SPORTS !!!

[fivetrout]

I'm a big Dodger fan (baseball) but I don't have a TV, so because I live in the market area of the dodgers (los angeles) MLB (major league baseball) blocks the games on the net! So what I did was download "hide my IP address" as that is how MLB determines your local viewing restrictions...works great! I can watch any game at anytime!

[Willy The Londoner]

I use a Proxy server to View British TV over here in China. 

The BBC have upgraded their iplayer with lots of channels and it is perfect here now.  Eurosport is even better with 3 sport channels.

I probably could get more but have not time to look.  Just waiting for the Olympics to officially start on Friday.

However the women' football has already started.  With one great controversy.  The North Koreans were due to kick off at 7.45 last night. in the warm up they showed the team pictures, player by player, and each had the South Korea flag against their name!!!!!

Result - a diplomat incident - kickoff delayed for one hour until the technicians could redo the initial warm up with correct flags showing.

Willy

[fivetrout]

That is bad on so many levels! But it could have been worse! The logo for the Jamaican bobsled team!

[Willy The Londoner]

I am off to bed early tonight. Need to be up at 3.30 am China time for the London Olympic Opening Ceremony.

Willy

The First Lady (Michelle) was upset that we would not be there together.

Of course she meant London and not in my bed.

 

[Willy The Londoner]

I have just watched the full four hour of the 2012 London Olympic Opening Ceremony.

It was full of interest and humour.  Even our Octogenerian Queen 'parachuted' in from a helicopter assisted by James Bond!

There were many things that stuck a chord with me as I vaguely remember the 1948 London Olympics that cost less than 1 million dollars and it made a profit.  Today's event cost something like 15 billion dollars.  Whether it makes a profit or not it was money well spent so far. Just hope our Olympians can match up to the event.

I am now going to watch it all again as there was so much to see I am sure that I missed something and frankly it will be worth seeing twice.

Willy

[Vince G]

It's just coming to an end here. It did have some humorist parts to it.

[Willy The Londoner]

Maybe you did not get the theme behind it.

 It started out as the Country being a green and pleasant land.  Then making way for the Industrial Revolution then through the first World War, Suffragettes campaigning for votes for women (our women has had the vote for less than 100 years to date). Then on through modern days through the music and mixed with British Humour.

It was such great planning to change the green fields into the industrial site.

It was a poignant day for Londoner.  We had great jubilation in London the day that it was announced that we had won the bid.  The next day that jubilation turned to pain as 4 bombs exploded in London. 3 on the Underground trains and 1 on a bus killing 53 people and injuring hundreds of others.

We had two friends injured but it was made worse by the fact that no one could get hold of these two when we knew they were going to use a tube train that day.  But thankfully after several hours we found that they were in hospital and only slightly injured.

Willy

[Scottish_Robbie]

Sat through all of it, I think it was on a par with Beijing, however there were a few things I did not like, the queen never once smiled and when the GB team came in she was to busy looking/picking her nails .. It was sad to see Muhammad Ali in that state at one point his nurse held him tight so h never fell over.

Anyway good luck to all the contestants

[Willy The Londoner]

Sat through all of it, I think it was on a par with Beijing, however there were a few things I did not like, the queen never once smiled and when the GB team came in she was to busy looking/picking her nails .. It was sad to see Muhammad Ali in that state at one point his nurse held him tight so h never fell over.

Anyway good luck to all the contestants

The Queen not smiling! Of course what did you expect.  She had just seen that it was a Scotsman that was carrying our flag.   And at her age it was a late night.

 Agree about Ali though but maybe it was his choice. He is still very popular in the UK.

Willy

[shaun]

Talking about Ali, it didn't even look like him.  Back in '96 when he lit the torch in Atlanta he looked bad but it looked like him.  It is sad to see.  At least he has the money to be well cared for.

I thought the Rowan Atkinson was a nice touch.  Even Peggy knew who he was and loves him.

[Vince G]

I noticed that about the queen too. I thought she was thinking when is this thing over I want to go to bed. Ali was downer. Real sad esp knowing how he was back in the day. Rowan Atkinson Mr Bean) was real good. I LMAO when he blew his nose and threw it into the piano next to him.

[Rhonald]

The best highlight, for me, I would have to put my money into BOND, James Bond 
A high risk adventure... I mean Indenture with a term of MI5 Money In 5.

[Willy The Londoner]

Talking about Ali, it didn't even look like him.  Back in '96 when he lit the torch in Atlanta he looked bad but it looked like him.  It is sad to see.  At least he has the money to be well cared for.

I thought the Rowan Atkinson was a nice touch.  Even Peggy knew who he was and loves him.

Atlanta was a good games Shaun.  I remember Ali there and even then we thought he looked rough. But us Brits have a soft spot for him and although we were sorry to see him in that state we were happy that he was still going 16 years later, albeit in a much poorer condition.  Maybe he would have prefered to go earlier rather than go through what he has had to abide.

Atlanta was good, cannot say the same about Los Angeles in 1984 but as that was only a stand in event then maybe that was an excuse to just use stand by locations.  But I will say the organisers who took it on made a good profit for themselves and a little for sporting charities.  This the 23rd Olympiad was the first of the heavy sponsored modern events. But as that was at the height of the cold war and 14 teams akined to Russia not appearing after the USA failed to go to Moscow then that was expected.

Now the 30th Olympiad currently being held in London has the highest amount of countries represented. In fact there are more countries at the London Olympics than are members of the United Nations.

Did you who saw the opening ceremony of the London Games understand the concept of it?

Willy

[Rhonald]

Did you who saw the opening ceremony of the London Games understand the concept of it?

Willy

I will naively say that I think I did. I will also say that I was routing for Roger Bannister to be the one to light the cauldron, but after waiting for 4 minutes, my hope was broken like an old fashion LP record.

[Vince G]

I didn't answer that same question before for no apparent reason but yes I did get the concept of the opening and the industrial revolution. I figured you forgot who you where asking? ha  But what I didn't know is there was a segment cut out for the US audience??

NEW YORK (AP) — The choreographer of a somber segment in the London Olympics opening ceremony said Saturday he's disappointed that NBC decided not to show it to an American audience.

Spectators were asked to display photos of loved ones who could not be there during the segment. The music, a hymn called "Abide With Me," was described in the ceremony's program as an "honest expression of the fear of approaching death."

NBC producers did not air it, instead showing American viewers Ryan Seacrest's interview with swimmer Michael Phelps.

"I am disappointed," said Londoner Akram Khan, who choreographed and danced in the segment. "I am really sad that I couldn't show the work in America, and that really upsets me, because I don't think it's any more or less than the other pieces. It brings to mind the question ... that maybe it's too truthful."

The ceremony's program describes the performance as dramatizing "the struggle between life and death using such powerful images of mortality as dust and the setting sun."

Some in the British press have interpreted the segment as being a tribute to victims of bomb attacks in July 2005 that killed 52 commuters and four suicide bombers on London's transit network. During the BBC live coverage of the ceremony, commentator Hazel Irvine made the connection while the dance was taking place: "The excitement of that moment in Singapore seven years ago when London won the games was tempered with great sorrow the very next day," when the terror attacks took place, she said.

NBC said it had no indication that the segment was a reference to the terrorist attacks.

Although in many places the ceremony was aired in full, NBC aired it on a tape-delayed basis and made editing changes. The network said there are often such production decisions when showing a taped version of a ceremony.

"Our program is tailored for the U.S. television audience," said NBC Sports spokesman Greg Hughes. "It's a credit to (ceremony director) Danny Boyle that it required so little editing."

Oh well...