Observer-vations

A couple of items to comemnt on in today's Observer.

Firstly, they're reporting that 'Downing Street aides' have accused David Cameron of visiting Georgia for a 'photo opportunity'. It's also said that Gordon Brown was irritated by the trip.

Personally, I think Cameron should be commended. He's the only British politician who has actually shown any balls and gone to Tbilisi. Unlike the US, which sent very high-level support for democratic Georgia in the form of Secretary of State Condeleeza Rice, nobody from out government could be arsed to make an effort.

Moving on, there's an awful piece by someone called Carole Cadwalladr in which she accuses the BBC of hypocrisy in reporting the story of the little girl at the Olympics opening ceremony while at the same time having Gabby Logan present their Olympics coverage. She basically says that Logan was chosen for her looks and asks how that's any different to Yang Peiyi being substituted for a prettier looking girl in the ceremony.

There are two problems with this argument. Firstly and most fundamentally, Logan is only one of several presenters. There are others who are quite clearly not as attractive as Logan and indeed spend more time on camera, so why single out Logan as if she was the only presenter? Secondly, the only reason there was a story was because although Yang Peiyi was substituted, it was still her voice that was heard. The story was about deception. Were the replacement the actual singer, there wouldn't have been any story.

She then has the gall to claim that the substitution was an example of 'hyper-Westernization', as if to suggest the Chinese have somehow been corrupted by western notions of beauty after thousands of years of living in some kind of utopian society in which looks were unimportant. This is of course, utter nonsense. Looks have confered status since the dawn of man. It's not an insidious characteristic of western society, but an evolutionary mechanism - survival of the prettiest - and it's common to every society on earth.