Okay losers, time to muscle up, Janet Albrechtsen's in front of the telly ...

Now you might think the pond should start off with this graphic because it's relevant to the text below.

There's gold, gold, gold for Australia, and there's Janet "Dame Slap" Albrechtsen tucked up in the corner brooding about being a winner.

But hey, this week, thanks to Gina Rinehart and the Ten network, for the pond it's been ape week, concluding with Ape Lincoln, in what collectively is surely the most stunning collection of sequel losers the world has ever seen.

And curiously those ape movies - what else could you put up against the Olympics? - brings us back to the text of the day, which concerns losers in sport rather than losers in television, and the way the pond loves mixed signals, the more mixed the better.

Janet "Dame Slap" Albrechtsen is a dab hand at mixed signals, as she proves yet again in No, Olympic silver is not the new gold. (paywall affected)

Sadly this involves the pond contemplating the Olympics and sport. Never mind, it's almost over, so we're up for the game, just for the sheer pleasure of participating.

Participation? Get yourself fit? Shed obesity?

How many times has the pond heard the line that it's not the winning that matters, it's playing the game.

There's a breathless hush in the Close to-night—

Ten to make and the match to win—
A bumping pitch and a blinding light,
An hour to play and the last man in.
And it's not for the sake of a ribboned coat,
Or the selfish hope of a season's fame,
But his captain's hand on his shoulder smote—
"Play up! play up! and play the game!" (the rest here at the poem's wiki)

Say what about the ribboned coat? A season's fame? Soap please!

Ablbrechtsen takes for her text a line from Rudyard Kipling and dealing with winning and losing with equal grace - ah the perfidious winning British, still providing all the lines - but she really isn't into graceful losing.

Poor old Mitchell Watt immediately pops up, reproaching the media for marking down his silver medal, and Dame Slap's not having any of it:

He told us to "wake up", stop the negative reports and celebrate all the medals, the gold medal won by our girls in the 4x100 freestyle relay and the growing list of silver and bronze. He's right. And he's wrong too. Winning and losing is a complicated, highly personal affair. Athletes themselves don't always celebrate a silver medal in the way Watt has done.

Yes, he's absolutely wrong, what would he know? Snort, he's a silver medal loser.

And as for that dropkick who said he'd enjoyed himself and he'd raced his heart out and he was pleased as punch to come eighth in such stellar competition!! Somebody had to finish last, and it just so happened it was him, but at least he'd made the finals, unlike a lot of other athletes ...

I mean, come on Aussie loser, come on.

Albrechtsen then proceeds to produce some real gold medal zingers, right up there with Leni Riefensthal's Olympia:

Let our young sportsmen and women express their emotions in all their raw natural beauty.

Translation: Susie O'Neill was right to pour scorn over a useless bunch of minor medal-winning, dropkick, bone lazy, lacking in work ethic, losers.

That said, let us pay credit where it is due. Lack of gold notwithstanding, let us marvel at the myriad human reactions to triumph and defeat.

Translation: take that drop-kick Magnussen. Sure he trained hard but he lost. He went to win gold and he came back with silver, so we know he's a loser.

After all:

Unlike any other sport in the Olympic Games, there is an Australian obsession with winning gold medals in the pool. We are, after all, so used to winning them. That partly explains why the expectations of Australians for our swimmers are so extraordinarily high. It explains the tears and the despondency when our swimmers lose. And there is, of course, a direct correlation between the level of despondency and the length of time between opportunities for glory. In this case, four long years of more training and more sacrifices will pass until there is a chance to win gold.

Never mind next year's world championships where you can be pronounced the fastest or the strongest or the highest. They're not run on nation state lines for the glory of all Australians.

And don't bother to come home in four years time if all you're bringing is silver or bronze, or even worse. We've got enough cutlery, and we certainly don't need any more bronze taps.

Sport, opines Dame Slap, is an enduring puzzle:

Remembering second place is the exception, not the rule in sport. Yet every four years at the Olympics, we hand out gold, silver and bronze medals. Why do we celebrate second and third in some arenas and not in others? And why, if we do hand out medals for second and third place, do we assume that the winners of those medals ought to show grace in what is, after all, a defeat. Silver is not the new gold. Not even for a nation now struggling in the gold medal count after a proud history of success.

Why do we sugarcoat and butter up the losers with a medal? It's outrageous. It just hides the fact that they're losers, they came second, they should go away and hide somewhere.

So why have we struggled to reach this far with Dame Slap's soliloquy? Well it makes the pond a winner, gold, gold, gold for the pond for reaching the end of another Janet Albrechtsen column.

But there are other, more important, benefits than an over-sized gold trinket for the pond.

For starters there are important messages embedded here for your children. The next time they come home from school bearing some rubber stamp from the teacher, remind them firmly that a silver koala isn't the same as a gold one.

Point out in a kindly but stern way - without shouting - that the child is a loser and a drop-kick. He or she has lost, been defeated, come second, might just as well have come last for all it meant. Go shed rivers of tears in a quiet corner, then get out and start training properly for John Coates and Kevin Gosper.

If the child attempts to explain that they've enjoyed the participation, or somehow taken pleasure from the activity, remind them that this is the attitude of a loser. They have been defeated, and remorse or tears are acceptable signs of being a graceful drop-kick loser.

A line like "I tried so hard for ya momsy and for the country, I did, I did, but I lost, I'm a loser baby so why don't you kill me" is perfectly enlightened and appropriate, especially if accompanied by tears, mutilation and self-harm.

This way the child can be led to understand silver isn't the new gold, tinfoil isn't tin, and it's no good talking about how they'd been competing against the best in the school and tried their guts out. Trying simply isn't good enough. They might reply, try:Tri-Tri-anti-wonti-Triantiwontigongolope (having read the C. J. Dennis poem here) but don't be fooled by the devious little buggers.

Some children are born sophists - that's why they're losers - and so some might ask "daddy, what did you do in the war?" or "mommy, how many gold medals do you have?" or even worse, "daddy how many gold medals, or silver or bronze does Janet Albrechtsen have?" and it's important to give them a cuff over the head and send them on their way at this point.

Do not allow them to pass Go, but demand they go directly to our new lavishly funded internment camp, run by John and Kevin, designed to produce a new flowering of gold medals, with losers banished to Tasmania.

Now your average over-clever child might say "but isn't it the case in any sport that many might be called but few are chosen, because it's a kind of Ponzi scheme and 99.9% can't win gold, the tip of the pyramid, and isn't being an integral part of the pyramid just as good and useful, especially if you enjoy what you're doing", at which point you'll realise you have a right drop kick loser for a child.

The ultimate aim here is to have your child scarred and branded for life as a loser.

This is a noble aim for the individual. But please remember that this isn't just about the individual, it's about national identity and nations competing and the triumph of the nation state, and its international standing, and its ability to fight in wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and at Gallipoli und blut und boden und heimat und lebensraum und mein fuehrer I can walk and win the walking gold at the Olympics.

Sorry don't know where all that came from, must be the mix of German and Irish genes, and coming from a long line of losers.

Anyhoo, if you maintain this regime long enough, with a bit of luck, your child will grow up to be as screwed up as Janet Albrechtsen, and all the other commentariat currently salivating about gold medals.

Happily this attitude will also make you the life and soul of the party.

If you happen to chance on a stray Olympian who's returned with a silver or a bronze, lightly and wittily note "Oh so you're another loser then, a bit like Greg Norman, only didn't he walk home with a pile of cash after finishing second in a couple of majors, because they might not hand out medals or jackets to second place, but they sure ease the pain of coming second in golf with a splash of moola".

Or perhaps you might just eye them sympathetically and say "guess there's nothing left for you but to start selling useless multi-vitamins, or perhaps devices presented not just by Dawn Fraser but by people close to the company providing testimonials" (See Multvitamins, and Circulation device ad features testimonials from close to home).

Yes, yes, Janet Albrechtsen completely misunderstands the game of professional golf as well as the importance of the Olympics as a way to flog completely useless stuff to losers ...

But what to you expect? There she is, sitting in a comfortable armchair watching the television and correctly branding participants in sport as dropkick losers is an Australian Olympic event.

And it's gold, gold, gold to Janet Albrechtsen, sitting in her armchair, watching and pontificating, for no apparent purpose.

And it's gold to the pond for reading her, and gold to you for reading this, and not a bit of silver or bronze in sight.

And while we're at it, please don't go away empty-handed. Take this wonderful hand-crafted mug for losers with you:

It'll help you understand why in the world of the commentariat there's only me, me, me, which is to say Numero Uno, and no seconds please.

Now why not sing along with a scientologist?