Last week's fire at the Stratford Olympic site was apparently caused by a gas torch (which is not a gas version of an electric torch as we initially thought, but some type of cutting tool which sends out sparks), which lit a pile of insulation material on fire.
Hold on there a second. Seriously? A torch?
Because, of course, one of the most easily recognisable symbols of the Olympics is the Olympic Flame, which is carried from Athens by torch for months prior to the opening of any Olympic Games and then kept burning throughout the Games. So when we heard about the fire at the Olympic site, our first thought was, after making sure no one was hurt, "wow, they'd better keep a better eye on that torch" and then we laughed and were pleased with our cleverness. Because that's just the sense of humour that we have – obvious and mildly amusing.
And, although it's not technically an Olympic torch that caused the fire, we can't help but be amazed that the most obvious joke about this fire turned out to be pretty much true. It really does sound like a bad stand-up routine, doesn't it? You can't make this stuff up!
Olympic torch image courtesy of Cuppojoe's Flickr photostream
