August 10, 2012
Britishness at it’s purest

Taken from Jim Caple’s hilarious but sad article on scalping (touting) at the Olympics. Along with the draconian ad police proof that English officiousness is at its purest when at its pettiest. Imagine if someone told me that something I bought I cound never re-sell. And then the TV guys complain about vacent seats.

Police arrested a Canadian who offered to sell two tickets at face value –- about $75 — to a tennis match. They jailed him for two nights. I’m not kidding. Two nights in jail for trying to re-sell a ticket at face value! Sheesh, in that case, a ticketing website “service charge” should be grounds for a lifetime sentence…Fortunately, there is one back-door avenue to get tickets. Each national federation receives an allotment of tickets, and some sell their unused ones at their official team houses. This is allowed even though the houses charge a commission as high as 30 percent. Still, it’s about the only way to get tickets. Thank God the Czechs have embraced capitalism since the Iron Curtain fell, because the British apparently are above such things. 


Except when it comes to T-shirt and beer prices.

-Jim Caple here 

Saddly such habits and practices are far to familiar for anyone who has ever spent anytime in England. Where the customer comes last and pays for it. While I miss many many things about living abroad, dealing with English admin is not one of them.

(Source: ESPN)

3:18pm  |   URL: http://tmblr.co/ZmxX6yR7xvMM
Filed under: Olympics England Britain Britishness 
August 1, 2012
The neat thing about the Olympics is its size. It’s so big its small. By encompassing everything from basketball to badminton, not to mention virtually every country in the world and a few non countries too, it is a massive spectacle. But, given that over 10,000 athletes compete in the games, it is so big, its net is cast so wide, that just about anyone can find a personal connection with the games. A reason to watch some prelim heat or something. In these moments the biggest show on earth becomes a rather small affair.  Tyson Gay has no idea who I am. He graduated from Lafayette High School in Lexington, KY in 2001. I graduated from West Jessamine High School in neighboring Nicholasville in 2004. He ran a 10.46 to set the state record in the 100m, I never set a record in anything. Nevertheless, he is my athlete. One day in March of 2001 we raced. It was the first meet of the year, basically a friendly, with no limit to how many people teams could place in each event. I was a gangly 9th grader who joined the track team to have something to do. Somehow our no. 1 sprinter was scratched at the last minute and coach stuck me in his place just to see what I could do as I had literally just joined the team.  The #1 sprinter in the state was in the lane beside me. Tyson Gay. He ran a 10.something. I ran a 13.something. Getting beat by 3 seconds in the 100m dash is an eternity (side note, I once lead a near Olympian in the 5k, unfortunately I lead the first 200m, he lead the last 4200 and beat me by 8 minutes- aka a long ass time in cross country). Anyhow, I was just one of the hundreds of people Tyson smoked on his way to greatness. And there is nothing more to the story than that. No, encouraging ‘nice try, kid’ that inspired me to greatness, but no snickering either. He just beat me, and everyone else, because that was what he did.  Over the last 11 years I have kept up with Tyson in press clippings and online stories. He has broken world records and battled an unfair amount of injuries. Each time he lines up though, I elbow my friends and tell them about the time he beat me. I was so crushed when injuries derailed his 2008 Olympic bid, and this year he has to contend with a rampant Jamaican side, but when I saw him in the Opening Ceremonies (alongside Anthony Davis- shout out to the state of Kentucky!), I became irrationally excited. For me, the Olympics boil down to Tyson’s running and a few swimming events involving a friend from Oxford. But, perhaps more than anything else, I get a kick out of saying I raced an Olympian. I lost, but that’s why he is an Olympian and I am a grad student. 

The neat thing about the Olympics is its size. It’s so big its small. By encompassing everything from basketball to badminton, not to mention virtually every country in the world and a few non countries too, it is a massive spectacle. But, given that over 10,000 athletes compete in the games, it is so big, its net is cast so wide, that just about anyone can find a personal connection with the games. A reason to watch some prelim heat or something. In these moments the biggest show on earth becomes a rather small affair. 

Tyson Gay has no idea who I am. He graduated from Lafayette High School in Lexington, KY in 2001. I graduated from West Jessamine High School in neighboring Nicholasville in 2004. He ran a 10.46 to set the state record in the 100m, I never set a record in anything. Nevertheless, he is my athlete. One day in March of 2001 we raced. It was the first meet of the year, basically a friendly, with no limit to how many people teams could place in each event. I was a gangly 9th grader who joined the track team to have something to do. Somehow our no. 1 sprinter was scratched at the last minute and coach stuck me in his place just to see what I could do as I had literally just joined the team. 

The #1 sprinter in the state was in the lane beside me. Tyson Gay. He ran a 10.something. I ran a 13.something. Getting beat by 3 seconds in the 100m dash is an eternity (side note, I once lead a near Olympian in the 5k, unfortunately I lead the first 200m, he lead the last 4200 and beat me by 8 minutes- aka a long ass time in cross country). Anyhow, I was just one of the hundreds of people Tyson smoked on his way to greatness. And there is nothing more to the story than that. No, encouraging ‘nice try, kid’ that inspired me to greatness, but no snickering either. He just beat me, and everyone else, because that was what he did. 

Over the last 11 years I have kept up with Tyson in press clippings and online stories. He has broken world records and battled an unfair amount of injuries. Each time he lines up though, I elbow my friends and tell them about the time he beat me. I was so crushed when injuries derailed his 2008 Olympic bid, and this year he has to contend with a rampant Jamaican side, but when I saw him in the Opening Ceremonies (alongside Anthony Davis- shout out to the state of Kentucky!), I became irrationally excited. For me, the Olympics boil down to Tyson’s running and a few swimming events involving a friend from Oxford. But, perhaps more than anything else, I get a kick out of saying I raced an Olympian. I lost, but that’s why he is an Olympian and I am a grad student. 

4:05pm  |   URL: http://tmblr.co/ZmxX6yQXvAUE
(Notes: 4)
  
Filed under: Olympics London 100m Tyson Gay Running Sprinting Kentucky Sport Sports Lafyette lexington Racing 
July 28, 2012
"Watching it made me proud to be a Lancastrian. Danny Boyle is from just down the road to me and so much of my life was in this, everything I believe in, the history from the industrial revolution right through to the NHS."

— Wayne Hemmingway, about the opening ceremony. Good. Were there Yorkists? Succession fights? Red and White roses? Proud to be a Lancastrian, havn’t heard that since the 15th Century. Get with the ap Twdrs bro. And, note, he olny believes in History from the Industrial Revolution-NHS. So like 200ish years. Even America is older than that bro. 

(Source: huffingtonpost.co.uk)

4:18pm  |   URL: http://tmblr.co/ZmxX6yQGq3kX
(Notes: 2)
  
Filed under: Olympics wars of the roses england UK 
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