Between Olympics

Well, not quite.  The Paralympics have in fact started.  But I started this post in the hiatus between the two Games, and I'm not changing the title now.  So:

As I sit here between Olympics, and with the godawful ticketing system still not working properly, and not likely to let us get to see any Paralympic competitions up close in the near future, if at all, it seems a good time, as they say on Thought for Today, to pause and reflect.

We always expected the Olympics to be far, far better, and more worthwhile, than the benighted Jubilee - and they didn't disappoint.  We were on Dartmoor, on holiday, during the Opening Ceremony, which meant we got to watch it on a huge plasma TV.  Which was nice.

As every commentator - well most commentators - have said, it was astonishingly good. 

I have to admit, when I first heard about the bucolic idyll that was being planned, a fantasy English countryside, my heart sank. But even that was enlivened by the rippling blue cloth that covered the stands and allowed us to see the idyll as 'sea-girt'.

And then we tore it all up in the Steam-driven Pandemonium of the Industrial Revolution, led by  Sir Kenneth Branagh as Caliban (a theme for all four ceremonies it seems) - cum - Brunel.  Echoes of Blake and Milton. 

Followed by (in random order):-
- NHS nurses (a great invention from 1948)
- Liberty director Shami Chakrabarti.
- Suffragettes
- Voldemort from Harry Potter,  Rowling and Chitty, Chitty, Bang, Bang, and Mary Poppins (all representing children's literature?  But no Blyton I could see, nor Ahlberg, nor Kerr). And that section did  cause our 15-y-o to comment along the lines that the good socialist message of the NHS was undermined by the children in beds having to be saved by the privatised care of Mary Poppins...
- Beckham on a speedboat looking terribly stylish, and fireworks on Tower Bridge as it opened to let his ego through...
- The Swinging Sixties and psychedelia
- The Stunt Queen: so much more approachable than the one we have...
- The noise of the Tardis in the middle of another Queen's Bohemian Rhapsody...  (but why?)
- Rowan Atkinson & Simon Rattle in Chariots of Fire
A section on media (ish), introduced by the pips, Radio 4 and the Archers, leading to a house full of film and TV clips -  while decades of our pop and rock played...
- Python and Fawlty Towers, (let's ignore Eric Idle in the Closing Ceremony for the moment)
- A Matter of Life and Death
- Kes
- Gregory's Girl
- Bagpuss
- Queen Who Stones  Beatles
- Madness 
- Mud
- Jetpacks and Tim Berners-Lee
But sadly no Thunderbirds or HHGTTG or Fast Show that I noticed...

All really good fun.  But it did make me realise that we here at TANH appear to have been writing about the London 2012 Olympics Opening Ceremony in half of our postings, without really knowing what we were doing...  It's like we were revising for it.

So is that it?  Do we have to stop writing about all that stuff now?

Other Things have been Happening...

Well, although the Jubilation isn't quite finished (there is for example, the local Jubilee do on the Aquarius Golf Course with Steve Boltz still to come today), and bedraggled bunting can still be spotted around and about, we at TANH would like to remind our reader about the other stuff that has been going on while our Overlords have been celebrating their rule. 

This is just a random selection, in no particular order.

Dragon Lands The SpaceX Dragon landed successfully in the Pacific Ocean on May 31.  This was the first commercial spacecraft to dock successfully with the ISS.  The second stage of the rocket contained some of the ashes of the actor James Doohan, who played Scotty in Star trek, as well as (Keroy) Gordon Cooper, one of the secen original astromauts in the Mercury space program.  Gordon Tracy, the pilot of Thunderbird 4, was named after the latter.

Jeremy Hunt at Leveson The Leveson inquiry has shown that Jeremy Hunt was very, very much in favour of  the Newscorp bid to take over BSkyB.  The Prime Minister knew this when he appointed him to decide upon whether the bid should proceed.  Given that Vince Cable was removed from this role because of his bias (in the opposite direction), how was this a sound decision by the Cameron?  Can we assume that Cameron wanted the takeover to go ahead as well, so was unworried by Hunt's lack of neutrality, or was it just incompetence?  Hunt has said he thought the bid would have been good for British media, but (as far as I can tell) has failed in any way to say how.

The Awful Baroness Warsi has seemingly been breaking a few rules, with the (non)disclosure of some of her own financial arrangements.

Bankia in Trouble Spain's banks look as though they are in trouble, with Bankia, the fourth largest bank in Spain, asking for a 19bn Euro bailout, and the Eurozone crisis is lurching into new problems.

The Annan Plan in Syria seems to be failing, with escalating violence, while armed militia stormed Tripoli airport yesterday.

HIGNIFY Resurgent For a few series now, Have I Got News For You has been a little moribund. But just recently it seems to have perked up again. Firstly with an appearance bu Ken Livingstone, who Hislop agreed was a less interesting guest on the show than Boris Johnson, but would have been a better Mayor of London. And then last week we had Alastair Campbell as chair. Which turned into a straight battle between Campbell and, well everyone else. A real bruiser and very, very funny. Watch it again on i-Player before it goes. It also includes the largest margin win I've seen so far.

And Finally... Don't forget the Transit of Venus - just visible tomorrow in the early morning...

Flotilla

Yesterday we tried to see the flotilla, in accord with the notion of enjoying Jubilation.  So we caught the bus up to Tower Bridge, only to find the river securely blocked by stewards and security guards.

Lots of people wandering around getting nowhere near the Thames.

A group of Republic protestors who had an agreed area to rally in (the 'scoop' by City Hall), also couldn't get in. We met and chatted to them - they were very pleasant, and filmed by the press. 

According to today's papers, some Republic people in the scoop, who had managed to get in earlier in the day, had their placards taken away by private security staff.  So much for democracy.

When asked, most of the burly men on the gates were pleasant and apologetic, and agreed it was a cockup, but wouldn't let anyone past.

Peter Tatchell turned up in red jeans, had a quick discussion with a a police steward and cycled off again. Altogether rather sad, low-key and unattractive event from the outside.

People wandered down to Rotherhithe to see the river, and the boats once the 'dignitaries' had left them, or turned around in the hope of a spot further upstream.

Families sat on steps against hotels and warehouses to eat their sandwiches, wearing rather folorn-looking Union flags.

I'm sure all those people inside the barriers and behind the screens enyoyed the spectacle. But we hadn't expect the flotilla to be a tickets-only event....

Getting Visceral

Oh, yes, and there is one event we are looking forward to that isn't about the insufferable Jubilee.  We are off to Viscera Theatre on Monday, in the Old Vic Tunnels near Waterloo.  Should be good...

Green Nunhead

It has been pointed out by a kind friend, that in expressing my general - and well-founded - dislike of the Jubilee and all things Royal I may have gone wildly off-topic. Now I don't really accept this - it says 'Some Other Thoughts' above, which allows us here at TANH an astonishingly wide brief.  That being said, there may be a question of balance to be considered. 

So here are some trees around Nunhead for your pleasure.

This horse chetsnut on Barforth Rd (above) has featured before.  It was heavily pollarded a few months back (another bugbear topic with this site) and now has a very strange profile, to my eyes.

The regular reader will also spot that this gorgeous Chinese willow near Nunhead Green has similarly  made previous appearances. Lewis Schaffer (well-known local comedian, and the voice of an American in Nunhead on Resonance FM) seemed to believe it was under some threat.  I do hope not.

Happy now?  Can I go back to moaning?

Flags and stuff

I was genuinely pleased to see that there was very little festooning going on in Nunhead today.  Ok, there were a few flags in shop windows, and the odd excressence of bunting, but mostly the displays were quite reserved and rather low key. We will do this, but not very well, kind of thing.
So well done all!

Unnecessary

Sod it - even Google are in on it...
'Don't be evil', indeed....

Jubilee Poem of the Week

I recall sitting in a punt, with a stereo blaring out this Jubilee anthem, in 1977... so now seems the right time to broadcast it again.

God Save The Queen
The Sex Pistols

God save the queen
The fascist regime
They made you a moron
Potential H-bomb

God save the queen
She ain't no human being
There is no future
In England's dreaming

Don't be told what you want
Don't be told what you need
There's no future, no future,
No future for you

God save the queen
We mean it man
We love our queen
God saves

God save the queen
'Cause tourists are money
And our figurehead
Is not what she seems

Oh God save history
God save your mad parade
Oh Lord God have mercy
All crimes are paid

When there's no future
How can there be sin
We're the flowers in the dustbin
We're the poison in your human machine
We're the future, your future

God save the queen
We mean it man
We love our queen
God saves

God save the queen
We mean it man
And there is no future
In England's dreaming

No future, no future,
No future for you
No future, no future,
No future for me

No future, no future,
No future for you
No future, no future
For you