Tuesday 11 September 2012

Another Amazing Day!



Today we watched the last of the Olympics & Paralympics in London & what a fantastic day it was. A day of joy & celebration thanking the Team GB athletes, the final day of the fantastic summer of sport in 2012. Yes the weather stayed fine yet again!

We thoroughly enjoyed the BBC coverage of the Olympics & were disappointed when we realised we’d be in Orlando for the Paralympics. We were even more disappointed when we couldn’t find any coverage of the Paralympics on TV in the hotel we were staying in. There were more than 100 channels but couldn’t find any with the Paralympics coverage. They didn’t have the BBC World Service which we were very surprised about and the Paralympics didn’t even seem to get a mention on the CNN or Fox News the nights we watched. Maybe it was being covered on a station we didn't have. 

We had hoped we’d be able to enjoy the last couple of days at home but found it was being covered by Channel 4 complete with adverts. Total rubbish! The BBC gets a lot of flack but my goodness they excelled themselves this summer.

Today I thoroughly enjoyed watching the BBC coverage of the Mayor of London’s Olympic & Paralympic Parade. It was wonderful to see all those athlete’s being honoured on the parade but what was lovely was all the thank you notices the athletes were holding up to thank everyone for supporting them.

The Games Makers, police and armed forces were thanked too. They had the best places in the Mall & around the Palace for the concert.

Here’s a selection of the photographs I took (from the telly, I wasn't there sadly):


Jessica Ennis - The Poster Girl for London 2012


One of the most successful things about London 2012 was The Volunteers or Games Makers as they were known, all 70,000 of them. Many had only volunteered for the Olympics but decided to stay on to work at the Paralympics.



Probably the most famous of the Games Makers, Eddie Izzard


The amazing sailor Ben Ainslie

The parade had been organised to pay tribute to the athletes and to thank them yet nearly all of the teams were carrying thank you messages to the public. 


There was hardly a square inch of space along the route to the Place. Health & safety regulations were flouted as people hung out of windows over roof tops & climbed lamp posts. It was the biggest crowd the capital has seen apparently. Bigger than the Diamond Jubilee & the Royal Wedding.



Trafalgar Square



The lovely Tom Daley


Sarah Storey Paralympic cyclist winner of 4 gold medals


Ellie Symmonds Gold Medal winning Paralympic swimmer 



I loved these lions leading the parade, rather like Chinese dragons




Kathryn Jenkins singing the national anthem

Now she has an amazing voice so why didn't she sing at the Olympic ceremonies?

Now who was missing from the parade?

Well Andy Murray tennis gold medal winner, he's playing in the finals of the US Open & the score is currently 2 sets to 1 in his favour. Not sure I can stay awake much longer to see the result. Best of luck to him.

Oh yes Wiggo wasn't there either. Bradley Wiggins the only cyclist to have won the Tour de France & an Olympic Cycling gold medal in the same year. He's doing the Tour of Britain at the moment. No rest for the wicked! That'll have to wait Wiggo.


Heck watching telly will never be the same again!

11 comments:

  1. I didn't watch the Olympics when they were televised last month. I did hear one of the news broadcasts mention the Paralympics once or twice, but since I am not much of a TV viewer, I didn't notice if they were televised here or not, but my guess is, they were not.

    However, there was much coverage of Prince Harry in the "buff" guarding the "Family Jewels," as the announcers liked to describe the pictures shown on TV here, when he was vacationing in Las Vegas. I think sensationalism always wins out...go figure...

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  2. I cannot believe you took those pictures off your TV. I'm going to try that and act like I've been places. It really looks like you were there:) Happy you enjoyed it all.

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  3. Well I've been watching telly less this summer & reading more. However when the Olympics came along I couldn't resist and it made fabulous viewing. The 2 Saturday nights of the Olympics were amazing. I never get carried away watching sport, I'm not that interested, normally but those nights were different.

    Ann - I didn't see the Harry coverage. There only seemed to be 2 topics showing when we were there, Hurricane Isaac & the US elections. How do you stand it? We only get about 4 weeks of ads just before a general election & that's more than enough. Also they are very limited here with their TV ads. They all get an equal amount of time, not sure how much but certainly not as much as in the US. For me it's still too much & I get sickened watching their rhetoric. We used to have politicians who you could see were decent & honest. Now they all seem to have gone through drama school & it's who can put on the best performance. YUK! Pass the sick bucket!

    Granny Annie - I was amazed at how well they came out on the Blog. They are not brilliant when you see them full screen but OK for the web. It certainly gets around the copyright issues. The BBC's website photographs are amazing but I wouldn't like to get on the wrong side of them by copying them! You're right you could just pretend you had actually been there.

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  4. It has been amazing hasn't it Winifred. All the athletes have been outstanding and quite simply inspiring. A x

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  5. My heart swelled with pride, as I watched event after event, London did an awesome job of celebrating and hosting !
    ~Jo

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  6. I should have visited here before I E-mailed you then I would have know that you were in Orlando. Folks from the USA have told me that there was no Para-Olympic cover in the States. I personally did not any of the Games but did watch the 4 opening and closing ceremonies which I enjoyed.

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  7. I think Britain should be very proud of what they did......

    Gill

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  8. I hadn't realized what great photos can be taken from modern TVs.

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  9. My kids and partner went to the Olympics several times and said it was amazing. My partner was at both the opening and closing ceremonies and that's what I would have really liked to have seen. I'm not much of a sport fan.

    You did well getting those photos from the telly!

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  10. Snowbrush - I didn't either. It's not a huge telly only a 32" Sony Bravia & no high tech camera. Just a point & click Panasonic Lumix & it broke a couple of weeks later! Might just be a faulty battery, I live in hopes.

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  11. Gill - Yes they did a great job which must have naffed Mitt Romney off. He looked like a class 1 prat after his diplomatic gaffe about the London Olympics just beforehand. Shades of Presidents Bush & Reagan methinks!

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