July 2012
62 posts
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bibelot #3: windrush
I’ve just now realized that there was an extended section of the opening ceremony dedicated to the Empire Windrush, the ship that landed in London in June 1948, carrying almost 500 Jamaican immigrants. The Windrush is now seen the symbolic beginning of massive Caribbean—and eventually from the rest of the empire—immigration to the metropole over the next two decades. Indeed, you could argue...
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bibelot #2: NBC
I’ll say much more about the opening ceremonies later, but this needs to be said now: NBC’s coverage of the ceremony was abominable. The five hour tape delay (on the East Coast). Matt Lauer/Meredith Vieira’s bungled, tedious, and at times exuberantly ignorant or factually inaccurate narration of Danny Boyle’s display—with the ultimate low of Matt Lauer reporting as fact the...
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“Growing up in an industrial wasteland taught me that it’s not the industry that...”
– Why I Love The Olympics | Laura McInerney
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suggested reading: opening ceremony edition
And did those feet in ancient time Walk upon England’s mountains green? And was the Holy Lamb of God On England’s pleasant pastures seen? And did the countenance divine Shine forth upon our clouded hills? And was Jerusalem builded here Among these dark satanic mills.
Bring me my bow of burning gold! Bring me my arrows of desire! Bring me my spear! O Clouds unfold! Bring me my...
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“Britain’s swimmers have confirmed that they will join Team GB’s...”
– London 2012: Opening ceremony absentees mount as athletes reveal fears | Sport | The Guardian
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“As his chef de mission, Nick Green, was this week attempting to be reasonably...”
– London 2012: Team GB and Australia resume old race for bragging rights | Owen Gibson | Sport | The Guardian
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“Britain’s head coach, Charles van Commenee, has admitted that Paula...”
– London 2012: Paula Radcliffe ‘flip of a coin’ away from Olympic agony | Sport | The Guardian
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More reasons why we should enjoy British men's and...
Per the Guardian:
Sepp Blatter has played down the chances of Great Britain football teams competing at future Olympics. The Fifa president said the British Olympic Association’s desire to have men’s and women’s teams at future Games was “legitimate” but unlikely to be fulfilled.
“This is a wish and a legitimate wish of the British Olympic Association because...
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the value of a pound sterling →
visualoop:
Via
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olympic security →
shortformblog:
18,200 the number of British troops prepared to assist in this month’s Olympic Games in London
9,500 the number of British troops currently in Afghanistan fighting, y’know, an ongoing war source
» And more troops were just added: The country added another 1,200 troops to the roster…
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“Goldman Sachs’ analysts conclude that Olympic games in Munich (1972) and...”
– Olympic Economics, The Pre-Games Show
(via planetmoney)
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A look back at London's 1948 Olympics →
newyorker:
Here come the Olympics! Are you ready? Is London ready? This is the British capital’s third time hosting the summer Games. This first, in 1908, occurred seventeen years before The New Yorker came into existence, but the second, in 1948, was well covered in our pages. Our longtime London correspondent, Mollie Panter-Downes, filed a pair of reports on the Olympiad, which came after a...
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“The health and life chances of children in the six London boroughs hosting the...”
– London authorities already beginning the work of tracking whether the Olympics will bring urban uplift to East London as promised.
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“Home Office staff including border officials have confirmed plans for a strike...”
– More strike plans during the Olympics.
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visualoop:
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“AARON RAMSEY is urging Welsh football fans to throw their support behind...”
– Aaron Ramsey tries to rally Welsh fans around the predominantly English team GB for matches in Cardiff.
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suggested reading: team GB and the home nations...
Several weeks ago, I mentioned that not only is Olympic men’s soccer a U-23 tournament, but there have been tensions over the very existence of a British soccer team. Now that we’re a week away from the Olympics, it’s time to investigate this further.
It turns out that Britain has not fielded an Olympic men’s soccer team in 50 years.
Poor old Team GB. Has there ever been...
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“Almost 7 million working-age adults are living in extreme financial stress, one...”
– More stunning findings from the Guardian’s Breadline Britain series.
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“They are proud to have a job and scorn welfare. They are grafters who are proud...”
– The Guardian’s introductory piece to their “Breadline Britain” series.
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breadline britain
Since June, the Guardian’s been doing a series called “Breadline Britain,” which tracks over a year families devastated by the recession and who are on the brink of complete economic catastrophe. They call these households “cliff-edge,” which distinguishes them from slightly better off households that have more of a buffer to rely on when appliances break, etc. Most...
les ultras →
The second in Montreal Impact player Andrew Wenger’s excellent series on soccer, fan culture, and the history of Quebec. Yesterday’s installment combines observation and interviews with analyses of scholarly and journalistic accounts to produce a fascinating glimpse into les ultras, the Impact’s most dedicated fans. A must read.
speaking of Gebre Selassie...
…guess who’s capitalized on Euro 2012?
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a prescient pre-Euro 2012 profile of Theodor Gebre... →
And yet there are some supporters who claim he should not be in the team. “It is strange. I feel sorry about that. I was born in the Czech Republic, I have been living here all my life,” he says in perfect Czech. “I have only been to Ethiopia once, and I was about two years old then. There is a black man at the head of the most powerful country in the world and people are...
“If you think you’ve got writers’ block after 45 seconds of not writing, you...”
– Jenny Diski on the Write or Die app, which erases whatever you’ve written if you haven’t typed anything after 45 seconds. British novelist Helen Oyeyemi swears by it.
“In the past, maples were tapped from Virginia to Northern Canada, though...”
– De Condimentis (13): Maple Syrup | HiLobrow (via ayjay)
Disliking Federer « LRB blog →
Is this what distinguishes Federer fans from Nadal fans?
Most professional athletes have clear weaknesses – holes in their game. Except Federer. And that’s why I don’t like watching him. What I find compelling about tennis is the way players have to manoeuvre themselves into a position where they can exploit the things they do well – in one way or another, they have to run around their limits.
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the Beckham Olympics saga continues
So I mentioned a few weeks back that David Beckham was slated to make his final international hurrah at the London Olympics as one of the three over-age players on the team GB soccer squad. Well, that’s not happening. The three over-age players are Micah Richards (24) and Welshmen Craig Bellamy (33) and Ryan Giggs (38). The 18-man squad has 13 Englishmen and 5 Welshman, which makes it less...
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“It’s close to 5 o’clock on a late afternoon in January when Mike Tetreault,...”
– A gripping piece about a percussionist’s audition for the Boston Symphony Orchestra. Percussionists may be the only musicians other than pianists (and other keyboardists) who have to perform on equipment that isn’t their own. (This does make sense; keyboards are percussion instruments.)...
“On July 24, 1534, Jacques Cartier and his men erected a large cross with the...”
– The Montreal Impact’s Andrew Wenger on Québécois history and its legacy in fan culture.
“HIGHLIGHT
Kevin McCarra: Jakub Blaszczykowski’s neatly constructed goal...”
– Euro 2012: Guardian football writers’ verdict on the tournament | Football | guardian.co.uk
In Defense of Cursive →
newyorker:
“A knowledge of cursive may not be “relevant” to the modern world, but it is essential to a visceral sense of the past, and an ability to examine the literature, correspondence, and history contained in original documents.” As many U.S. schools begin to phase out the teaching of cursive, Judith Thurman writes in defense of script: http://nyr.kr/MLREak
