For instance, I would have liked a closer look at the Olympic cauldron that took off every night under the helium balloon. It was designed to symbolise the Olympic flame, according to The Boss — and remind the world that the French first piloted a hot air balloon in 1783.
This was six years before the French Revolution, where they perfected the use of the guillotine. That got a run at the opening ceremony too, with a bloodied, headless body resembling the French queen Marie Antoinette, carrying her own head around. It’s bold of the French to salute their curious affectations, all the while serving up sautéed snails.
But look, who else would get the thing started by taking over an entire river, other than a dog-friendly people like the French? The Boss told me that the French take their dogs into shops, hotels and restaurants without anyone batting an eyelid. He was in a Paris butcher’s shop a few years ago, where the butchers were tossing their off-cuts over the heads of the customers to a line of dogs sitting patiently against the back wall.
Mind you, the River Seine looks about as inviting as the Yarra at Flinders St and a dog would need a reason to go in. They were trying to clean the Seine up in time for the longer swims and it was touch-and-go.
Fortunately, our Dolphins had the new aquatic centre to swim in — about the only new facility the French built for the games — and they took advantage of it. They collected 18 medals in eight days, seven of them gold, and I was whimpering loudly as Ariarne Titmus cleaned up the 400m swim — if I could do goosebumps, I would have then.
Which brings me to my chief disappointment. The Dolphins were treated to a cruise on a luxury barge along the Seine by our best-known mining magnate — short of Clive Palmer — Gina Rinehart, who sponsors a lot of sport, and it’s the sort of gig a prominent hound like me would normally be invited to. They were fed by the Michelin-starred French chef Alain Ducasse — something I would have appreciated more than most of the guests, who mainly eat lentils and tofu.
The other disappointment, which you may consider trifling but it needs to be pointed out, is that Snoop Dogg, who was showing up everywhere like the torch-bearing runner-in-a-hoody at the opening, turns out to not be a dog at all.
Snoop Dogg is an American rapper in no manner resembling a dog except for his name, which isn’t his name anyway. He is Calvin Cordozar Broadus Jr, (previously Snoop Doggy Dogg and briefly Snoop Lion) and I will forthwith call him Calvin, out of sympathy with his parents, because he can’t even spell dog.
It’s a hint we might see him in Los Angeles in 2028, but Calvin is getting on a bit and Brisbane should be able to find a proper dog by 2032. While Paris had the Seine, the Eiffel Tower, Arc de Triomphe, Place de la Concorde, Château de Versailles and Les Invalides, Brisbane has the Story Bridge, the Wheel of Brisbane and Lone Pine Koala Sanctuary, not to mention plenty of real dogs.
The Place de la Concorde was where, during the revolution, King Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette had their heads chopped off. Later the French erected the 3300-year-old Luxor obelisk, from Egypt, in the centre, to symbolise peace and reconciliation.
The Boss, who remembers the Pacific nuclear tests and the sinking of the Rainbow Warrior, says the French are still working on reconciling a colourful past — but last week, Arisa Trew, our youngest ever Olympic gold medallist, took out the skateboarding final aged just 14, right in front of the obelisk. Of many fine moments in Paris, Arisa’s joy at this was one to remember. Woof!
