The British press has been getting a hard time in Vancover for their coverage of the Winter Olympics. Seems they are not sufficiently sycophantic and have veered dangerously close to telling it like it is. Not quite the done thing chaps apparently.
One of the more telling criticisms of the Canadians that I have read concerns their inability to understand how their attitude was coming across. Promoting slogans about "Owning the Podium" seem to have back fired spectacularly. Indeed we seem to have seen a very different side of the Canadian psyche. One that is highly competitive and dangerously close to an American style tunnel vision of winning at all costs.
An example of this occured when a Canadian luge competitor innocently expressed his frustration that, now that the course had been shortened and changed slightly following the death of the Georgian luge competitor, he had lost his home town advantage. "I had practised more than 200 times on the course and now i have to go back to square one". Apparently not appreciating that no-one else had had a chance to practice 200 times on the course and that he was now simply in the same boat as everyone else. And insensitively dismissing the Georgian's death by failing to acknowledge the tragic accident that led to the change.
And there was the incident with the British skeleton competitor who won gold on a hi-tech sled designed by an engineering student studying sled design for his doctorate. The Canadians (and Americans) promptly appealed against the design of her helmet! (Which was dismissively rejected). The Canadians however seemed blithely unaware of the irony of this complaint coming from a nation that funded 55 "secret" programmes to try and gain a competitive advantage in a range of winter sports. They funded programmes to develop new training methods for speed skaters and a range of other initiatives designed to achieve exactly what the British did with the sled design. Not exactly the sportsmanship one would have expected from the "nice" Canadians.
The "Own The Podium" programme was apparently a five year $120M project designed to get Canada to the top of the medal table. No-one seems to have stopped and stepped back to think how all of this would come across. Just read this website from a couple of days before the start of the Games:
Vancover 2010 Olympics - 11 Feb
The London Olympic team have also apparently been observing the alleged debacle that is the organisation of the Vancover Games. British press coverage has compared the Vancover Games to the Atlanta Summer Games in 1996, universally acknowledged as the nadir of Games organisation. No doubt the Canadians will have the microscopes out for London, however there is the suggestion that the impact of these Games will rumble on for years, both in financial terms and in terms of damage to Canada's reputation
Saturday 27 February 2010
Sunday 21 February 2010
Another year older
Michael turned 13 last week. A teenager. Another teenager. As his uncle said:
"He cant be 13; he was only born yesterday!"
His uncle also gave him his first mobile phone for his birthday. Michael was so impressed. He felt so grown up and wandered about for days playing with it wanting to text every Tom Dick and Harry. Even replaced the Playstation for a short while as the object of his affections.
Costandina also has a new short hair style. Major change folks. These things are important.
From this
"He cant be 13; he was only born yesterday!"
His uncle also gave him his first mobile phone for his birthday. Michael was so impressed. He felt so grown up and wandered about for days playing with it wanting to text every Tom Dick and Harry. Even replaced the Playstation for a short while as the object of his affections.
Costandina also has a new short hair style. Major change folks. These things are important.
From this
to this
Some people just dont get it
I thought i'd share a picture that i came across a couple of years ago when our friend Libby came over and bought a booklet of postcards. This picture appealed to my sense of humour and I put it up on my work pc as my desktop. Only to find that almost no-one got my sense of humour. They think i am very strange at work. I am pretty sure they put it down to a strange Australian perversion and only tolerated it because of the generally warm affection with which they hold Australians
Strange, i still think its very very funny. I mean after all what else would you put in a skip and need to tell people not to do!
Strange, i still think its very very funny. I mean after all what else would you put in a skip and need to tell people not to do!
Tuesday 9 February 2010
A tale of two faces
Last night Sonya wanted to play Michael at backgammon as part of our parental attempts to show Michael that there was value in interacting with other humans and not just spending all of his time on Playstation. Michael put on his uber arogant mode and said he didn't feel like it because she was too easy. (Michael I might add is quite good at Backgammon).
Not to be intimidated Sonya said "Rack em up boy". Unfortunately Michael proceeded to "cream" his mother, all the while keeping up a running commentary about the stupidity of her moves. "Lucky first time, put them up again"said Sonya only for the result to be the same.
Ok Plan B - move to checkers!
Again Michael kept up a constant chatter of whisles and popping noises that seemed to make sense to him but not to us. No amount of stern admonishments would shut him up. Clucking with disdain he once again proceeded to comprehensively beat his mother 2-0.
Clearly it was time for bed and despite his howls that it wasn't time we packed him off for his shower. There is only so much one can take!
I was saying to Sonya that if he behaves like this at school very soon some older boy will beat him up to teach him a lesson. We couldn't help thinking that this couldn't come a moment too soon.
The irony is that we are fairly sure Michael behaves quite differently at school. He seems to really enjoy school and takes it quite seriously. He even gets frustrated when the other kids distract him in class. Clearly a case of Dr Jeckyll and Mr Hyde!
Not to be intimidated Sonya said "Rack em up boy". Unfortunately Michael proceeded to "cream" his mother, all the while keeping up a running commentary about the stupidity of her moves. "Lucky first time, put them up again"said Sonya only for the result to be the same.
Ok Plan B - move to checkers!
Again Michael kept up a constant chatter of whisles and popping noises that seemed to make sense to him but not to us. No amount of stern admonishments would shut him up. Clucking with disdain he once again proceeded to comprehensively beat his mother 2-0.
Clearly it was time for bed and despite his howls that it wasn't time we packed him off for his shower. There is only so much one can take!
I was saying to Sonya that if he behaves like this at school very soon some older boy will beat him up to teach him a lesson. We couldn't help thinking that this couldn't come a moment too soon.
The irony is that we are fairly sure Michael behaves quite differently at school. He seems to really enjoy school and takes it quite seriously. He even gets frustrated when the other kids distract him in class. Clearly a case of Dr Jeckyll and Mr Hyde!
Quotable quotes
Michael and I were walking to school the other day on a particularly cold morning. Whilst we were rugged up with scarves, gloves and hat; Michael nonetheless turned to me and said:
"Dad, the cold is eating my face!"
"Dad, the cold is eating my face!"
Local History - Part Duex
One thing that struck me about the map from 1857 was how Streatham was still very much laid out as a village with the houses grouped along the main road in small clusters.
This is despite London being the largest city in the world at that stage with a population of nearly 3.2M.
Just 6 years earlier England had held the Great Exhibition of 1851 to showcase Victorian pomp and affluence to the world and Joseph Paxton had built his famous "Crystal Palace" that was to give the suburb its subsequent name. The site of Paxton's building is just a few miles from our house along the ridge at the top of Streatham Common. Despite all this activity nearby however Streatham was still clearly a village.
This is despite London being the largest city in the world at that stage with a population of nearly 3.2M.
Just 6 years earlier England had held the Great Exhibition of 1851 to showcase Victorian pomp and affluence to the world and Joseph Paxton had built his famous "Crystal Palace" that was to give the suburb its subsequent name. The site of Paxton's building is just a few miles from our house along the ridge at the top of Streatham Common. Despite all this activity nearby however Streatham was still clearly a village.
Victorian properity and successive waves of immigrants fleeing famine and persecution from the continent in the second half of the 19C saw London's population continue to expand rapidly until it was over 7M by 1910.
The big impetus however that led to the suburbanisation of Streatham and the building of our home by the 1890's was the opening of the railway station at the bottom of our road in 1862. The Victorians were nothing if not railway builders and this clearly allowed London's population expand into ever more comfortable suburbs around the capital.
This expansion contined into the 20C with the other side of the main road becoming suburbanised after the turn of the century. These roads are still home to many lovely large Edwardian family homes that clearly reflected the growing prosperity of Streatham.Just a pity we couldn't afford to buy one when we were looking to buy our house. I'm sure we wouldn't have liked them anyway.
Monday 8 February 2010
A bit of local history
Last year a developer put in a Planning Application to redevelop a warehouse and office site on the main road just up from our house. As part of the application they were required to prepare an archeaolgocial survey of the area. This was posted online and allowed us to discover a wealth of information about our house courtesy of the wonderful old maps that were included in the study.
We discovered that the main road is roughly along the alignment of the old Roman Road from London to Brighton although no roman artefacts have been recovered in the area. Apparently the local church about a mile and a half up the road occupies a site where a church has stood since the the thirteenth century. Streatham apparently remained a small colection of buildings throughout the Middle Ages. A map from 1745 however shows a muber of interesting features.
Streatham Common was already a cleared open area of land. The Duke of Bedfordshire had a large mansion up the road opposite what was to become Streatham station and is now the site of a council estate. Up the road beside the Common was a large mansion house which was to become the home of the Tate family whose name is given to the Tate Galleries in London. Our plot shown in the red star was just farmland.
A map from 1857 shows that Streatham Common had now become bordered by roads and an India Rubber factory was in place up the road at what is now the local supermarket. (yellow arrow) The long building shown indistinctly between the labels on the map is still there and now houses some offices and the Sainbury Cafe. Our house was still just farmland (red arrow).
By 1898 however suburbia was encroaching and our road had now been developed and built out. Interesting just around the corner the Guildersfield Fish pond is shown in the map of this date. I wonder whether it was recreational pond for the Victorians to amble around; however it seems to be set in the rear garden of a large building so perhaps it was not open to the public. I wonder then why it was labelled on the map. And as a result of this map we know our house dates from at least 1898.
We discovered that the main road is roughly along the alignment of the old Roman Road from London to Brighton although no roman artefacts have been recovered in the area. Apparently the local church about a mile and a half up the road occupies a site where a church has stood since the the thirteenth century. Streatham apparently remained a small colection of buildings throughout the Middle Ages. A map from 1745 however shows a muber of interesting features.
Streatham Common was already a cleared open area of land. The Duke of Bedfordshire had a large mansion up the road opposite what was to become Streatham station and is now the site of a council estate. Up the road beside the Common was a large mansion house which was to become the home of the Tate family whose name is given to the Tate Galleries in London. Our plot shown in the red star was just farmland.
A map from 1857 shows that Streatham Common had now become bordered by roads and an India Rubber factory was in place up the road at what is now the local supermarket. (yellow arrow) The long building shown indistinctly between the labels on the map is still there and now houses some offices and the Sainbury Cafe. Our house was still just farmland (red arrow).
By 1898 however suburbia was encroaching and our road had now been developed and built out. Interesting just around the corner the Guildersfield Fish pond is shown in the map of this date. I wonder whether it was recreational pond for the Victorians to amble around; however it seems to be set in the rear garden of a large building so perhaps it was not open to the public. I wonder then why it was labelled on the map. And as a result of this map we know our house dates from at least 1898.
Friday 5 February 2010
Two particular English delights
The other weekend we went for a walk with our good friends Karen and Graham and their twin teenage kids. It was a cold and muddy day and the ramble took us over a sufficient number of boggy fields to fully coats our boots with a thick gelatinous layer of clay that added about 2kg to each foot. As you can tell therefore it wasnt the day that was the delight! The company was fine and I supose once you got a bit a bit of a head of steam up and the rosie glow came to your cheeks the cold wasn't too bad either. However the delights were elsewhere.
On the walk we passed the wonderfully named Ightham Mote. (How can you go wrong with a name like that eh!) This is a wonderfully restored moated manor house that is still largely intact from when it was built in 1320 and then extended in Elizabethan times. It was in fact the largest and most costly National Trust restoration job ever - in excess of £10M. We have visited there before and today was just a walk past it along the country lane. But it reminded me of the wonderful sense of history that lurks in hidden corners all over England. The building has been lovingly restored and captures all the quirky history down through the ages
You can see more pictures on the National Trust website link - Ightham Mote pictures
The other delight was the pub we stopped at afterwards. Log fires, fantastic beer, really good food - everything a pub should be. When they are done well, English pubs are magnificent institutions.
Graham and me had a serious discussion at the bar as we were getting one of the rounds about trying to reverse the decision that we should drive back instead of the women. It didnt succeed but we had a lovely afternoon. A brisk walk and two pints of Old Speckled Hen - job done
On the walk we passed the wonderfully named Ightham Mote. (How can you go wrong with a name like that eh!) This is a wonderfully restored moated manor house that is still largely intact from when it was built in 1320 and then extended in Elizabethan times. It was in fact the largest and most costly National Trust restoration job ever - in excess of £10M. We have visited there before and today was just a walk past it along the country lane. But it reminded me of the wonderful sense of history that lurks in hidden corners all over England. The building has been lovingly restored and captures all the quirky history down through the ages
You can see more pictures on the National Trust website link - Ightham Mote pictures
The other delight was the pub we stopped at afterwards. Log fires, fantastic beer, really good food - everything a pub should be. When they are done well, English pubs are magnificent institutions.
Graham and me had a serious discussion at the bar as we were getting one of the rounds about trying to reverse the decision that we should drive back instead of the women. It didnt succeed but we had a lovely afternoon. A brisk walk and two pints of Old Speckled Hen - job done
Please tell me this isnt happening
An amazing thing happened tonight. Australia made it onto the news. Well the news over here. And it wasn't the news so much as Newsnight - an altogether more indepth forum on BBC2 . (This topic of what makes news over is one I will be returning too)
The news story that prompted this interest was the recent rise in the polls of Tony Abbott and the recalculation Kevin Rudd is having to make about whether to call a double dissolution over climate change. The BBC reporter suggested that the combination of the faliure of Copenhagen to agree a coherant post Kyoto policy; the loss of Massachusetts and Obama's loss of his filibuster proof 60th Senate seat and the frankly ridiculously overblown claims of "Climategate" and the doctoring of climate change data had taken the wind out of climate change proposals around the world. The BBC reporter went on to link these events with the apparent resurgence of Abbott in the opinion polls.
Please tell me the Australia isnt going to be so stupid as to get behind Toxic Tony. Please tell me that it is only a vocal minority of conservative farmers that are raising up a dust storm; that common sense will prevail and Australians will get off the bloody fence and take a political stand for once.
Despite the political equation regarding climate change having changed in recent weeks, the uderlying issues haven't. We still need to do something about it and we still need political leadership on the issue - now more than ever. Knee jerk populist politicians like Abbott need to be taken on - not on popularity contests but on leadership and statesmanship.
Interestingly over here where there are just as many climate change issues to confront as in Australia, one of the huge issues that is about to burst like flood over the complacent populace is the steeply rising energy bills they will soon face. The issue here is how to improve the woeful energy performance of the typical English home. In the last 10 years the energy performance standards that new homes are required to be built to over here has been rachetting up exponentially. To the point where now homes built today use nearly 45% less energy than they did just 5 years ago let alone compared with a solid walled Victorian semi detached house like ours. The trouble however is that the vast majority of homes are woeful as far as energy usage.
One of the most promising developments is a new scheme caled Pay As You Save in which institutional investors like pension funds loan money to upgrade the thermal performance of old homes and the loan is paid back through the energy companies levying an additional charge on top of their energy bills. The funders secure their loan with a charge on the property so that if the property is sold it passes onto the new purchaser. The energy companies collect the loan repayments as part of the current billing arrangements so that no new debt enforcement options are required. This is all possible because recent trials have shown that the improvements save more in reduced bills than it costs to pay back the loan. The two kickers that makes this work is the fact that energy bills have risen so much that the potential savings have now become significant and getting the institutional investors on board who can take a suitably long term view about yields and repayments
What we dont need is people like Abbott deluding everybody into thinking that all we need to do is plant a few more trees.
I trust everyone will be mobilising to mount the rebuttal demonstrations to those red neck farmers they showed congregating on the lawns in front of Parliment House! I await glued to the box for the coverage
The news story that prompted this interest was the recent rise in the polls of Tony Abbott and the recalculation Kevin Rudd is having to make about whether to call a double dissolution over climate change. The BBC reporter suggested that the combination of the faliure of Copenhagen to agree a coherant post Kyoto policy; the loss of Massachusetts and Obama's loss of his filibuster proof 60th Senate seat and the frankly ridiculously overblown claims of "Climategate" and the doctoring of climate change data had taken the wind out of climate change proposals around the world. The BBC reporter went on to link these events with the apparent resurgence of Abbott in the opinion polls.
Please tell me the Australia isnt going to be so stupid as to get behind Toxic Tony. Please tell me that it is only a vocal minority of conservative farmers that are raising up a dust storm; that common sense will prevail and Australians will get off the bloody fence and take a political stand for once.
Despite the political equation regarding climate change having changed in recent weeks, the uderlying issues haven't. We still need to do something about it and we still need political leadership on the issue - now more than ever. Knee jerk populist politicians like Abbott need to be taken on - not on popularity contests but on leadership and statesmanship.
Interestingly over here where there are just as many climate change issues to confront as in Australia, one of the huge issues that is about to burst like flood over the complacent populace is the steeply rising energy bills they will soon face. The issue here is how to improve the woeful energy performance of the typical English home. In the last 10 years the energy performance standards that new homes are required to be built to over here has been rachetting up exponentially. To the point where now homes built today use nearly 45% less energy than they did just 5 years ago let alone compared with a solid walled Victorian semi detached house like ours. The trouble however is that the vast majority of homes are woeful as far as energy usage.
One of the most promising developments is a new scheme caled Pay As You Save in which institutional investors like pension funds loan money to upgrade the thermal performance of old homes and the loan is paid back through the energy companies levying an additional charge on top of their energy bills. The funders secure their loan with a charge on the property so that if the property is sold it passes onto the new purchaser. The energy companies collect the loan repayments as part of the current billing arrangements so that no new debt enforcement options are required. This is all possible because recent trials have shown that the improvements save more in reduced bills than it costs to pay back the loan. The two kickers that makes this work is the fact that energy bills have risen so much that the potential savings have now become significant and getting the institutional investors on board who can take a suitably long term view about yields and repayments
What we dont need is people like Abbott deluding everybody into thinking that all we need to do is plant a few more trees.
I trust everyone will be mobilising to mount the rebuttal demonstrations to those red neck farmers they showed congregating on the lawns in front of Parliment House! I await glued to the box for the coverage
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