 |
| The boys toast Helen Glover and Hannah Stanning. |
August 1st
And just like that everything was right with the world again.
All it took was one (two really) bits of (92.5% silver really) gold on some ribbon and these games were once again worth every penny.
All it took was one (two really) bits of (92.5% silver really) gold on some ribbon and these games were once again worth every penny.
That's not to take away from what Glover and Stanning achieved, they are the best in the world at rowing their particular distance in their particular configuration. Hats off to them. More than that though it's a great story; one of them is a serving artillery officer, the other was nowhere near a row boat until 4 years ago.
Theirs is exactly the type of tale that the Olympics should be about, the type that should be celebrated no matter which anthem they have played for them on the podium.
I hope that will all come out in the end but all that the radio had to offer after their triumph was a huge exhale of relief. A massive "Finally we've got a gold."
Well not to be churlish but no, we don't; Helen and Hannah have a gold. It's theirs, we don't get a share nor should we. They could be from any one of the other represented nations and it would still be a great story.
This idea of narratives being more important if they're our narratives is what leads to the press gleefully questioning Ye Shiwen's performance yet claiming Ruta Meilutyte as one of our own because she goes to school in Plymouth. It's not a competition people...I mean well yes it obviously is but it's meant to be between individuals and not nations. We aren't meant to claim surrogates throughout this.
As I said yesterday, treating this as a festival only when us and ours are winning demeans the whole thing. We might as well replace the medal tables with GDP tables or rankings of literacy rates if we are going to make this about statecraft.
Be patriotic, cheer on our women and men, celebrate their victories and think 'what if' of their shortfalls but don't turn it into mindless patriotism. We all now know what that looks like:
 |
| "Nanny! Someone fetch Nanny!" |
Faking it
(Stay with me on this one)
A long time ago I was a bit of a piano prodigy. Hard to believe I know but I was right up there among the best 13-14 year olds in the country. My school had an exchange with members of the Voronezh youth orchestra. On the second or third day I was mooching around the music room when I heard their pianist (a girl whose name I forget but whom I had a HUGE crush on) messing around by playing badly on purpose a piece I knew she had absolute control over.
The thing was, to a trained ear such as mine she sounded just like someone trying something for the first time, making beginner's mistakes but seemingly trying her best. She explained that she did this as an exercise to test her mastery of the music; to be certain that she was a good as possible she had to be able to be bad at it also.
Obviously, hoping to impress the lady I gave this a try with Piano Sonata No. 17 which at the time I'd just gotten on top of. Now I did manage to play it badly, but only by making clear and obvious mistakes that anyone could have spotted were intentional. At that point I realised that I would never be at quite the level where I could intend to be bad at the piano while appearing to try my best. That was a level of skill above and beyond me.
All of which is a long way of saying that you really need to be among the very best ever to try and get away with being bad on purpose without people noticing. (Oddly I was quite good at Badminton as well).
As an aside, I've decided to stop splitting male and female results as I don't see what this adds to this experiment. It also makes things a bit simpler for me.
Also tomorrow is the last day which only has swimming; come Friday we'll have other things to count. I for one can't wait.
Today's total: 60,000m
So clearly, as I mentioned on Day 4, swimming and I must be comfortable with each other now; no longer trying to impress. It might be time to let her meet my friends (Hello Sophie, hello Joseph, looks like we can finally have a double-date).
If we add this to what we've gotten so far then we get 265,200m
Which is about enough to swim the entire length of Dogger Bank.
R
You can follow me on Twitter at @Le_Paien_Roux
The thing was, to a trained ear such as mine she sounded just like someone trying something for the first time, making beginner's mistakes but seemingly trying her best. She explained that she did this as an exercise to test her mastery of the music; to be certain that she was a good as possible she had to be able to be bad at it also.
Obviously, hoping to impress the lady I gave this a try with Piano Sonata No. 17 which at the time I'd just gotten on top of. Now I did manage to play it badly, but only by making clear and obvious mistakes that anyone could have spotted were intentional. At that point I realised that I would never be at quite the level where I could intend to be bad at the piano while appearing to try my best. That was a level of skill above and beyond me.
All of which is a long way of saying that you really need to be among the very best ever to try and get away with being bad on purpose without people noticing. (Oddly I was quite good at Badminton as well).
Numbers
As an aside, I've decided to stop splitting male and female results as I don't see what this adds to this experiment. It also makes things a bit simpler for me.
Also tomorrow is the last day which only has swimming; come Friday we'll have other things to count. I for one can't wait.
Today's total: 60,000m
So clearly, as I mentioned on Day 4, swimming and I must be comfortable with each other now; no longer trying to impress. It might be time to let her meet my friends (Hello Sophie, hello Joseph, looks like we can finally have a double-date).
If we add this to what we've gotten so far then we get 265,200m
Which is about enough to swim the entire length of Dogger Bank.
R
You can follow me on Twitter at @Le_Paien_Roux
Stick to piano, you are a terrible, dull and patronising writer!!!' seriously awful stop immediately
ReplyDeleteThis is a tad ongoing and dull. Purpose? Combined distance to somewhere far and back? Something heavy lifted and put back down somewhere else? Why radio five live only? You mention dr who, which as far as I'm aware is on the telly. Altogether pointless me thinks. Although your grammar is improving slightly.
DeleteAlso I believe "methinks" is a single word. No space required there.
DeleteThere is no purpose. I thought I'd made that clear. It was something I wanted to know and thought others may as well. If you don't wish to then you'll find the door behind you.
ReplyDeleteI always watch Dr Who in iPlayer as I don't own a TV, (fucking hell that sounds middle class doesn't it).
Thank you for noticing my improving grammar though, may I suggest you pay a little more attention to your own having been so kind to notice mine.
PS I mentioned The Doctor, not "dr who" (you really need some capital letters there). One of those is a fictional character and the other is the television (telly? Really?) broadcast show that he features in. Do try to keep up. Think twice before you try to out-pedant someone who's daft enough to make a blog such as this. Thank you for the traffic though.