Team GB - you absolutely ROCK!

[Otta]

www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-19144983

[Huguenot]

80p a year from the taxpayer.

Dead Cool that!

Loads of people in Ripon paid for it with lottery tickets when they were buying their copy of the Daily Mail and cursing the black kids 'round the corner.

Even Better.

[BB100]

I see you are on fine form Huguenot. Who else could turn a 'let's celebrate the olympics' thread into a debate on stately home funding.

[Otta]

It wasn't huguenot who brought up the stately homes, he just responded (correctly IMO).

[DJKillaQueen]

lol...well to be fair the Olympics were in the beginning the preserve of the elite.....dominated by the upper classes........so there's the tenuous link to stately homes we are all looking for :D

[Huguenot]

NYT:

"David P. Barash, psychology professor at the University of Washington, writes that, for many, sports spectatorship taps a primordial human instinct for belonging, much as militaristic nationalism does. It indulges ?the illusion of being part of something larger than ourselves and thus nurtured, understood, accepted, enlarged, empowered, gratified, protected.?

"In the wave-generating arena crowd, Barash adds, ?one becomes part of a great beckoning, grunting, yet smoothly functioning, and, presumably, security-generating Beast. And for those involved, it apparently feels good to be thus devoured whole and to live in its belly.?

Damn but it feels good though! :D