(A) Man (Who Walks Up)On (A) Wire

Man On Wire does not have to do much to better previous “On Wire” films, beating the Mel Gibson / Goldie Hawn starrer Bird On A Wire considerably. And being a documentary we do not constantly cut to a pair of feet which obviously don’t belong to Goldie Hawn as the tightrope walking is done. But as a documentary film, it suffers somewhat from lack of key footage of its main event and subject. So whilst there is footage in the film of Philippe Petit tightrope walking, there is none of the key event, namely walking between the twin towers of the World Trade Centre. And that is no longer there either. … read on …

Olympic Avoidance Log 2008: Day 3 - Waterworld

Waterworld was rubbish partially because swimming isn’t all that dramatic. Even if you have gills like Kevin Costner. The British swimmers and divers may have gills for all I care, though that may be cheating (again I wonder about the IOC’s line on evolutionary advantages). Anyway what I remembered today was that Olympic Avoidance gets significantly harder when Britain wins medals. It invades the normally agreed non-sport sections of the news. So I saw our swimmers getting gold and bronze in a stupid medley race. I mean they don’t get the athletes to do 100m running backwards, so why should swimmers get to mix it up? As it was I felt a little sorry for the foreign swimmer who was the silver meat in the British medal sandwich. A few tenths of a second is unfortunate. Nevertheless, jingoism ensues, and apparently Hazel Irving got to talk about shoes with Rebecca Adlington. I get the feeling Irving wants to go over to present What Not To Wear with all her apparent fashion talk. … read on …

No Rubber and No Blow Up Dolls

You know how I keep saying I hate the Olympics. Well there is one bit of the Olympics I like, it’s the bit which suggests that there is still room for bonkers artistry and fireworks this a po-faced search for medal Dorado. I have always liked opening ceremonies; probably from the moment that bloke on a jet-pack flew around the stadium in Los Angeles. Casts of thousands, explosions and allegorical histories presented as interpretive dance. As a child I was really into interpretive dance, and was often praised for my ability to inhabit the persona of – say – Fernando whilst leaping around the living room. In later life I discovered the cruel truth that actually no-one EVER danced like that except Pans People and they (and successor groups) were wound up in the mid eighties. There was no career in it for me. Unless – 2012… … read on …

Olympic Avoidance Log 2008: Day 2: Bouncyball (Giant Division)

I saw a minute of the Basketball game between the USA and China today. Gosh Basketball is dull. Look at all the things I thought about in that minute to try to avoid engaging with the game

a) Is giganticism a kind of disability (door frames too low etc)? Hence shouldn’t basketball be in the Paralympics. Or maybe there should be a special division for people under five foot six playing basketball.
b) Basketball is a perfect example of a sport which humans have out-evolved to an extent that the game is completely different to the one originally intended.
c) In retrospect it was probably kind of dumb for the USA to have lobbied for certain sports that they were particularly good at to be involved in the Olympics. In the Baseball and Basketball they really are setting themselves up for a fall if they don’t win. (I know I am probably wrong in this, but the only way to get our Olympic loving statisticians to post is by deliberately provoking them!) … read on …

Olympic Avoidance Log 2008: Day One - Rowing

I hate the Olympics. But it is everywhere (except for the fencing), so it is very easy to accidentally stumble across it. In the last Olympics I managed a personal best of racking up less than an hour of viewing, but I hope to beat it this time. However occasionally I get tricked into watching some by virtue of something interesting happening. It is rarely the sport itself.

This morning it was an explosion at the rowing. … read on …

Where Are The Lords Of COBOL?

A brief dip into news territory for FT, as the web throws up this truly extraordinary story regarding the Californian budget negotiations. DON’T YAWN YET. It appears that Arnold Schwatzeneggar’s Republic’s have been unable to fix a budget for public spending and are running blind into the new session. The solution? Pay all state employees minimum wage until it is sorted out. Not only is this a truly bonkers idea (underpaying as an incentive - rarely works as a management strategy) but it appears to be impossible to implement. Because in other cost cutting news, they are still working on a payroll system which is programmed in COBOL - programming language TO GO of the 1970’s. … read on …

I Am Curiously Humourless Orange

I am not convinced The Love Guru is fundamentally any worse than any of the Austin Powers films. At least Myers only plays one character in it (two if you count a brief cameo as himself). But the difference is that while Austin Powers was a silly spoof of Bond and the literal swinging sixties the subject matter gave it architecture: it followed a spy film plot (albeit a silly one). The Love Guru is a parody of self help gurus – This is an easy target (which he does kind of miss even so), but the big problem is there are not really any guru/self help films to parody. This means Myers ends up plugging the saffron robed character into a rather dull sports movie. The Love Guru has very little forward momentum, which means it gets stuck on its bad jokes, lots of them, and you never really care what happens. (The film is even lazier than that, with cursory scrutiny you notice that the lead characters emotional arc of The Love Guru is almost identical to that in Austin Powers: International Man Of Mystery - just replace a chastity belt for Powers missing Mojo.) … read on …

Premature Sports and British Withdrawal.

Isn’t the Olympic opening ceremony tomorrow? You know, 08/08/08 = money, money, money? (Actually the games start at 8.08pm, which suggests that the first track should be a cover of the Abba tune by 808 State). What I understand the term “Opening Ceremony” to mean is that it takes place before any of the sport starts. So why have the Women’s Football games already started? Yet more proof that the Olympics are rubbish, they can’t even start on time! Of course in the UK we have no interest in the football due to the pesky Scots not allowing us to field a Team GB football team - possibly on the correct assumption that no Scot is good enough to make the team. That said the suggestion of a home nation tournament in 2011 to select a GB team for 2012 I think could be quite good fun. But then it is football, they have their own World Cup and football has never really felt like an Olympic sport to me. Unlike, say, Hitler’s favorite sport Handball - which is as Olympic as they get (pointless silly foreign sport that no-one plays). … read on …

“Olympic Pollution Watch” Watch

As an avowed Olympic hater, the talk of the polluted smog over Beijing is amusing me. Not because I think pollution is in any way funny, but clearly because the sulphurous cloud strikes me as a whole new way of talking about the “Yellow Peril”. And I am not sure what the fuss is. As far as I remember my A-Level chemistry, all the competitors will be breathing broadly the same air, so it won’t really disadvantage any of them above the rest (unless they are used to sucking in polluted gases as they train). Even better, the pollution obscures the view of the events themselves and even potentially adds a very realistic hazard to the poshboy yachting events.

No the most interesting thing about the pollution is the rabid way that the news outlets are reporting it. Here’s is the BBC’s not very scientific pollution-o-meter - a daily photo and a measurement with the astounding error margin of 20%. … read on …

Does The Pope Shit In The Woods?

The Pope’s Toilet (El Bãno Del Papa) is set up to be a droll satirical comedy about the supposed effect the Pope’s visit to a small Uruguayan town had. Based on true events, there is some humour in the small town folks dreaming of this one day windfall of pilgrims visiting their town – strategically placed near the Brazilian border (the Pope did not visit Brazil on that visit). And yet there really aren’t any jokes except at the expense of the simple folk of the town. And whilst there may be a degree of venal cunning displayed in the townsfolk’s opportunism, this has to be balanced against their abject poverty. Bearing in mind that our lead regularly cycles 60 km a day via the countryside to smuggle goods from Brazil, you can’t begrudge them a day of dreams. I don’t think the film does. But then where is the humour in someone risking their entire standing and livelihood to smuggle a toilet over the border to try and make a little bit of money out of hordes of tourists? … read on …