RACE TO THE BOTTOM : Exciting news for fans of iconic Great British sporting contests today with the announcement that the 2024 Oxford Cambridge boat race, aka The Boat Race, will still go ahead, in spite of The Thames now being a heaving pit of sewage swill that would make a Victorian blush.
There had been concerns that the race would be postponed until sometime after the Tories leave office, mostly because of the guarantee of numerous future Prime Ministers catching E. coli poisoning if any of the Oxbridge competitors actually came into physical contact with The Thames. But sanity has prevailed.
“The UK is a world leader in communication technology,” a spokesman claiming to talk for the organisers told LCD Views, “ever since the invention of the first punt we’ve shown the world how to accelerate the transfer of vital information. Post-Brexit Britain is continuing in that vein.”
It seems Zoom will take part in The Boat Race for the first time, at the insistence of 10 Downing Street.
“No one wants to give the wokerati remoaning contingent the pleasure of cancelling such a famous British tradition just because the post-Brexit freedom to choose how much raw shit we fill our waterways with has led to it being an epic and life threatening amount of shit,” the spokesman continued. “So we’ve decided to have both teams take their canoes home and row in their living rooms. The competitors will be able to see each other over a Zoom call link. That way the healthy spirit of competition will be alive and swimming. A judging panel will decide whether Oxford or Cambridge mimes rowing the hardest and the winner chosen accordingly.”
For the first time too the event will have corporate sponsorship with Thames Water understood to be providing the funding for the Zoom call.
“It’s our way of giving something back to the community in exchange for all the billions we’ve siphoned off in dividends,” Thames Water said, “well, apart from gastrointestinal complaints and dead fish.”