Tag: London 2012

Thoroughly Post-Modern Millie, An Aside, 20 August 2016

With thanks to Claudia Lesley for this picture
With thanks to Claudia Lesley for this picture of Janie

One of several conversations over our lengthy dinner at The Stables, ahead of the Never The Bride concert – for more about that outing click here. For some reason, the film Thoroughly Modern Millie came up. One of the youngsters asked, “who starred in that movie?”  “Shirley MacLaine”, replied Kim and I, pretty much straight away and more or less in unison. “No, it was Julie Andrews,” said Janie.

A short debate ensued, with most people siding with me and Kim. Janie was pretty sure it was Julie Andrews. Kim was absolutely sure it was Shirley MacLaine. Kim and Janie wagered a future meal on the outcome.

Out came Mr Google for the answer: Thoroughly Modern Millie, 1967, starred Julie Andrews.

Kim and I were surprised. I was pretty sure I could visualise Shirley MacLaine in the movie, whereas I just couldn’t envisage Julie Andrews in the part. Kim similarly. I suggested that, in our subjective realities, it really was Shirley MacLaine. So at the very least MacLaine, not Andrews, was the star of our movie, Thoroughly Post-Modern Millie.

With the 2016 Olympic Games drawing to a close that evening, the conversation reminded me of a little thought experiment I put to some friends at the end of the London 2012 Olympics. An event named the modern pentathlon (fencing, show-jumping, swimming, running and shooting) was pretty much the last thing playing out. Loads of people (me and Janie included) watched it for the first time ever; we didn’t want the 2012 olympics to end.

My thought experiment was the post-modern pentathlon. I quote myself:

The post-modern pentathlon is all about subjective reality, so you may choose your own events. MY post-modern pentathlon events are pinball, table football, playing tennis with the wrong hand and payroll giving.

I know what you are thinking. That’s only four events; a pentathlon has five events. But in the subjective reality of MY post-modern pentathlon, four events is plenty.

In the post-modern pentathlon, of course, the scoring is down to oneself (subjective reality again). I am pleased to inform you that I won the bronze medal. You might have expected me to award myself gold, but I am surely not competitive enough to get the very highest score. I would naturally aspire to best-of-the-rest; silver, but my record in competitive sports has always been to disappoint myself to some extent, so at best I think I would achieve bronze. A little disappointing, but I gave my all for Team GB, did my best and left it all out there on the fields of play. That was all I could ask of myself.

On reflection, I think Janie would make an excellent Thoroughly Post-Modern Millie – see photo above – even more than Shirley MacLaine.

And with subjective hindsight, perhaps I should have a fifth event in my post-modern pentathlon after all; marathon ogblogging.

London 2012 Paralympic Games, ExCel Centre, 3 September 2012

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Volleyball was possibly the most watchable of the sports we saw

Following our three days at the Olympic games for badminton, tennis and hockey, Janie and I were well up for our Monday at the Paralympic Games a few weeks later.

I booked a day at the ExCel Centre, as we hadn’t got to see any Olympic events there and I liked the spec. for such tickets, which was basically a confirmed booking for one sport at one time, with an open ticket to see any other sport that day, on a walk-up basis, if there were seats available.

We planned to get to the ExCel via North Greenwich Tube and then the Emirates Air Line Cable Car across the Thames. This was mostly an excuse to take a quick look at the O2 (at that point neither of us had been) and to try out the cable car.

Photos of our day, including the cable car ride and the Paralympic events, are all in this Flickr album (along with photos from our day at the Olympic Park in August) – click here.

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Weightlifting isn’t really my cup of tea in either its Olympic or Paralympic form, but this was fascinating to see

When planning our day at the ExCel, Janie had marked off several sports on the schedule which she hoped to see. I suggested that we manage our expectations, as I knew the days had all sold out, so I thought that the “walk up” element might be very limited.

As it turned out, the days had clearly been sold with a view to most people moving around and watching several sports. The stewarding was of the very highest standard, so that each time we asked a steward for advice, along the lines of “we’ve already seen volleyball and are firmly booked to see boccia later, we quite fancy…what do you suggest we do next?” you’d get a sensible answer and help to find a good event to watch at that time.

Very cleverly planned and executed by the organisers and stewards respectively. The upshot was that visitors all seemed to be getting loads to see and every event had a large crowd. By that stage of that summer, believe me, the London crowds knew how to make noise and enjoy watching sport; any sport.

Boccia; in truth not very watchable but clearly very skillful
Boccia; in truth not very watchable but clearly very skillful

So, we started off with the seated volleyball, which was very exciting indeed to watch – I’d certainly volunteer to watch that again.

Then weightlifting, which frankly doesn’t float my boat in any format but was fascinating to see in its Paralympic form.

In truth, the boccia was the least watchable of the sports we saw, but it is a sport that severely disabled people can play. Or elderly people; indeed a few months later my mother proudly showed me a boccia certificate that she had won at Nightingale, although she didn’t quite remember what she had played or whether she had enjoyed playing it.

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Table tennis, or, as Boris would have it, wiff-waff

We rounded off our day with the table tennis, which was very exciting and watchable. In effect we sort-of got to see two sports in this event, as some of the matches were wheelchair while others were standing. As with lawn tennis, the wheelchair version of the game is quite different from the standing version of the game; both good to watch, just differently so. We watched the table tennis for quite a while before heading home, very satisfied indeed.

We loved this day; it is one of our favourite memories of that summer.

London 2012 Olympic Games, Women’s Hockey, Olympic Park, 6 August 2012

Strolling and snapping in the park before the hockey
Strolling and snapping in the park before the hockey

Janie and I were fortunate (or skilled) enough to get three sets of tickets in our Olympic Games application; badminton, tennis and hockey.  We were thrilled with that. Add to it a day at the Paralympic games a few weeks later and that makes four really memorable days.

Our day at the Olympic Park to see women’s hockey was our only opportunity to see the park itself, so we needed no further invitation than the suggestion in the spectator guide that we ensure we arrive at the park plenty early. We indeed wanted a good amount of time to take in the atmosphere and enjoy a whole day.

We timed our journey and arrival to be outside any rush hours (business or Olympic) but early enough for a good stroll around the park before our afternoon of hockey started (at lunchtime).

Security, the stewarding, the atmosphere around the park was all wonderful, as was widely reported at the time. We’d had great experiences at Wembley Arena (badminton) and Wimbledon (tennis) by then, so expected nothing less. But all of that character together with the sheer size and scale of the park was something to behold and remember.

We took lots of photos – this Flickr album contains the pictures from this day and those we took at the Paralympics also – click here to see more .

We still got to our seats in very good time and saw some players warming up:

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The first game we saw was China v Japan.

I recall clearly that Japan won the match 1-0, thanks to a 54th minute goal by Komazawa…

…OK, I don’t remember a thing, apart from the fact that we were thoroughly enjoying ourselves and the crowd was getting well into it. All of the results of all of the matches, together with reports, can be found through the Wikipedia entry on the tournament – click here if you are that interested.

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It was the second match, between South Korea and Belgium, that was especially memorable. Directly behind us, between the matches, had arrived a large contingent of Korean Buddhist monks. Had this been a cricket match in, say, the Eric Hollies Stand at Edgbaston, I would be talking about a bunch of beer-swilling Brummies in fancy dress, looking vaguely like monks.

But this was a sizeable posse of real Buddhist monks, with South Korean flags and prayer drums. As the game commenced they started to chant, “Dae Han Min Guk” very slowly and then beat out this phrase as five beats on their prayer drums.

Now there are several places where you can read about and see video of Korean soccer crowds making this chant rather rapidly – click here for but one (quite good) example – or alternatively try clicking here for a more percussive but less sporty outburst – but I cannot find examples anywhere of monks dispensing this chant and rhythm in a dignified, Buddhist stylee. So you’ll just have to take my word for it that the monks slow, profound version was an amazing, hypnotic sound.

I had in any case already decided to support South Korea for this match. After all, a South Korean publisher had ponied up some serious bucks for the rights to The Price of Fish – still available of course in the original Ameringlish (and now also available in all good South Korean bookshops and on-line – here). Whereas we still wait in vain for a Belgian publisher to do the right thing viz “Fish”.

So, naturally, Janie and I started joining in with the monks. Soon lots of people were joining in. Even children waving Belgian flags started joining in, only to meet reproach from their parents and then, in some cases, to ignore the reproach and continue to join in anyway. You get the idea.

I’ve no idea whether it was this extraordinary wall of sound or simply the comparative skill of the South Korean women, but our lasses won the game 3-1. The rather unfortunately named Kim Jong-eun (not to be confused with the Chairman of the Workers’ Party of Korea and supreme leader of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, Kim Jong-un) scored two of the goals.

We strolled a little more after the matches – we didn’t really want our day to end, but it was purposeful strolling really towards the best exit for our journey home. As was the way for just those few weeks of that summer, there was a friendly atmosphere amongst strangers on the tube home.

London 2012 Olympic Games, Tennis, Wimbledon, Centre Court, 2 August 2012

This was a really super day. When we were applying for tickets, Janie and I debated long and hard about which tennis slot to attempt. I favoured No. 1 Court, as I thought it would improve our chance of success. But Janie’s theory was that she was only interested in Centre Court, as it is the only covered court and she wanted to be assured of play if we did secure tickets.

Thus we applied for quarter finals day on centre court – thus we were successful in our application.

Janie took responsibility for the sumptuous picnic and I planned the journey. We set off good and early to avoid the worst of the crowds and take in some atmosphere on arrival. I guess it was a strange mix of regular Wimbledon and London 2012 atmosphere for this tournament – but that’s “strange in a good way”.

Chapter and verse for the whole tournament Wikipedia style can be found here.

We were treated to four quarter-finals; two women’s singles and two men’s singles:

It was a fabulous day of tennis.

A rather strange American man was sitting next to us, who kept saying “that’s amazing…that’s incredible” whenever one of the players won a point with a good shot or when there was a good rally…which really was quite often. It turned out that the man is a huge tennis fan and goes a lot, so he shouldn’t be quite so continuously astounded by good play in my view, but there you are.

Janie realised that she had a real taste for Wimbledon, so picked up instructions for applying for forms in the Wimbledon ballot, which she has done each year since 2012 with (at the time of writing, in 2016) remarkable success, getting good No. 1 Court tickets two years out of those four. A small but significant Olympic legacy for us.

 

 

 

London 2012 Olympic Games, Badminton, Wembley Arena, 30 July 2012

This was the first of our four Olympic/Paralympic visits and it was very early in the games, so we were very excited ahead of this event. In truth, we were excited ahead of each of our visits.

Although it was an evening event, it was a Monday so we made a long weekend of it, taking the day off. We played tennis in the morning and goodness knows what we did with the rest of the day – I don’t think we faffed around most of the day planning our evening – maybe we did.

We set off good and early to be sure of avoiding the rush hour and no crush at the Arena, but we needn’t have worried about that; the journey to the event was very straightforward.

In truth, badminton is not the most watchable sport I have ever seen. There were three matches being played  simultaneously and/but we (all spectators) had a much better view of one match than the other two. This can be a bit confusing and the crowd roar from those close to another table is a bit off-putting to the spectators – goodness knows how the players concentrate – presumably they are used to it.

We saw a mixture of mens and womens, singles and doubles. All the details for the events we saw are shown on the relevant wikipedia entries – click through from the general badminton page here.

The following evening, there was a big hoo-ha about womens doubles pairs not giving of there all, which is covered in the above link and which the BBC reported here. That controversy gave us a fair bit of “we were there the night before the scandal” talking point kudos.

Badminton is a hugely skillful game and I’m glad we went to see it. But in truth, sitting indoors (it was clammy) and with several matches going on at the same time, it is not hugely compelling, so I wouldn’t do this one again.

And by gosh Wembley Arena looks tired now – it had been a while since my last visit. Better for gigs than for sports, I’d say. I planned a clever route home to avoid most of the crowds, which worked pretty well.

In retrospect, I’m glad we went to this event first, as we enjoyed it, but for sure our Olympic experience got better after this. We might have been a bit disappointed by this event had we been to Wimbledon and/or the Olympic Park first.