Thursday 26 July 2012

Let the games begin....

I may not be in London, but I just have to say, I'm so excited about the Olympics.

I'm looking forward to the opening ceremony, and the possibility of spotting my friend Nota Bene, who will be performing in the Danny Boyle extravaganza. Whether or not he'll be recognisable in costume, I can't wait to see the result of all the weeks rehearsing in secret that he's been hinting about on his blog. And I'm enjoying friends' Facebook posts and pictures of the Olympic torch passing their streets (I'm really very happy for you all that it's stopped raining).

I'm excited about getting the Littleboys enthused about all the different sports - the athletics, the gymnastics, the diving - that you don't normally sit down and watch on TV except when it's an Olympic year. Thanks to gifts from their aunt and uncle, the boys are going about wearing London 2012 t-shirts with great pride, and it would be lovely if they remembered the excitement around the London games, even though we're not in the country.

Meanwhile, the Doctor and I are looking forward to hearing NBC's Olympic commentary, which I'm sure will be full of bemused remarks about quaint English customs.  I do like to see how the Americans cover British events.  I had to laugh this morning when NPR radio interviewed the British ambassador and asked him what was with all the - "how do you call it? whingeing?" - around the games. His dry reply was that "whingeing is a very important word in the British vocabulary".

In the lead-up, TV channels here are showing non-stop repeats of films like Chariots of Fire, which we watched the other night. Having not seen it in 30 years or so, we had a good laugh at the 80s synthesized soundtrack, which must have seemed so modern at the time, but now seems just bizarre, given that the film is set in the 1920s.

And we've been absolutely loving the BBC series Twenty Twelve, which has been shown here on BBC America. It's perfect - just realistic enough to be almost believable (particularly the brilliant performance of Jessica Hynes as PR woman Siobhan Sharp, whose type I have encountered many times), just absurd enough to be laugh-out-loud funny. Definitely deserves a gold medal.

Now excuse me, I have a date with the TV and my sofa for the next couple of weeks...


5 comments:

Iota said...

Hope you're not disappointed, because if my memory of the US tv coverage was entirely focused on American medals. They hardly showed anything that didn't involve an American winning.

nappy valley girl said...

Iota - I remember that from the winter Olympics. Luckily we can now access the BBC coverage via our iPad/TV, so we will switch over when it all gets too much!

Expat mum said...

Actually, I was just about to Tweet that I hope the US coverage includes other countries winning medals too. The last Olympic coverage was a joke.
Oh look at me whinge-ing!

About Last Weekend said...

Just wrote down twenty12, spent 17 years lunching with PRs. I love the really obscure sports in the Olympics so will be keeping an eye out for those...

Metropolitan Mum said...

I am going home tomorrow by plane. So far all I get out of the Olympic spirit is fear of being stuck at border control with an unruly 3-yo...