Cityshapes - Ghost Church

Cityshapes - Curvy

WTF Monday - Hat

Plus Ça Change, Plus C'est la Même Chose

There's a Norfolk wherry moored on the Thames at the moment. I love the way its red angled sails reflect the red angled cranes of modern London.
(Click on the picture to enlarge it; you know you want to … and hey! You get a free view of a bit of the Tower of London as a bonus. Don't say this blog is ungenerous).

Saturday Statuary - Horse Woman

Pointless

Well, that's my pointless pursuit accomplished. Way back in December, 2006 I managed to post 47 things in a month (admittedly not all of them worth posting) and this month I set myself the utterly pointless task of beating that.
So welcome to my fiftieth post of the month!
Pointless but pretty.
Next month I'll probably post bugger all.

Pretending to Work While Watching the Paralympics

Got my MacBook Pro sitting beside my monitors at work and - like everyone else in the office - I'm enjoying the Paralympics. Today is the first track day in the main athletics stadium and the action has been amazing.
The thing that impresses me the most, however, is the fact that all of the events are completely sold out and the stadium is packed to bursting. The atmosphere in the velodrome and the aquatics centre is, if anything, even louder and more enthusiastic than it was for the Olympics. The country has embraced the Paralympics in a manner that makes me proud.

You know how I feel about the lack of TV coverage in the USA. It shames that allegedly mighty nation. Robyn said on Facebook yesterday: "The US has 233 athletes competing in the Paralympics, and we're set to win all sorts of medals. Why isn't this all over the news here, especially when you consider so many of our athletes are injured vets who lost limbs fighting on our behalf?"

General Martin Dempsey, the US Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the highest ranking military officer in the US is over here at the Paralympic shooting range and was interviewed last night on the news (in an unconscionably spiffy full dress uniform), saying how rightfully proud he is of the achievements of his Veterans as a part of the huge American Paralympic team. He said that he would go back across the pond and look into the shameful lack of TV coverage there and I hope he kicks some righteous ass.

Are the US TV networks too embarrassed to show their Paralympians? I cannot believe that the US public just aren't interested. Do let me know if the TV and press coverage improves over there.

Things To Do In Central London - Nothing

If this is your view …

… why bother baiting your rods?

 

 Just sit out on the pier and enjoy the day.

Cityshapes - Fresnel Frenzy

Party Like It's A Verb

The Paralympic Opening Ceremony is still going on as I write this in bed at midnight.
It's been a stunning spectacular, with Stephen Hawking and Ian McKellen (in a star-spangled robe as Prospero) acting as Masters of Ceremonies with their own wheelchair-bound Miranda experiencing brave new worlds as the ceremony progressed through a series of tableaux that made the opening of the Olympics a few weeks back look like merely a warm-up act.
This is fucking brilliant!

Lots more classical music (which of course is more to my taste), our blind opera diva, umbrellas with everything (a brilliantly realised theme linking the scenes and fortunately keeping away the rain that had threatened all day but never came) flying ballet by paralympic athletes, a dance interpretation of Newton's Principia Mathematica, the Higgs boson (with umbrellas), Quinn's giant limbless sculpture from Trafalgar Square, the whole solar system inside the stadium, choral singing on a monumental scale, limbless dancing, Newton's/Yoko's apples a recurring theme, "gravitational choreography," Shakespeare, Ian McKellen with the biggest phallic telescope in the universe, the Large Hadron Collider smashing ideas into new understandings, "the shining, limitless possibilities of humanity" and Prospero's final message to his Miranda to "be yourself."

Linking the spectacles, reminders of the origins of the Paralympics here in England at the last London Olympics of 1948 and the rôle of the shattered soldiers and the groundbreaking surgeons and therapists who rebuilt them after the war and gave them new hope and dignity through sporting endeavour; reminders of the self-evident but rarely evinced equality of rights due to every human being.

Above all this opening ceremony has been about perception and enlightenment. Perception challenged and transformed. The definition of ability reforged by thousands of superhuman athletes inspiring and enlightening this and many future generations.
And didn't the athletes have fun? What a party!

Here comes the flame as I write. Amazing. Flown in to the stadium by a Royal Marine paralympian.
The cauldron is lit and the celebrations reach the fireworks stage. Woah, Nellie!

The Paralympics has come home to its birthplace and it's ready to seriously fucking rock! I can't wait!