I expect you are all sick of it already but sadly I'm not.
In fact I think you may have realised this, but just in case anyone was living in doubt and thinking dovegreyreader scribbles might be one of those awful London 2012 Olympic-free zones...a place to come to escape it all because people hate it all so much... well have no fear, this will be the place for all Olympic mania to manifest itself unashamedly. You would expect no different from someone who went purposely to see the exhibition of medals at The British Museum and still has her scrapbook of Tokyo 1964 ... Mary and Lynn ...remember the long jump??
I have been planning my prolonged Olympic summer break from the online day job since last year, giving them plenty of notice at work that I would be 'resting' for two months, and temporary replacements have been hired and trained accordingly. I shall still be out doing my one day a week visiting new babies in the community because I am loving it....except when the Olympics is on that is.
dovegreyreader scribbles will be here from Opening to Closing ceremony, but forget all semblance of order ...expect over-excited ramblings at odd moments, and spontaneous over-emotional weeping when someone gets disqualified or trips over.
If you go to a torch relay event over the next few weeks you may well see this little bus advertising something fairly obvious.
That cheeky chappy standing at the front is in charge and compering with a microphone, he also happens to be a very good friend of the Kayaker's, and catching sight of us as we walked past in Plymouth, we suddenly heard our names over the microphone and before we knew it, no escape, there we were having our photo taken.
This is not something we might have chosen to do, but anyway..
It's all quite clever and free, and if you have children or grandchildren they will love it...and look we did it and it didn't hurt, even with half of Plymouth looking on. They take the pic and then swipe a card with a code number on it through the camera and give it to you, when you get home just type the code into the website and there's your pic, so if you see that bus, go say hi to Brad and say Mr & Mrs Hatwell sent you.
So this year we will head back from Port Eliot Festival, and instead of folding the bunting neatly away in its box for another year we will festoon it around the place, get in the food and prime the BBQ, take the television up to the Summer House and create our own little Greenwich here in Devon, because we weren't lucky enough to get tickets. I do actually know 'someone', a writer who shall remain nameless, and who is not an Olympic fan, but who has landed tickets for the Mens 400m final and they have very kindly agreed to do a write up for us...though it may include some stuff about the flowers and the seat covers and not much about the race, but we can't be picky. They will be there and I won't which means I can enjoy it vicariously, and to be honest I just can't wait, and I have been accumulating a little pile of books which have been jogging alongside in readiness.
The Visitor's Guide to the Ancient Olympics by Neil Faulkner will, I hope, make me something of an expert on what it may have been like to spend 'five thrilling days in August 2,400 years ago' watching naked athletes compete in foot races and a bit of chariot racing too, but best of all the pankration where apparently everything but eye gouging and biting is allowed. Of course I will be watching through a hole in the fence because women weren't allowed in.
The Ancient Olympics by Nigel Spivey elaborates further...the pankration translates as 'the all-power thing' and opponents can kick, strange, smite or otherwise beat each other into submission or death...so that will the synchronised swimming then.
Offspringette read The Secret Olympian by Anon during her last visit home and declares it a must-read for me. Anon was a member of the GB squad in Athens and I think all that can be gleaned regarding identity from the book is that they came last in their race. But this book purports to lift the lid on drug-testing paranoia, debauchery in the Olympic village and everything else I might pretend I don't want to know for fear of besmirching my Olympian ideal... but I do really.
And then the book that is going to see me through it all, because dear reader, I will be watching every single second, the whole lot ...everything from Athletics through to Wrestling and all letters of the alphabet inbetween, and David Goldblatt and Johnny Acton's How to Watch the Olympics will be my vade mecum. Stick with me and we will know why a shuttlecock almost always flies with its bottom first and forward, and why its generally preferable in gymnastics if your bottom flies last and behind you.
So declare or decline now, are you an Olympian or a bolter??
Recent Comments