2012 Olympics Article Analyses Essay

Picture, title and sub-title: The headline is reversed-out of a colour picture of villagers apparently transporting straw bales in preparation for the eccentric â€Å"Olimpick† games celebrated in the Cotswold village of Chipping Campden. The use of the term â€Å"Olimpicks† would appear to be a deliberate archaisms – as it seems highly unlikely the Cotswold games were actually ever thus known. The strap byline attributes the story to a Mail staff reporter: â€Å"John Carter visits the village with its own eccentric games†. Fact & Opinion: It is a fact that the second paragraph points to the origins of the Cotswold games in the early 17th Century – thus anticipating â€Å"Baron de Coubertin’s Olympic revival by 284 years†. Allegedly, the Cotswold games were started as a Whitsun celebration in 1612 by Robert Dover. The games consisted of quirky rustic pursuits like cock-fighting, coursing and shin-kicking! See more:  Capital budgeting essay These two-day games ran annually for â€Å"250 years† before they were abandoned â€Å"owing to the disorderly mobs which used to attend. The Cotswold games were revived in â€Å"1951 for the Festival of Britain† and continue to this day. The Cotswold Olimpicks are staged at Dover’s Hill in the parish of Weston Sub Edge – close to Chipping Campden. Dover’s Hill is described as a natural amphitheatre. Analysing words and phrases: The writer makes deliberate use of the phrase â€Å"on tenterhooks† to evoke the anxiety of the London bid team, headed by Lord Sebastian Coe – suggesting the term actually originated in the same Cotswold area. The idiom â€Å"on tenterhooks† is thus taken to mean anxious, uneasy – like the fabric stretched taut. Presumably, the reader is supposed to contrast the rustic, charming simplicity and eccentricity of the Cotswold games with the immensely slick corporate Olympic bidding venture. The description of the shin-kicking competition is described as taking place on the first Friday after Whitsuntide – where a participant wearing hobnailed boots kicks the straw-padded shins of his opposition – in a demonstration sport. The writer makes a final contrast in the final paragraph – suggesting hat â€Å"unlike the modern international Games† the Cotswold Olimpicks have never been subject to bribery and corruption. This possibly hints at the Daily Mail’s editorial stance; which was then sniffily agnostic towards the London bid on the grounds that the choice of host city was believed to be a corrupt, nepotistic and hugely expensive process. Nevertheless, the writer then concludes with a humorous aside that a farmer once had to be bribed with a bottle of whisky to remove his sheep from the Cotswold arena! Overall, this feature article shows an affectionate longing for the quirky, amateuristic eccentricity of English rural life and gently contrasts it with the glossy, expensive corporate bidding that comprises the modern Olympic bidding process. The language is largely complex, anachronistic and sprinkled with archaic terms and historical reference. The writer assumes a fair degree of prior knowledge – of Pierre de Coubertin, King James’ puritanical instincts etc. The sentences are flowery, long and elaborate – perhaps suggesting a Mail-like hankering for times past!