Sunday, April 06, 2008 :
Olympic torch
Whoever choreographed today’s procession of the torch in honour of the Beijing 2008 Olympics (which went past the end of my street) is a genius. I thought that running the torch across London in front of jeering crowds, in a blizzard, at the centre of a phalanx of implacable security who occasionally peeled off to beat someone to the ground and arrest them or to tear down a flag or placard captured the appropriate spirit brilliantly.
Update 7/4/08: London mayoral candidate Brian Paddick (LibDem) has stated today that “these events reflect badly on London”. He is absolutely right. Our protesters had over 31 miles of procession to seize or extinguish that torch but frankly the most likely candidate for putting it out was the weather. Despite having only 18 miles in which to work and being up against terrifying CRS riot police, the French managed to get the thing doused four times before the authorities gave up and cancelled the whole Olympic flame relay and ceremony over there. If protesting were an Olympic event, the French would kick our ass.
Tuesday, June 05, 2007 :
2012
Is it just me, or does the recently launched 2012 Olympics logo on this page look kind of rude; specifically, like lots of copulating couples. No doubt I have just returned a positive Rorschach inkblot result for sexual dysfunction or psychosis of some kind.
Monday, February 05, 2007 :
Skiing
Just got back from a long weekend skiing in Chamonix with the boys from the office. First time I’ve tried skiing, rather than snowboarding. Took about a day to pick it up to the point where it started to be fun and by the end of day three I was having a great time with it, I suspect partly because snow conditions were better suited to skis. Of course there will be an element of “one day to learn, a lifetime to perfect”, but it’s nice to feel I’ve got the option in future. Hopefully, the laissez faire attitude to technique that I picked up from snowboarding will mean that I don’t have to get too tedious about proximity to texbook perfection at any given level and instead the plan is simply to continue to enjoy myself on either skis or board, depending upon conditions and/or inclination on any given day/trip.
Labels: diary, snowboarding, sport
Friday, January 05, 2007 :
Who is the strongest man in the world?
(‘My Dad’ aside, obviously).
World’s Strongest Man is ace. A January televisual institution that gets us through a dark time of the year.
However, watching this year I wondered what had happened to some of the athletes. For a few years, it always seemed to be Pudzianowski of Poland, Zydrunas Savickas of Lithuania and Vasil Virastyuk of the Ukraine who were battling for podium places. Pudzianowski and Virastyuk got the victories but Savickas was perhaps the most consistent with three second places in consecutive years, two to Pudzianowski and one to Virastyuk (with Pudzianowski in third until he was disqualified for failing a drug test).
Pudzianowski’s still around but where are the other two? A quick bit of internet research reveals that, like with the darts, strongman has split into two rival federations: the Met–Rx event and the rival IFSA (International Federation of Strength Athletes).
The parallel with the darts perhaps goes deeper. While one federation gets all the TV coverage (the Met–Rx), arguably the world’s best are to be found in the other federation. Many say that Savickas, currently IFSA World Champion, is in fact the strongest man in the world at the moment, as he holds several records for overhead lifts and has won the Arnold Classic Strongman competition for the last four years, finishing ahead of Pudzianowski.
Unify strongman, I say, and let’s see who really is the strongest man in the world!
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