Fame At Last!

I've been spotted in - or at least fairly adjacent to - Hollywood!

Looks like I sold out to get there, though.

Huge thanks to the handsome and talented John Sandel (hubby of our very own Petrea), for spotting this and sending me the photo.

Predictably …

Dammit! The Guardian has sold out to The Man! They've started putting dumb fucking adverts at the start of their "Olympics: Brick by Brick" videos.

Still, it's fun to watch Usain Bolt do what he does best … in Lego.

Look! It's Me! I'm On the Beach!

So … seven minutes of terror (actually about half an hour of sitting in my boxers, sipping orange juice and watching a bunch of people wearing blue shirts and sitting down) and then …
A bunch of people wearing blue shirts doing very bad calisthenics and shouting.

Curiosity has landed on Mars.
NASA's madcap rocket-powered crane has done its job and buggered off to crash somewhere.
And the rover is okay.

What did it do first?
Well it's part of the Facebook generation, so it did what any drunk holidaymaker would do and took photos of itself and sent them to its friends.
Then it Tweeted.

Geeks have reached the Red Planet. Martians beware.

The One Where I Praise An American Athlete

Yup, it's Rupp.

Here's how the US press saw it.

Sure: Jess Ennis is Britain's Golden Girl and let's not take anything away from her astonishing achievement, but for me it was Mo in the 10,000metres that I was waiting for.

I've been a fan of Mo Farah for years, frustratingly watching him get bullied and shoved and blocked and repeatedly edged out in the last lap by the tactics of the Ethiopian team. He's the best 10,000metres runner in the world but as his home Olympic race got under way last night the Ethiopians once again outnumbered and surrounded him and it looked like being another case of tactics beating talent.

But this time it was different. A figure in red was there like a protecting angel, countering every Ethiopian surge and bunch and riding shotgun for Mo.

A little while back, Mo disappeared from these shores and headed into the beautiful woods of Oregon. There he met local boy Galen Rupp and they hit it off as friends and training partners.
Last night I watched  (and shouted and pinballed off the walls) as the Anglo-American pair took on the three Ethiopians and beat every spoiling effort with sheer guts and talent.
The last lap meant I can hardly speak this morning.

So - and this is a shock to me as well as to my lovely Colonial friends - my moment of the games was watching the face of an all-American boy just after Mo crossed the finishing line. Close behind him, in second place, Oregon's own Galen Rupp crossed the line and shouted "MO!" He didn't shout "Yoo Ess Ay", he looked across at this friend and celebrated their achievement. The pair collapsed together, Mo flat on his back and Galen leaning over him, signing "one - two" with his fingers; his knees and shins spattered with blood from the spikes he'd taken for his efforts.

Yes, I know you're supposed to run, swim, throw, pedal, sail, paddle or whatever for your country, but Nationalism be damned. This was friendship, comradeship, international cooperation and it beats Nationalism hands down.

Three cheers for Mo Farah and Galen Rupp for showing us what the Olympic Spirit really should be.

Oh, and hoorah, too, for Joanna Rowsell, for leaving her wig at home and proudly taking gold as the poster girl for alopœcia sufferers worldwide. Brave and beautiful.

Saturday Statuary - Horse's Arse

Today's Saturday Statue comes to you from the home of the Olympics, where this guy is taking an inordinately long time to complete his dressage.

Happy weekend from someone camped out in front of the sport with a bottle of wine.

The Importance of a Hefty Plastic Breakfast

For my dear Colonial friends, here's Michael Phelps looking better than ever (check out that bod, girls), in the latest official footage from the Olympics (you won't get this on NBC).

Sane

More good news from the Guardian over breakfast this morning.

Not that I needed to find an excuse for heading back across the ditch to Paris, but it looks like those godawful rat runs of insane traffic racing along the quais and ruining everyone's enjoyment of the Seine …

… will soon be as quiet and idyllic as the beautiful walks around the Ile de la Cité. Woohoo!

A-Holes

Many thanks to those lovely folk at ecards for today's post.

As if anyone needed an excuse to avoid junk food, this obscene US chain recently went public with its inexplicable and disgusting homophobia.

Shitty junk food recovered "meat" product served with lashings of fat, salt and hate.

I'm proud I shop at Rainbow wholefoods in Norwich.

A Pervert Writes …

At last! A way to watch weemen's gymnastics without feeling creepy and dirty:

August?

Holy crap! It's August already. How on earth did that happen when we've only had three days without rain since February?

Whatever …
The news this morning tells me it's time to wave a fond farewell to Gore Vidal. Great author, great man. Smart, witty, controversial: always a good combination. America needs more like him.

And over here at the Olympics, it seems my efforts to train the Chinese badminton team have not been an unqualified success. Watching them and the Koreans both playing to lose has to be the most pathetic sight we've seen since Mitt Romney's ignominious departure.

And it's raining again.

Get a grip, August; you'll have to do better than that.

In the meantime, Cat and Girl have nailed the Olympics: