Notes From Nat - The Olympics Souvenir Edition

Dear British Media

Please can we see a lot more of these types of celebrities.....

Jessica Ennis - gold medallist for the heptathlon 

Mo Farah - gold medallist for the 10,000m

GB's gold men's coxless four -  Pete Reed, Andrew Triggs Hodge, Tom James and Alex Gregory

Victoria Pendleton (gold and silver medallist for GB) and Anna Meares (gold medallist for Australia) 

South African Oscar Pistorius - double amputee - made Olympic history by racing in the 400m

Sarah Attar finished last in her 800m heat, but the fact that she was there at all is a huge victory - she is the first female track and field athlete to represent Saudi Arabia at the Olympics and received a standing ovation as she crossed the finish line

Nicola Adams - the first woman to ever win a gold medal for boxing

...and a whole lot less of the vacuous, I'm-just-famous-coz-I-got-my-boobs-out-on-TV, Big Brother contestants - so that the next generation grow up with more positive role models?

And another thing.... I hope these Olympic Games have shown you that Britain is pretty damn great at all kinds of sports! So can we please get a lot less coverage of the appalling antics (on and off pitch) of egotistical, way overpaid Premier League footballers, and far more coverage of all the lesser known sports?

Let's carry forward the stirring  "Inspire A Generation" motto of London 2012!

A good time has been had by all

...............

Dear Athletes of the Olympics Games

OK, it's official.... these are actually The Crying Games! Don't get me wrong, I can quite understand it's a very emotional thing... standing up there with that piece of hard-earned bling around your neck, your national anthem playing, your heart swells with pride... and you're reduced to a blubbering mass of tears! The problem is, I can't stop crying either.... it's reflex action, just like yawning!

Damn I wish I'd invested in Kleenex shares....

South Africa's Chad Le Clos clinched the 200m butterfly from his personal hero, Michael Phelps

Sir Chris Hoy - GB's most successful Olympian ever

Felix Sanchez (Dominican Republic) - gold medallist for the 400m hurdles

Katherine Grainger and Anna Watkins after winning the women's double scull

What the Olympics are all about

Photos obviously not my own!

The Best of British

A big bell, William Blake, Brunel (played by Branagh), Burners-Lee, Bond, Mr Bean, The Beatles, Bohemian Rhapsody, bouncing beds, balloons, bicycles, Becks and "Betty" .... bloody brilliant Boyle, but perhaps just a bit bizarre and baffling to much of the world's audience. Just what was Slumdog Millionaire's director, Danny Boyle, trying to portray with his 'Isles of Wonder' Olympic opening ceremony? 

If you missed the point, read more about it here and here.

For me, the very best bits of an inspired event were....

The impressive industrial scene, slightly reminiscent of Tolkien's 'Mordor', during which the Olympic rings were "cast", then rose up to merge into the Olympic logo. Spectacular!

Then bumbling Mr Bean on the keyboard with the London Symphony Orchestra....

.... high jacking the great "Chariots of Fire"!

Not forgetting the Queen's cameo role, being stirred but not shaken by Bond... James Bond.... before she "parachuted"  into the Olympic stadium......

And that grin on Beck's face from the back of the speedboat, ferrying the Olympic Torch on its final leg of the 70-day tour of the British Isles....

...before the lighting of that magnificent cauldron by aspiring young athletes - the next generation of Olympians, nominated by previous generations of Olympians .... 

Read more about "Betty" (code name for the cauldron) over here

Other nice touches were acknowledging the Suffragette Movement - this being the first Olympics in which every participating country includes women in its team; paying tribute to the nurses of the National Health Service, and the wonderful work of Great Ormond Street Children's Hospital, and a pause to remember the casualties of both World Wars and the victims of the July 2005 London bombings.

I found the whirlwind tour of Britain's pop culture a bit disjointed and chaotic, and I was not too struck by the illustration of the social networking evolution (Girl meets Boy via Facebook), on the back of the tribute to the British inventor of the World Wide Web, Tim Berners-Lee.

Of course, with 204 countries taking part, the athletes passing out parade was always going to take a while. I passed the time playing the "Been there! Been there! Going there! Born there! Lived there! Didn't know that was even a country!" game until Team GB finally made their appearance in... er... rather Elvis jumpsuitesque outfits!

I do wonder what Her Majesty made of it all....

Photos obviously not my own

Did you watch the Opening Ceremony? If so, what did you think?

The Olympic Torch Comes To Town!

Lit in Greece, the Olympic Flame arrived in the UK on 18 May 2012 before setting out the next day on a 70-day Olympic Torch Relay. 


The Olympic Flame stands for peace, unity and friendship and is making its way through more than 1,000 cities, towns and villages in the UK, carried by a total of 8,000 Torchbearers.


Today it passed very close to where I live....

 12 year old Freddie Wright