2012 Olympics

So, what did you non-UK people think of the opening ceremony?Despite my initial cynicism I loved it, but it seemed to me that most of the world must have been baffled.

Sometimes you think that the very best thing that the rest of the world could do for poor old USA is issue them all with passports and visas and make them travel outside their borders at least once in their lives - preferably without a uniform and a gun.

Well, your passport office tells a different story.You currently have almost 110m million valid passports out of a population of 311m. So two thirds of you guys don't see a need to travel much outside the US of AU.S. Passports[fyi - Brits with passports, 71%]

Well sure, but that's the point really - Americans are shockingly parochial because they don't get out much. So when they do travel 'aboad', half of them practically stay at home and the recent boom in passport ownership is because of needing them to travel to and from Canada. Sheesh.http://articles.cnn.com/...tive-passports-tourism-industries

The Brits won gold in rowing and cycling yesterday prompting an Australian wit (oxymoron?) to comment that we're good at the sitting down sports.

I've had a good dinner - with wine and a decent scotch. So maybe I can be excused for reading that fine lady's name asRandom Blowjobor maybe not.

Frank Boyce, the guy who wrote the script for the Olympic opening ceremony, origionally included a sequence on evolution because 'it was a British idea' but abandonned it because it looked too much like The Lion King.Which is a pity.But today our papers are full of photos and plaudits for Brits that are doing well at standing up sports. So that's all good.

I'm awarding all the guys and gals in the Jet Propulsion Lab at NASA honoury Gold medals for this: The first low def image from Curiosity.A fabulous, amazing achievement.

It's getting worse now that the UK is having its most successful year since descending from the trees - those that don't get gold think they've failed.The rowers who came second were devastated and apologised for letting everyone down. Bonkers.

Ah the glory days of empire.According to a historian on the radio just now, the 1904 Olympics only had 22 countries (cf 200+ for 2012) and the UK fielded so many contestants that it was impossible to lose some events. One guy ran a race on his own.....and surprisingly, won gold. (And silver and bronze too?)Tug-of-war should still be an Olympian sport imho.Anyhoo, his (the historian's) opinion is that the UK's efforts this year far and away outclass those of 1904.

phew......dunnit.Not many dead.

The UK came third on gold medal count and 4th on total count. For some reason your NBC prefers its own counting method to the official one.Olympic medal table - WikipediaEverybody here is pretty damn chuffed about our sporting performance but I'm at least at proud of just pulling it off in such style without making a fool of ourselves or having a terrorist incident.

Yorkshire finishes twelfth in medals table at Olympics | Olympic Games 2012 | The GuardianYorkshire is a county of about 6m people (the uk is divided up into sections, there are 83 counties in England.) As a result of their success, they are now asking for independence.

Whatever......... Counties of England - Wikipedia

yes, yes but ffs.......