Holiday Imminent!

To my returning visitor in Issy-les-Moulineaux (Google Analytics is so useful). I am visiting your fair country next week for my September break. Look out Oleron! Tweets only from Saturday onwards.

Trouble in Thailand

So! The troubles grow in Thailand for former leader and football fan Thaksin Shinawatra. As protests become more intense in Bangkok, the knock-on effects for the football club he owns, Manchester City, are clear. A trivial matter compared to the travails of a country, obviously.
A wry smile from ickledot, however, as for the second week running pundit Lee Dixon declared on Match of the Day 2 that there was no better man to be in charge of footballing matters in these troubled times than City’s manager, Mark Hughes. One cannot help thinking that the likelihood of this crisis happening were plain to see when Hughes took the job only a matter of weeks ago and his ‘world-view’ radar may not be quite as finely tuned as his football senses. The sensible option might have been to remain in the relatively secure waters of Blackburn. We shall see.

Steve Parry and Michael Phelps

A couple of days ago the BBC got their swimming pundit and Bronze medal winner Steve Parry to venture out into the crowds in Tiananmen Square and report on proceedings. Unfortunately, he was accompanied by a life-sized cut out of Michael Phelps which had been in their studio throughout the games. What fun ensued as an increasing number of people began gathering round him, mistaking him for Phelps, we were told. I suppose it was a mildly amusing snippet of video to run in between events.

By today, networks throughout the world must have been running low on new angles to cover on the Olympics, particularly as most events were over and only there was only the closing ceremony to come. So there was the BBC reporting on Parry’s adventure once more, only this time with the added twist that the story had been picked up by one of the American networks and Parry was being interviewed by what looked like a morning show anchor team. For some reason they were trying to get him to put on an American baseball cap, presumably to see if he actually looked like Phelps.

Talk about the media covering itself. BBC runs the story. American channel picks it up. BBC reports on American channel. Where will it end?

New Version of Rapidweaver

Rapidweaver 4.1 came out yesterday and today there was RW 4.1.1. This may have been as a result of some of the problems pointed out by RapidIdeas whose post I read this morning. Also, I decided to turn off permalinks again. For some reason it made all my posts appear as summaries which I don’t really want.

More bit changes

Few tweaks tonight. Still more to do. Maybe a little text on the home page to explain who we are. Also turned on the permalinks. Tried this before and everything stopped working. Here goes once more.

A Change of Theme

Not too many people pass this way but those few who have been here once and have returned for some reason will notice a couple of changes. Firstly, I have moved this blog off the home page. Just wanted a pic or two to appear instead of a load of text. Also, am trying out a new design. It’s based on a Rapidweaver theme from SeyDesign. Not getting the best from it yet, but we’ll see how it goes.

An Excellent Sporting Day

It’s difficult not to sound nationalistic, but today’s successes for GB in the Olympics were particularly exciting. Maybe it was due to us having a few years where medals of any colour have been a bit thin on the ground.

Particularly refreshing were the post-effort interviews. First, they revealed just how much effort and emotion had been expended, not only during competition, but in the previous weeks and often years and how much the subsequent reward, the medal, was valued. In addition, whatever each athlete lacked in interviewing technique was more than made up for in sincerity. Having witnessed the clipped comments of those pampered premiership poseurs on Match of the Day last night, it was so refreshing to hear it from the heart for once.