo coming from the assembled masses (mostly mums and kids, surprisingly for a Monday morning in the former capital of the communist world).

To be fair it's soon clear that, far from being a true Olympics, it's really just pig racing. I ask myself why I was expecting pigs to be pole-vaulting, long-jumping, discus-throwing decathletes. Casting this thought aside, I settle into the sport. Each lane is gated off from the next ones, so the pig can't really screw this up. It's just a matter of cajoling. There are a few practise laps, getting their trotters warmed up, checking the lie of the lane and so on, before they are placed in their horseracing-style starter pens. A silence falls. And they're off! Pigs hurtle down the track, their trainers at their heels, clapping like mad to - essentially - frighten the poor-kers into running away from them, which to the untrained eye looks like racing. Once they get to the end of their lanes, it's chaos, the pigs running left, right, back and around, with their trainers desperately rugby-tackling the little bacon sarnies into submission.

Now, these are young pigs. There are no sows or boars here. It really should be called the Piglet Olympics. Or Piglet Racing, which I think has enough of a USP to survive quite happily in vying for the general public's sports-viewing attention. There's really no need to over-egg the pudding with the Olympics tag. Anyway, the youngsters, having been frightened out of their wits by their owners and the reams of screaming, excited children watching the spectacle, settle down in a big straw bale and pant, nuzzling against each other and doing distinctly more naturally-pigletty things.

And now we cross over to the BBC's Sam Ryder: "While the winner usually basks in glory, this year’s paciest piglet will soon be basting in the oven, as organisers sharpen their knives for the main event. Until then, dreaming of winning next year’s Pig Olympics, they each take a well-earned rest..."

Do all the little children know that the winner is about to be killed? Do the other competitors realise that, in losing, they have saved their bacon? Why do you think they'll want to win it next year, when they find out what happened to this year's gold medallist? And what do you propose I do about my blood pressure?