Olympics 2008

I haven’t actually blogged at all about the Olympics this year. Obviously this isn’t due to the Bruton family not being glued to it night and day, just because the rest of the holiday has been so busy.

Every night all three of us have been watching the highlights at 7pm, despite Gabby Logan’s simpering presentation. And then every morning we’ve had Olympic Breakfast on and Radio 5 coverage throughout the day. As usual we’ve been watching practically everything. Except the Football and the Tennis – because they just shouldn’t be in there. Steve Backley said it best when he pointed out that a sport should only be in the Olympics if attaining an Olympic Gold Medal is the highest acolade in that sport. It obviously isn’t the case with these two sports and they should be out.

The performances have been incredible. Obviously Michael Phelps and Usain Bolt were incredible. But so many others impressed as well, a great many of the part of The British Team (sorry, but Team GB is as stupid as using Medalled as a verb.)

It’s been a wonderful Olympics and it’s been amazing to actually have an Olympic team that we can be proud of. After the success of the Rowing, Cycling and Swimming teams it’s been almost a relief to see that the Athletics team hasn’t let the side down, because going into this second week Louise and I were convinced we might come out of it with just one Track & Field medal from Phillips Idowu. But that hasn’t happened. At the time of writing, we’re 7th in the Athletics medal table with 1 medal of each colour. This put’s us 3rd in the medals table, (as long as you present the results correctly that is)

I always thought a Gold medal meant more than a Bronze medal. Not in America it seems.

Caught this via a comment on Radio 5 and then the Guardian blog. It seems the American media have decided to play around with the established way of presenting the medal table at the Olympics. Compare & Contrast time:

Figure 1: The BBC Medal table:

Figure 2: The medal table from NBC Sports:

Notice the difference? (Aside from a slight difference in numbers due to screen grabs at different times that is)

The USA appear to be on top on the NBC medals table, yet they’ve only got 26 gold medals ads opposed to China’s 45. It seems the US media have decided that a Bronze is equal to a Silver or a Gold medal and are working out the medals table by total medals won, which puts the US in front with 80, compared to China’s 79.

It’s just silly and childish frankly.

Jamie Hewlett in the Guardian – Tank Girls, Monkeys & the Olympics

There’s an article by Mark Kermode in the Guardian on Jamie Hewlett, most famous for being part of the Gorilaz, but shall always be the artist on Tank Girl for me.

He’s been a busy boy recently, working with Damon Albarn again to put on an opera based on Monkey entitled Monkey: Journey to the West. And the BBC will be using his Monkey visuals extensively this summer for their Olympic coverage.

‘This is going to be the summer of Monkey!’ declares Jamie Hewlett, smoking a roll-up and cradling what appears to be a freshly picked leaf in a cup of hot water (‘sage tea’, apparently). In the West London headquarters of his design and animation company, Zombie Flesh Eaters (he fell in love with walking corpses after watching the films of George Romero and Lucio Fulci), Hewlett oozes a mischievous cool. In the Eighties he became a cult star after creating the ass-kicking comic strip Tank Girl and went mainstream more recently with the success of his satirical ‘anti-band’ Gorillaz, for which he won the Design Museum’s Designer of the Year Award in 2006. For my money, he is the definitive face of post-punk British pop culture – edgy, angular and out there.

(via Down The Tubes)

And so it begins – Olympics 2008 drugs cheat # 1 & # 2…..

This summer’s Olympics are hotly anticipated here at Bruton mansions. But both Louise and I are convinced that it will be the year of the drug’s cheat.
They may catch some, but they haven’t got a chance of catching them all. The sad thing is that every medal winner will be tainted with the uncertainty: Did they do it clean or not?

And it’s started already. China bans a swimmer and Bulgaria withdraws it’s entire weightlifting team.

China and Tibet …..

Michael Rodrigez wins Editorial Cartoon Pulitzer.
(via)