Friday 5 October 2012

TV Bites: The Great British Tears


I have a terrible, shameful secret I must divulge. It is a secret that brings great shame upon me as a British citizen. I fear MI6-types and snipers are about to storm my crappy little flat and demand that I return my passport, my Oyster card, and my umbrella, such is the un-Britishness that I am about to reveal. You see, I don’t like Victoria Pendleton. There. I said it.

Victoria “Vicky” Pendelton. Britain’s Golden Girl. The great Olympic pain in the backside who can’t even contemplate mounting a bike without regaling us, once again, with the tales of how she mounted a member of the training team and was, like, so totally shunned by the other Team GB cyclists. Then we must prepare ourselves for the onslaught of tears that, quite frankly, are most likely the sole cause of any floods this country experiences.

Because if there’s one thing Little Vicky does exceptionally well – other than her blooming amazing ability to ride a bike really, really fast around a circular cycle track, which she does really well – it is crying. Oh, the tears are endless. I've been studying good old Vicky for a few months now, and have discovered at least three different types of tears.
  1. The "OMG I SLEPT WITH SOMEONE WHO WAS TRAINING US AND EVERYONE HATES ME" tears. Dragged out every single time Vicky recounts the story of how she fell for a Very Important Man who was partially in charge of instructing the British cyclists the best way to sit on their specially made bicycles without falling off of them. The British cyclists that weren't Vicky were absolutely livid, she tells us through the waterfall of tear drops cascading from her pretty little wet eyes, whereas she - being the British cyclist who was Victoria Pendleton - was pretty damn smug that she'd snagged her VIM. This story appears even without journalists asking for it. It's like her go-to introduction, instead of handing out a soggy business card. "Hi, I'm Victoria Pendleton *sob* and I *sob* slept with my *sob* VIM *sob sob sob*
  2.  The “OMG I'M A WOMAN AND I'M JUST SO EMOTIONAL, DAMMIT” tears. Our lovely Vicky cries a lot. And she tells us she cries a lot because she’s an emotional woman. An emotional woman? As opposed to what, Myra Hindley? Dear Vicky seems to have overlooked the fact that pretty much every woman is emotional. Don’t believe me? Ask any childless woman over the age of 25 if she’s met The One and has a kid yet. Chances are even the most hardcore, heartless bitch will be reduced to tears and the mere thought of her biological clock running out of batteries. But, oh not our Vicky. She will cry and insist that she’s just so much more emotional than anyone you will ever know. Because she’s a very emotional woman.
  3.  The “OMG I SIGNED UP TO STRICTLY COME DANCING FOR MORE PUBLICITY BECAUSE THE OLYMPICS ARE OVER BUT I CAN’T DANCE!!!!” tears. Fearing her Golden Olympic Girl crown slipping off of her glossy shampoo-advert-endorsed head, lovely Vicky signed up for this year’s Strictly Come Dancing. Never mind the fact that she has the grace of a wooden broomstick, she’s determined to win because a) she slept with her VIM and became victimised by four entire people for approximately eight minutes and b) because she’s so emotional and must win at all times. Halfway through her first routine, Vicky burst into tears. It was a bit like watching your dearest friend suffer from Bridget Jones syndrome and start crying at the mention of Colin Firth. The tears didn't really work, though, because she got the lowest scores of the night. She then tried to insist to Tess Daly that she didn't mean for the tears to come out, “They just happened.” Oh, Vicky. You fool no one.

There is no doubting Victoria Pendleton’s ridiculous talent for riding a bike very, very fast, or for advertising shampoo. Hey, she could have very likely made a career out of it. Instead, dear old Vicky has insisted on making a career out of crying and well, it just makes me ever so sad.

It makes me so sad that one of our greatest female athletes will not have the legacy of a great female athlete. No. The legacy Victoria Pendleton has carved for herself is that of a woman who has the most gruesome case of PMS for 52 weeks a year. And every person who's come across any woman in the midst of even one week's worth of PMS will know that it's just about the worst kind of legacy to have. *Sob*