Well, Belgium has done allright for Olympic cycling medals so far: Remco Evenepoel won gold and Wout van Aert won silver for the cycle time trial. It can’t have been much fun cycling at speed around Paris in the rain though. That might be my last cycling comment for a while … but you never know!
On the subject of medals, here’s a bit of linguistic stuff. In various odds and ends about the Olympics yesterday I note that someone called Bob Hughes has been getting agitated: “To ‘medal’ is clearly wrong,” he writes “but I’m getting used to it. On my train yesterday, however, the guard said the rear carriages had ‘not platformed’”
Oh, boy! This caused someone else (Andrew Benton - another unknown-to-me name) to comment: “… your ‘medal’ point has set me off...why-oh-why-oh-why is everything these days about ‘impact’ in writing on the web? What’s wrong with ‘effect’ and ‘affect’? And ‘upcoming’ too, there is a perfectly good word that has been around for ages that we should be using much more, and it’s called ‘forthcoming’ (as used in the Guardian). Many, many times ‘upcoming’ is redundant in a sentence online, such as an ‘upcoming event in August’ - you don’t need upcoming as August is clearly in the future! Seethe, seethe.... Nice that English is so responsive and dynamic though.”
Quite so!
Here’s an anecdote related to the opening ceremony:
“High jumper Gianmarco Tamberi issued a profuse apology to his wife on Saturday after his wedding ring slipped off his finger while he was serving as Italy’s flag bearer on a boat in the Seine River during the opening ceremony of the Paris Olympics. “Too much water, too many kilos lost in the last few months or maybe the irrepressible enthusiasm of what we were doing,” Tamberi, who won gold at the Tokyo Games, wrote on Instagram in a post directed at his wife, Chiara Bontempi Tamberi.
“Probably all three things, the fact remains that I felt it (my ring) slip away, I saw it fly.... I followed it with my gaze until I saw it bounce inside the boat.”
Tamberi said that his wedding ring then bounced into the waters of the Seine in what he described as “a few moments that lasted forever.”
“But if it really had to happen, if I really had to lose it, I couldn’t imagine a better place,” Tamberi added. “It will remain forever in the riverbed of the City of Love.”
Tamberi said the mishap would be an excuse to renew vows and get married again, and perhaps serve as an impetus to earn more Olympic hardware.
“May it be a good omen to return home with an even bigger gold!” he wrote.”
It seems that the opening ceremony upset some Christians by including a parody of Leonardo Da Vinci’s famous fresco ‘The Last Supper’ featuring drag queens.
in the Olympic opening ceremony in Paris has sparked fury among the Catholic church and far-right politicians, while supporters praised its message of tolerance.
The Catholic church in France criticised the segment.
“This ceremony has unfortunately included scenes of derision and mockery of Christianity, which we very deeply deplore,” the Conference of French bishops said in a statement.
Far-right politicians in France and elsewhere took to social media to express their disgust.
More left-wing apparently observers praised France’s tolerance, inclusivity and creativity - it’s all that “laicité” but really they should have known that feathers would be ruffled.
Here’s more serious stuff about pictures: one of Michael Rosen’s The King and his Tutor pieces:
'How do you feel about pictures, tutor?' said the King to his tutor.
'I think pictures of you or me are fine, sir,' said the King's tutor.
'No, tutor,' said the King, 'I was thinking of pictures of the battefield.'
'Ah yes,' said the tutor, 'that's a very different matter. Whose pictures are these?'
'Well,' said the King, 'I understand that one or two of the pictures are ours, but there are pictures being painted by people friendly to the enemy.'
'So I understand,' said the tutor. 'Well, what we say,' the tutor added, 'is that all pictures painted by the enemy should be doubted.'
'Doubted?' said the King.
'Yes,' said the tutor, 'we have to make it clear that everything and anything that the enemy do by way of producing pictures might not be true.'
'But what if they are true?' said the King.
'This may be the case,' said the tutor, 'but we have to ensure that people wonder if they're true. At which point, they will wonder if everything else the enemy says is true. And that will be good for us.'
'So we say, 'The pictures are not true,'?' said the King.
'We do,' said the tutor.
'That's very clear,' said the King.
A German friend of mine tells me that Germany’s foreign minister, Annalena Baerbock, has condemned the rocket attack on Saturday that killed 12 people at a football ground in the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights, writing on X, “It is appalling that children and young people who simply wanted to play football were killed.”
She added in a follow-up tweet:
"For months, Israeli citizens have been under fire from Hezbollah and other extremists. The perfidious attacks must stop immediately. It is now time to act with cool head. Far too many people have already died in this conflict."
My friend wonders if Germany’s foreign minister is going to issue one of these statements every time now a school or school yard is bombed? She (my friend) has not seen any of those clear condemnations when it was the IDF bombing schools and football-playing kids in yards in Gaza yet, but she would happy to see some...!
Life goes on. Stay safe and well, everyone!
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