Sochi 2014 Advertises On London Buses
I caught this advert for the Winter Olympics in 2014 at Sochi on a 56 bus.
Sochi 2014 Advertises On London Buses
No offence to the Russians and I did enjoy a day trip to Moscow once, but I won’t be going.
Skiing is just not my scene, except on the television.
The ExCel Blows Hot And Cold
I went to the ExCel yesterday afternoon, to watch the table-tennis.
The sport was fine, but that could not be said for the venue. I was nearly passing out from the heat and left early. I then had to walk the full length of the venue and then back on the outside to get to the cable-car, as I didn’t want to be in the crush on the DLR. Although in the end, I didn’t use the cable-car and took the DLR to Bank, as it wasn’t as crowded as after the boxing. I did meet a guy who’d been in the fencing and he said that was freezing. So it looks like the ExCel should look at its heating and cooling system. A Royal Engineer also told me, he’d felt it was hot in the Excel and he’d just come back from Afghanistan.
Cornwall Wins More Gold Medals Than Australia
The Aussie press is having a go at their athletes for failing to turn silver into gold, but what has happened to Australian sport? When I was growing up, Wimbledon was almost a suburb of Sydney or Brisbane, with win after win by a never-ending stream of players. Then more recently, the cricketers were invincible. So why has this happened?
I’ve just done a bit of research on London’s Olympic medallists and have found that one of the UK’s least populous counties, Cornwall, has won two gold medals; Helen Glover and Ben Ainslie, to Australia’s one.
Perhaps our athletes are doing better as they get a post box painted gold in their honour, in their home town. It costs us nothing, as we get bankers to do as a tax allowable expense.
And if that wasn’t enough shame, Wales, Scotland and Yorkshire have also got more gold medals than Australia. My adopted county, Suffolk may not get a gold medal. But here’s hoping!
We Can’t Win Everything!
I did try to get to the womens football on Friday in Coventry, but there no tickets available. As they lost to Canada, I wasn’t that bothered, especially, as like many men, I’ll look upon the women’s side of the game in a different light.
I did go to Cardiff yesterday to see the men lose on penalties to South Korea.
I’m sure the system of deciding matches on penalties, was brought in by sneaky foreigners to make sure we never win anything.
Boxing At The ExCel Arena
On Friday, I went to the ExCel Arena to see some boxing.
It was the first time, I’d seen amateur boxing, or in fact any type of boxing live. One vivid memory at about the age of about eight was seeing the UK, whitewash the United States, ten-nil on the television one evening. In that match, Billy Walker knocked-out the giant Cornelius Perry with one punch. The story is in Billy’s Wikipedia entry.
The last few pictures show Freddie Evans progressing to the last eight.
Are The Ghosts Of Long-Dead Steam Engines Powering Great Britain On?
As a ten-year-old or so, I used to bunk the engine sheds in East London to collect the numbers of the steam engines stabled there at the motive power depot. It was a massive place, as the number of engines needed to power services into East Anglia and Essex was very large. Many were being scrapped, as electrification of the suburban lines out of Liverpool Street continued.
Much of the site was cleared for HS1, the link to the Channel Tunnel from St. Pancras, but much of the area ended up a derelict site, supporting large numbers of businesses.
But it was here in Stratford, that the Olympic site was created.
So are the ghosts of those long-dead steam engines powering Great Britain on?
C Swam In The Serpentine
I’ve said before that my late wife, C, was a manic swimmer. One summer when we lived in St. John’s Wood, we went to the Serpentine to swim. Or in my case, just stand and sit around.
Now, there’s swimming the triathlon in the same lake, over forty years later.
Why Are Our Women Athletes Good At Heptathlon?
I’m just watching the start of the Olympic women’s heptathlon and we had three in the field.
I do mind it strange that we do so well in this event, especially when it is compared to our performances in other athletic events.
It would be easy to blame Dame Mary Peters for her inspiring performance in Munich in the pentathlon. Did she inspire the previous generation, who are now the coaches and parents? But over the last few years, the good performers have just kept coming.
The Public Olympics
Because it’s in the UK, we are seeing much more about the home life of British athletes. And often their mothers.
The Games Of The British Underdogs
This is becoming very much a games where some of the British medals have been won by athletes who were not fancied and have had tremendous difficulty getting to the Games at all.
Outstanding is probably Gemma Gibbons in the judo, who won an unexpected silver after the death of her mother to leukaemia a few years ago, then had a difficult draw.
I know they haven’t won a medal, but at least they’ve won a match for the first time. But the trials and tribulations of the Volleyball team have been enormous, as detailed in The Sun, in the paper’s inimitable manner.
Remember what Mark Twain said, “It’s not the size of the dog, but the size of the fight in the dog”
The Anonymous Widower 