Olympic Free Zone

With the exception of this post this blog is an Olympic Free Zone, even if it is subject to terrorist attacks, typhoons, plagues of locusts or incredibly amusing tales they will not be mentioned here.

Wish I could say the same about the rest of the media here, the BBC are planning wall to wall coverage on their 2 terrestrial channels and talk radio station plus their web site. Interestingly their team out there will be 100 larger than our “athletes”, which attracted many derisory comments when it was revealed.

The other channels will have some coverage in their news bulletins and no doubt will send some anchors out there to cover the games and news stories around them. I cannot see the point behind this (apart from giving the anchors a free holiday in one of the pollution capitals of the world), but they will all be at it. Print media – same sort of story but at least you can elect not to buy them for 16 days.

Am not sure when my disillusionment about this event first started to set in but lets say that it came to fruition with Ben Johnson in '88 and little has occurred since then to make me change my mind. It is sad that clean “athletes” are tainted by the actions of others but the reality is that the drug cheats are always one test ahead of the game.

Rant over, normal posting will resume.

You Could Not Make This Up

A family with five children flying from Tel Aviv to Paris manage to leave their 4 year old daughter in the duty free shop and only become aware of this when they are informed by the captain of the aircraft (20 mins into the flight according to the policeman I heard on the radio). Their “excuse” of sitting separately might mitigate their actions for some but I say WTF, they must have been sitting together in the departure lounge! Read it all here.

Australians display good taste and demolish national stereotypes by rejecting the the Starbucks marketing machine.

As if things were not bad enough out there, now we have a “celebrity” chef trying to poison us all.

The headline for this story is Germany Hails 'bullet-proof bra', a more accurate one would have been “bullet friendly” bra.

Changing Landscapes

Driving back from Dorset last weekend we noticed that the fields on either side of the road were a golden brown colour probably due to their being planted with wheat. For the last few years at this time they have been mainly an ugly yellow colour as the farmers were growing oilseed rape, we both agreed that this more traditional colour looked much better.

Rather like the famous butterfly effect last years steep rise in the price of wheat has had a dramatic effect on the appearance of this part of England. While some people might accuse the farmers of jumping on a money spinning bandwagon I am aware that their costs have risen just as dramatically – the price of fertiliser has doubled in the last year.

Farming is a very hard way to earn a living as not many urban dwellers understand, the hours are long and the conditions can be harsh – all that is now compounded by criminals raiding their farms for diesel or metal to be sold for scrap.

Here is one of my favourite numbers from the farmer's friend Neil Young

Beer 115 – Wychwood Goldwing English Blonde

Another one from this small brewery, this is specially brewed for the Sainsburys supermarket chain using Styrian Goldings hops which give it a citrus aroma and slight taste. A very refreshing taste just perfect for a fine summer's evening, a respectable 5.5% abv it is just a shame that it is not available in more outlets. Far superior to their Wychcraft Blonde which is both weaker in strength and not nearly as pleasant on the palate.

Dan Le Sac vs Scroobius Pip

Heard young Scroobius being interviewed on the radio this week, some might label him a performance poet but he prefers to describe himself as a spoken word artist. Whatever, his words are well worth a listen and if I get the opportunity I will go and see them perform live.

Here is their latest single (which uses a sample of a Radiohead song), Letter From God To Man and comes with the following disclaimer:

"This poem isn't actually about religion. It is kind of irrelevant to the piece whether or not you believe in God or a God or anything like that. That's not the point......"




Last year's single Thou Shalt Always Kill is another fine track (this one is the Fatboy Slim remix). Just for a laugh here is them doing a X-Factor spoof.

If you want to check out tour dates then visit their MySpace page.

Rays Of Hope

Alzheimer's is one of the most debilitating diseases that anyone can suffer, while the effects in the early stages are mild the progression to the middle stage is heartbreaking to observe. This can occur within a a period of a few years or take much longer, short term memory degrades such that a conversation from 5 mins previously is not remembered.

There is now some hope for those in early stage, a very small clinical trial (321 patients) has revealed that after 19 months no further loss of mental abilities was seen. It will take at least 4 years and more trials before the drug becomes commercially available but at least now there can be reasons to be hopeful.

There are two amazing things about this story, the first being that the original effect of the drug on the protein believed to be responsible for the disease was observed as the result of a laboratory accident. The second is that the drug already exists and so should not attract a premium price, there may be undesirable side affects but if the results of further trails are similar those will be acceptable.

Kate Bush

Happy 50th birthday Kate!

Gives me an excuse to give this an airing

Dorset

Was down in Dorset visiting friends for the weekend and the weather was unusually warm and pleasant, our host is the captain of the second XI village cricket team and they were playing at home. He had to provide the sandwiches for the tea so we were treated to the sight of 4 loaves being transformed into 4 large piles of sandwiches.

We went along to the game for five hours to watch the “action” and were amazed at the age range of the players (from 13 to guys in their fifties), the game was played at a lovely small ground with your typical church spire visible in the background.



Some “spectators” leaving the scene early.



Ball in flight action.



The game ended in a losing draw, do not ask what that means as it would take me far too long to explain the scoring system. Thanks to D for these great photos.

News Roundup

What amazed me about this story was not that the judge decided that the name of the girl “Talula Does The Hula From Hawaii “ was inappropriate but that someone else had allowed the name “Number 16 Bus Shelter” to be given to some poor kid.

As one of the Discworld witches once said “I think that there should be some test for parents, in addition to the practical test”.

This must have been a very scary experience, a loud bang, loss of cabin pressure at 35,000 feet followed by a controlled descent to 10,000 – according to the passenger I heard interviewed this morning on the radio.

I made this same flight 25 years ago without any incident apart from a delay on the ground at Hong Kong while a part was swapped out on the flight deck. The pilot told us what was happening and then informed us that the doors would be closing to allow any smokers to light up and that free drinks would be served for the duration – best ground delay I have ever experienced.

Serenity/Firefly Quiz

Not sure that I have posted before about how much I enjoyed the series Firefly (created by Joss Whedon), cruelly cancelled by the network after only 14 episodes had been made. It had some fine characters and excellent story lines going on and deserved a much longer run than a lot of the stuff on TV. The only consolation was that a film was later made (Serenity) which did wrap up the story arc pretty well.

So here is another internet personality test, as ever I remain unconvinced that this thing is working properly given the result but here is how I scored.

Your results:

You are Malcolm Reynolds (Captain)

Honest and a defender of the innocent. You sometimes make mistakes in judgement but you are generally good and would protect your crew from harm.




Click here to take the Serenity Firefly Personality Test