during the 2006 winter olympics in turin i developed an overweening and somewhat embarrassing crush on tempestuous skateuse IRINA SLUTSKAYA—she of the apple cheeks, mousy hair and how shall i put this—pleasing thickness that one does not no[…]

In an ordinary Olympic games, Britain racks up 5 or 6 gold medals: this time, we have 16 and counting – marvellous news, incredible work on the part of Team GB, etc etc. But also, in a sense a slightly raw deal for some of the athletes involve[…]

Less medals = less news coverage. That is a good thing to the determined avoider. What else has been good is the monotony of the sports involved in the British medla haul. It is quite easy to tell if its the Olympics when the staggering diversity of […]

I covered Grant Morrison a few entries ago, but there are some other terrific talents producing superhero stories these days.
The other writer I follow most faithfully is Mark Millar. Again, I should declare a bias, as many years ago I gave him his s[…]

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The swimming is finally finished*, Michael Phelps is reaping in lucrative sponsorship deals and everyone has started watching the athletics instead, so it must be time for some stat-cruching! (more…)[…]

STOP WINNING MEDALS so called Team GB (so British to invent a teamname which tries not to actually say the contentious British word). Its relatively easy to avoid the Olympics when your radar is set for the BBC with extra Clare Balding alerts. But wi[…]

So, OK, Michael Phelps may be rather good and no doubt in four years time he will become the most medaltastic performer in any sport ever ever ever, BUT at the moment he still just trails the great Ray Ewry who won TEN individual gold medals between […]

ramshackle in a way you (i) don’t associate with london — candle-lit and shabby — walluc is the kind of place that you think mightn’t be there the very next morning; by day there’s a laundromat there, you can only find i[…]

As I move into the second week of Olympic avoidance, the game is getting considerably harder. The reason? I am no longer in charge of the television as I am visiting my parents. And they want to celebrate Great Britain’s successes and it would […]