Sí has leído bien, una isla increíble construida en un hermoso yate. Creado en el Reino Unido por la empresa de diseño Island Yacht.

El diseño como puedes ver se inspira en las islas tropicales, con cabañas, una piscina y un volcán que seguro no entrará en erupción. Se trata de un yate, con salas especiales para VIP, salones, gimnasio, spas y hasta un helipuerto. El volcán añade belleza al conjunto de la embarcación, ademas el agua que sale de él va a la piscina completando el aspecto tropical.

La parte posterior de la embarcación tiene una cubierta retráctil de playa donde las estructuras flotan en el mar haciendo que el mar sea accesible para nadar y, por supuesto, acceder a varias actividades acuáticas como el wake board y motos acuáticas. Todo el conjunto es genial y su uso es aún mejor.

Que tengas un buen día y no permitas que nada, ni nadie te lo estropee.

And who can forget the delightful banter between G “underarm” Chappell and T “players’ comfort zone” Greig?

We were tweeting away about bike safety and how in our country, we begin with helmets, whereas on the continent, they begin with infrastructure [Very British Dude]. Yes, that’s so. @VeryBritishDude  @Outlier  @citycyclists

City cyclists was of the opinion that this sort of thing:

I’m almost tempted to cycle in the city. Almost, but not quite. My reverie is invariably interrupted by a thundering juggernaut – what are they doing in city streets anyway? – or the news, from a colleague, from a friend, of the latest casualty. This week, one of those casualties was none other than the transport minister, Theresa Villiers. She broke her collar-bone while cycling to work.

… by one Mary Dejevsky doesn’t help and VBD said, about trains and bikes:

Cyclists should have dedicated carriages WHICH WE SHOULD PAY FOR to transport bikes. Bring back the guard van.

… to which CC said:

Germany you pay for bike on train but get stunning space for bike storage.  Fair it seems.

Yes, carrying the bike onto the train here causes resentment among other passengers, especially if there are four or five young yobs with bikes and the last thing we need is resentment.

London Fixed Gear and Single Speed have been doing great work getting the mode of transport going and the place safer for it but some of Mary’s concerns do exist in people’s minds:

But the fact is that, however competent the cyclist, in a contest between motor- and pedal-power, motor-power will win. Cycling through the parks on a special path is one thing; mixing it with buses, lorries and cabs on a major road is quite another.

And one girl wrote:

My mum. A week ago last Wednesday she came off her bike and hit a Range Rover head on. She suffered nasty lacerations to her face, lost a few teeth, chipped her eyesocket and jaw. She also had a colossal bruise and graze on her leg, which looks to me to have been caused by the Range Rover’s right front wheel.

It was sheer bad luck – the lights of the range rover dazzled my mum and her friend on an uphill stretch, she moved to the left to stay safe, and hit a pothole or ditch which flung her back into the path of the car. A few inches further to the right and.. well I don’t want to think about it.

She was back on her feet in a couple of days, and had the stitches removed yesterday. The bike, incredibly, is totally fine, and she plans to get back on it once she’s healed up. I’m so proud of her – after an accident like that I’m not sure I’d be able to get back on a bike.

Mary and this girl just now – have you heard of [un]common sense?  When you cycle, you need to be visible and make eye contact.  You need to see the whole space around you as usable in an emergency and be prepared to jump your bike out of the way [I don't mean tear along pedestrian paths oblivious].  You need to know when the odds have moved against you – time to stop and walk it, e.g. after dark.  It needs courses in schools and far greater numbers on the roads so that motorists are forced to accommodate the bike, it needs some sort of road etiquette for bike users so they don’t act the prat.  I have more trouble with fellow cyclists than with motor vehicles.

I have been up on a path when it was just too dangerous to go around a parked vehicle and a pedestrian apologized to me for being in the way.  I told her: “I’m the one with no right to be here.  My job’s to stay back here until you finish walking where you want to go.”

If you go up the left of traffic at the lights, you only ever go a metre in front of the vehicle beside you and always turn your head and make sure he’s acknowledged your look [more socially difficult for the ladies].  If he doesn’t show eye recognition, then get the bike up on the path [briefly and not near pedestrians].  If it’s OK, then as the lights change, shoot out ahead, get across before he’s even in second and move away left of where you know he’s going to accelerate.  That’s the sort of thing.

You need to just ‘feel’ your situation and be prepared to get the hell out of the way where it’s inconvenient for the motorist.

On the other hand, you need to use hand signals, done properly and for long enough, with straight arm and take your place as a vehicle in your own right, in that right lane, with cars behind and in front.  You need to assert your right, as a road user, to turn right just as the cars are doing – not cowering off to the left but front and square.  And if the prat behind toots, stop, turn and look him in the eye, then proceed to turn right as before.  If you’re visible, they are not going to run you down.  They’d be in the deepest of doo-doos.

In general, work in with cars and lorries – don’t go anywhere you’re not sure he realizes you’re there.  Avoid women in cars with compacts doing their makeup or guys on cellphones.  Go overboard with the road courtesy but remember road courtesy is not necessarily allowing them to treat you with disdain and illegality.  Don’t be a prat or challenge a motorist to a stand-off.  Wave your thanks if he lets you through or accommodates you somehow and try to reciprocate straight afterwards by getting out of his way.

This latter bit is what it’s all about – you’re not self-entitled but you do have the right to take your place.

Kenkifer took the words out of my mouth:

The point that I’m making here is that it’s very important to give up fatalistic notions and to recognize that collisions between bikes and motor vehicles are avoidable. The bike rider has an excellent machine for doing so. He has 180° of unobstructed vision at all times, and he can easily scan another 45° on either side. He has stereo hearing, so he’s not only aware of how far away the approaching car is, but also if it’s passing him safely. He has excellent brakes at his normal cruising speed and can stop in less than a car’s length. He has even faster turning ability and can slide off of a steep shoulder without harm if necessary. Finally, operating a vehicle only six feet long and 18 inches wide, he presents a small target for another vehicle to hit.

The point about stereo hearing is important. The helmet interferes with that IMHO and I don’t wear one for the simple reason I need all my senses about me on the bike. Evasive action is more important than assuming an accident.

It can be safe, even in our bike-unfriendly cities and on our open roads.  On another level, it certainly needs infrastructure and that should start now by motions at council meetings and the like.  That’s in the next post on the topic.

And for the winter:

Not a bad link.
A study.
Commerce_and_Bicycles-Thomas_Krag [pdf]
Tom Chivers

Source

Scots came second?  Never mind, let’s move on.  How would you feel if you had just taken off and the pilot was greeting you through the tannoy with:

#  Losh mun, the engines wullnae take it. We’re doomed, I tell ye, d-o-o-o-o-o-m-e-d!
#  Allahu Akbar, G-d is great and Mohammed, peace be upon him is his only prophet, you infidels.
#  Wotcha, me old china. Where to guv?
#  Wifies ‘n gen’lemen, gan canny noo or we’ll dunsh summick.
#  Oo ah, will ye be wantin some clotted cream with that?  Be wiv ‘ee dreckley.
#  Worritiz, roight, is itz a bit of black round the back of bills mothers like.

Confidence – it’s only an accent away.

It’s often been said that the church and the local pub are as one, seeing how the Sunday congregation would seamlessly move from the church to the bar after Sunday prayers.

This might not happen so often these days but here’s an example of each seemingly made for each other, certainly in terms of size, if not the occupants.

Both of these places I know. The chapel was within 100yds of where I was bought up in Clapton, Hackney, as a small child.

The Bishops Wood Almshouses were built in 1690 for the housing of ten widows, the chapel in the corner has seating for the same ten and is “claimed” to be the smallest chapel in England.

Whatever, there is no doubt about the number it was built for and it contains two pews (not seats) for that purpose.

The pub I also know, having lived not far from Bury St Edmunds in Suffolk where it has been for some years The Nutshell. Unlike all the other claimants to the title “smallest pub”, it is, as can be seen, a real pub in a town centre location.

All its customers are served inside the premises, not in beer gardens like its pretenders to the crown and it’s not a converted shed, telephone box or any other nonsense.

It also serves a very good selection of Green King ales who are in the town, this is one pub that seems to be surviving the crisis in pub closures and long may it stay that way.

[Nutshell is wiki free; Almshouses photo is over 70 years, unknown]

[Pics]

Source

Though the age of steam has passed, the great railway stations in their arching, metallic barndom still evoke an atmosphere of happier, more romantic and more exciting times and old-style stone stations with actual stationmasters who greet you cheerily still exist in this country. On a Saturday, with the numbers of commuters far lower, you can almost imagine yourself back in those days, especially when the conductor is friendly enough to stop and have a few words as he moves down the carriage.

Under these circumstances, I love the train but there are certain unwritten rules all the same.  There is this amazing phenomenon of some people going on the same train every day for decades and hardly speaking more than a few words to one another.  “Nice day.”  “Yes, should turn out fine.”

That’s conversation?  And with London commuters packed like sardines, how could one converse anyway?  It’s a pressure cooker there.  It’s not the “done thing” for people to open a conversation and that comes out further down.  I find myself doing this now – sitting doggedly on the seat, averting my eyes from anyone else, the greatest crime being eye-contact.

Allow me to digress for a moment and speak of living in Russia.  In my time there, certain things became apparent: 1.  A foreigner was always going to have people, complete strangers, come up to him because a. he was automatically interesting and b. they wanted to try out their English.  2.  A foreigner is always seen as having money and therefore can give a girl a good time or even a ticket out.  This became far less so in the late 2000s. 3.  There was a 58% female demographic, most of it younger, where I was and this introduced competition on the grounds that 4.  There was still a family/marriage ethic well into the 2000s.  5.  About 75-80% of the under 45 females could be called pretty or beautiful.  6. They were always out and about.  7.  The Russian is quite gregarious.

The result of all this is that the male, particularly a foreign male, is never alone for female company unless he’s Quasimodo or strange.  It also has the effect of giving the male great confidence with women and brings out his gallant side.  This has the further effect of extending his “shelf-life” way beyond what he could ordinarily expect and so there is this phenomenon of a visibly aging man acting beyond his years in British terms.  He’s not trying to be forever young – he’s expected not to be a stick-in-the-mud.

That was not a good mindset to return to Britain with, especially in 2008, with all the subsequent events.  It was half OK in Sicily but once back in Britain, it was fine for sometime.   However, as I became re-anglicized, as I stopped being quite physically active and as the horror of life over here swamped me [as well as millions of others over here], I had to do a radical rethink about what was acceptable and what was not in a constipated society.

The turning point was some months back.

One day, quite tired, I was targetted by an anorak on the platform and while this type around the age of sixty can be a font of information, some of it even interesting, there’s something in the targetting itself, the foot-in-the-door motif, which is deeply annoying – and they don’t seem to take the hint all that well.  The following week he was there again, at the same spot, with the same intention and I have to admit I shied away and was less than effusive as he followed me up the platform to talk.

It was a shock to the system to realize [home once more] that I didn’t particularly wish to speak to anyone on the platform – I just wished to get to work.

As a result, I’ve perhaps become oversensitive to anorakism and once fairly open with people,  I now generally keep my distance.  Something’s been lost, as people can be interesting and I suppose as Russia fades, so does the notion where it isn’t seen as forward in the least to talk to someone, particularly of the opposite sex.  Over here, it is seen as quite forward and with that anorak constantly in mind, I’ve ceased making conversation.

Yet it all depends.  There’s a girl who gets off the train as I get on early morning and she seems quite keen to have a few words, she initiated it in the first place, so that’s OK in British terms.

Maybe a year ago, there was an incident where a chavish lass with no idea whatever how to dress was in the carriage near me – she was wearing a bright yellow sleeveless dress, yellow stiletto heels and her hair had been done up … um … interestingly.  She thought she looked the goods too, poor lass.

As she got off, a fellow passenger and I exchanged glances – she was smiling and I looked up to the sky.  It was understood.  She herself was compact, dressed smartly in colours which blended and frankly, she looked nice.  OK, OK, I’m fibbing – she looked enchanting.  More than that though, she seemed nice in nature.

The following week, same time, I was in the same carriage and realized she was a commuter like me and we needed to be in that particular carriage as it was close to the exit when we reached the city.  This particular week she was wearing blue, whereas the previous week she’d worn predominantly black.  Tweren’t any of my business but I mentioned it to her and she was most surprised that I’d remembered what she’d worn a week back.

I didn’t want to tell her I’d always notice what she wore.

A few weeks passed, exchanging pleasantries each Saturday but the feeling began to dawn on me that she was dropping hints and as I’ve never hung around like a bad smell where I wasn’t wanted, I thought it best to distance myself.  She’d now either be in a corner of the carriage or down the other end and that seemed a clear enough message, which I took.

There was another factor, which was that she was hard to keep the eyes off and that was exactly why the only choice was to keep away.  So weeks went by where she was always on this side of the train when I joined it, I noticed from the platform where she was sitting and went down the other end.

This Saturday just gone, I had things on my mind on the platform and was thinking about those.  I got on the train, turned left and there she was – right there, opposite, on the first seat.  Not only that but as I looked about the carriage, the other seats seemed occupied – genuinely so because I had every intention of escaping a.s.a.p.  I mumbled something half to myself about there being no other place, then half sat, legs in the aisle, trying half not to be there.

This was stupid, so I just said hi.

Her smile hit me amidships and I remember saying something about work and she said she was tired and then I said, “I had a little present for you but I forgot it.”

“Oh?” she replied, “that’s nice,” and I felt such an idiot, then promptly exacerbated it by saying, “Yes, just those chocolate things -” and then the mind went blank on what brand they were.  So I started describing them.  “There are three of them and they’re in balls, you know and …”  It was s-o-o-o embarrassing.

Actually they’d been Ferrero Rocher and there were three reasons I hadn’t given them.  One was this fear of what she’d think, the second was philosophical – a young lady should have the right to travel to work each Saturday without a codger like me annoying her and the third was simple logic – for what would I give them?  As there was nothing I really wanted from her, then it seemed silly to give her a present.

This week I’ll get her something fairly insignificant but nice – haven’t thought about what yet – and will put a cardlet with it, on which I’ll just write the url of this post.  That’s all.   I can only hope she doesn’t take it the wrong way.

Why do it?   Think it might have something to do with Mark Wadsworth‘s comment two Julys ago:

“Bloody hell, you don’t half over-intellectualise …”

Chessalee is one of my favourite sites but like Jesse, the main subject matter is esoteric, both from a chess point of view and also because I can’t read Dutch/Afrikaans, much as I’d like to. Plus there seems to be a focus on men much of the time, whereas I focus on women – nothing strange there.

The author, Nikita, has been what I hope I can call a friend for years now and when I found the quote below, I thought she’d actually taken it from my post the other day but no – it seems to have been written by someone else. Amazing how different peoples, quite independently, come to the same conclusion:

A people are what its women are. The woman is the conscience of her nation as well as the measure of its values. The moral life of a nation is controlled by the women and by the women can we measure the moral condition of the people.

Absolutely and that’s why I bang on and on about women and their failure today to take their rightful place in society, about how society has failed its girls and by extension, it’s women.  Mothers are failing to impart proper values and schools are allowing teachers in who are allowing, even encouraging their girls to be abused and their boys emasculated, filling their heads with PCishness.

This condition of our females is underscored in my dealings with Eastern European women and the stylish gracefulness, family values and seductive accents of many of them – just the way they move is different.  Yesterday I learnt to say: “Jo reggelt, szep holgy,” [had to leave out the accent marks] in Magyar, similar to gnadige frau[lein].  Obviously we do have a remnant of women with dignity, virtue and its consequent beauty but one needs to look for it in the English-speaking west these days and it’s certainly not represented in our parliaments.

Above and below are examples of Nikita’s art.

As you’d expect, the images are the work and property of Nikita and fair use policy applies.

1 Hermitage St Petersburg

As a child, museums did little for me apart from the Natural History Museum and the mummies in the British Museum.  Today it’s a bit different.  There are some amazing museums around the world and at home, from the specialist ones as the marvellous Railway Museum at York and the Imperial War Museum at Duxford to the great art museums that abound round the world and here.

2 Guggenheim NY

Obviously i have seen very few of the total and not being a museum “buff” cannot comment on the majority but some leave more of an impression than others, not just for the contents – for that is what they are all about – but for the buildings that hold these collections.

3 Guggenheim Bilbao

The buildings range from wonderful conversions of old palaces – Louvre, Hermitage, Uffizi – to conversions of other buildings such as railway stations, power stations and other disused industrial premises and the purpose built of today, many of which are controversial in the way they show the contents and the buildings themselves create comment in their own right.

4 Uffizi Florence

I’m not getting into an argument on modern architecture – there’s been plenty of flack fired in that direction on this blog.  What i will say is there’s good and bad architecture in all eras – the two Guggenheim museums shown i have visited, the NY one i loved for the way it displayed art,the Bilbao one is, to me, just a fantastic building that also displays art.  Others are not so successful, such as the recent disaster built in Colchester, a monument to the wastage of public money on a building not fit for purpose.

5 Museum of Contemporary Art Rio de Janeiro

But of the few i have liked, one stands out – the Musee d’Orsay in Paris.  This converted railway station only happened because a previous station in Paris had been demolished without any public consultation and when the Gare d’Orsay was to follow, there was a public outcry at the loss of a beautiful building, so competitions were held for it to be adapted for the purpose of a museum and another for the interior decoration, layout etc.

6 Musee d’Orsay

The first part went to three young French architects and the second part to an Italian, Gae Aulenti.  The museum from the art nouveau period holds art, sculpture, ceramics and furniture from the period and is rightly famous for its collection of impressionist art.  For me, the place just works.  It’s not the vast space of a Louvre that one could never see all of and is just a lovely conversion.  Since my last visit a while ago, the place has been revamped inside, the reviews as to the success of this are mixed but not having seen them, i reserve judgement.

7 Musee d’Orsay interior

Photos: all are wiki free license except the replacement exterior of the D’Orsay which is mine. [Wiggia]

She stunned viewers and fans alike when she called the professional skier a ‘big woman’ live on TV. But today, Dancing On Ice judge Katarina Witt apologised to Chemmy Alcott and said she meant her comment to be complimentary.

Look, if the woman is big, then she’s big.  If she’s fat, that’s another matter.  In the words of Steve Harley of Cockney Rebel: “She weighed 203 but that was OK by me – it was lots of action.”  Witt said she herself was big, so let’s check that:

Actually, it was just an excuse to run pics of Katarina Witt.

In the light of the history of the Costa Concordia, two of my favourite stories are:

Ghosts of the Great Lakes

• The Great Lakes are not without their ghost ships either. In September of 1678, the Griffon left Lake Michigan’s Green Bay… and vanished. Yet in following years, several sailors claimed to have seen the Griffon afloat on the lake.

• The famed Edmund Fitzgerald, an ore freighter which sank in Lake Superior on November 10, 1975 losing all 26 of its crew, was sighted by a commercial vessel 10 years later.

• A recreational diver exploring the depths of Lake Superior in 1988 came upon the wreckage of the steamer Emperor. Swimming inside the old wreck, the diver swears he saw the ghost of a crewman lying on a bunk who turned and looked at him.

Faces in the Water

James Courtney and Michael Meehan, crew members of the S.S. Watertown, were cleaning a cargo tank of the oil tanker as it sailed toward the Panama Canal from New York City in December of 1924. Through a freak accident, the two men were overcome by gas fumes and killed.  

As was the custom of the time, the sailors were buried at sea. But this was not the last the remaining crew members were to see of their unfortunate shipmates. The next day, and for several days thereafter, the phantom-like faces of the sailors were seen in the water following the ship.

This tale might be easy to dismiss as maritime legend if it weren’t for the photographic evidence. When the ship’s captain, Keith Tracy, reported the strange events to his employers, the Cities Service Company, they suggested he try to photograph the eerie faces – which he did.

And no focus on the sea would be complete without a look at the words of wisdom superstitions of the sea.  Here are some of them again:

# Jury’s out on the efficacy of the black cat onboarad. 

#  A ring around the moon is often thought to portend approaching rains, while a rising moon during a storm means the skies will soon clear. If a partial moon is tipped downward, rain is also on the way, with the reverse suggesting fair weather ahead.

#  Pouring wine on the deck will bring good luck on a long voyage.

#  Respect the albatross, beware the petrel.

#  Red sky at night, shepherd’s delight. Red sky at morning, sailors’ warning.

#  Never leave port on a Friday – leave on a Sunday.

#  What the sea wants, the sea shall have.

#  You should never rename a boat.

#  Priests, flowers or women on the ship do not augur well unless it is a half-naked woman of wood on the prow.

#  Carry no bananas on board.

#  Never start a voyage on the first Monday in April.

# Avoid people with red hair when going to the ship to begin a journey.

#  Don’t start a voyage on the second Monday in August.

#  Starting a cruise on Dec. 31 is bad.

Sailors do tend to follow these or at least are uneasy when they don’t, including yours truly.  While I’d go under a ladder out of sheer defiance, I wouldn’t defy the sea – it would seem foolhardiness so to do.

Moderate levels of alcohol delivered an increase in longevity among test subjects in a recent study that Steven Clarke, UCLA professor of chemistry and biochemistry and senior author on a study published yesterday in the journal PLoS One, described as “shocking”.

“This finding floored us” he told the UCLA newsletter.

The booze boost was particularly strong for test subjects put under stressful conditions, with the scientists noting that the addition of small amounts of pure alcohol produced significantly more robust looking subjects, compared to a control “teetotal” group.

Stands to reason and you’ll recall:

The horse and mule live 30 years
And never knows of wines and beers
The goat and sheep at 20 die
Without a taste of scotch or rye.

The cow drinks water by the ton
And at 18 is mostly done.
The dog at 15 cashes in
Without the aid of rum or gin.

The modest, sober, bone-dry hen
Lays eggs for nogs and dies at 10.
But sinful, ginful, rum-soaked men
Survive three-score years and 10.

And some of us, though mighty few
Stay pickled ’til we’re 92.

[H/T Chuckles]

The first place I went when Laura Dekker completed her voyage was to Abby Sunderland’s blog and sure enough, Abby had congratulated her.  You’ll recall Abby was the girl who had to be picked up from the ocean near Australia after a less than well thought out voyage on a speed machine in the wrong season.

That showed a graciousness which was missing from Jessica Watson and that’s a pity.  It may be that she’ll write something in the next few days but Ms Watson was asked several times about Ms Dekker and said, basically, that she knew it was happening and that was that.  Pity because her own voyage was better thought out and completed than the other girls’.

Of course there’s no obligation for anyone to recognize anyone else in order to be a significant achiever but there seems just a bit too much of the me me me to Jessica Watson since the end of her own voyage.  Still, they’re young.  Against that though, the sailing community tend to recognize one another and yes, I made certain record attempts when I was 23 and there was some comment among fellow sailors at the time.

If you look at the Ellen MacArthurs, Jessica Watsons and Laura Dekkers of the world, they’re unusual and have long histories of sailing and teeth-gritting determination. Chichester was like that too – they’re a bit unusual and if we measure them as selfish, that’s part of the make-up in getting across the line.

On balance, along with Francis Joyon [great man, appalling music over the clip - just hit mute], Franck Cammas and Loick Peyron, these people have “the right stuff” for such feats and not everyone has. Abby didn’t – lovely kid but didn’t really have what it took.  It’s a pity too that others who did the voyage are not recognized or are forgotten – our own Mike Perham and Zac Sunderland [Abby's brother]. are cases in point but they’re not pretty young girls, are they?  They do seem really decent young men too.

As for the record, it is so annoying that “authorities” refuse to recognize records for political purposes.  Whatever you think of Laura Dekker, she did go round the world, in the sense that she started and finished in the same place so to hell with effing “authorities” who are men behind desks who set themselves up to pontificate on things such as whether they went a certain number more kilometres or whatever.  I’ve zero respect for such like.  The world recognizes this record and to hell with it.

Well done to Laura Dekker.  Yes, she and all the others had massive backers and support, sponsors and support crews – the game is not cheap and is certainly not entirely alone, except when you’re actually there on that boat.  Then you’re quite alone.  There’s something Joshua Slocum and Jules Verne about it all and long may such human achievement continue.

Got home quite cream-crackered and only wanted three things – wine, to make the cottage pie, to sleep.  One and two have now been achieved.

Apologies in advance for the bragging but that had to have been one of the best cottage pies I’ve ever shoved in the oven.  At our work, I spied a rectangular casserole dish for two portions and bought it.  Couldn’t wait to get home and try it.  The pic above is the one closest to the eventual result.

We were talking about the difference between cottage and shepherd’s pie earlier today and different people have different ideas.  My mum once said it was that you put cheese on top of one and not the other.  My lady colleague today said it was that cottage pie has the spuds thinly sliced [which I did], whereas shepherd’s pie has the mash in a rough pattern.  Wiki says it is beef in cottage pie and mutton in shepherd’s pie.

I don’t care – it’s all scrumptious in the extreme.  You know that feeling an hour after a dish when it is still reverberating around you – that’s how it is now.  Mind you, the coffee, choc and whisky has helped that feeling along a bit.

Anyway, better press publish before I nod off.

………..

Oh and by the way, my blog was meant to be migrated today, hence no posts or comments but apparently my host was having a bit of a joke on me.  Not to worry.  I understand that it might mean the end of the blog but I won’t be able to announce that until tomorrow after 5 p.m.

1 Polytechnic building foyer

LONDONS FIRST OLYMPICS AND THE REGENTS STREET POLYTECHNIC

Back in the 1950s as a young racing cyclist, it was suggested to me by a friend who was a member to join the Polytechnic Cycling Club, although I knew well of them being the most successful track club in the country I had no idea of the organisation and what it stood for that was behind it.

It was only when entering the imposing marble foyer that the scale and importance of the Poly started to make an impression on me, climbing the stairs and seeing the names engraved above the door to the inner rooms, names that had been awarded the Studd trophy for the best Poly athlete in any sport each year, reading like a who’s who of world Olympic and national champions from 1880s – I couldn’t fail but be impressed.

2 Polytechnic marathon trophy approx 4ft

The building was acquired in 1881 by Quintin Hogg whose vision for the Polytechnic was to educate “mind body and spirit”.  It was a mission by a Victorian philanthropist to expand the sciences and encompass arts and humanities; the Polytechnic soon became the model for all future Polys and acquired an international reputation for technical education and expanded greatly.

But the Poly was more than that – it was open to and openly encouraged people to attend lectures, performances and to join and take part in its sports clubs and in this it succeeded so that by 1929 it had 5000 members participating in sports and social clubs.

3 White City stadium

The London Olympics of 1908 should have been in Rome but by 1906 the preparations were well behind schedule and the eruption of Vesuvius in April of that year meant that resources were diverted to helping in the reconstruction of Naples and probably saved them from failing to have the games ready on time.

So it was that London was asked to step into the breach by the IOC.

4 London’s toastmaster,no tannoy in those days

The challenge of preparing for the games with barely two years notice was formidable but was taken up by Lord Desborough, an aristocrat who as an Oxford Blue in the Boat Race – he’d climbed the Matterhorn and swum across the base of the Niagara falls – at only 25 he took up the challenge and set to work .

He persuaded the organisers of the Franco-British Exhibition of 1908 to build the stadium on ground adjacent to the exhibition site at their own expense (they also donated a sum to the running of the games); in return they would receive a portion of the gate receipts.

5 Opening ceremony with the Poly

And the games did indeed make a small profit; the stadium that included a cycle track, swimming pool and track and field facilities was built to accommodate 66000 spectators and up to 130000 standing on terraces.  Allof  this was completed in ten months and the stadium became known as the White City after the colour of its concrete structure.

The one big problem that London had when accepting the games at such short notice was in the organization; they simply did not have the skills to organize such an event on that scale nor people with the ability to organize in the numbers required, so they turned to the only organisation that had those qualities in London – the Polytechnic.

6 Standing high jump 5′ 5″

Many organisations, London’s various guilds etc., raised large sums of money and and gave free admissions to venues throughout London to help the cause and to entertain the visitors.

Again, though it was the Polytechnic that set up a Housing and Reception Committee for the benefit of foreign competitors to provide lists of hotels and other suitable accommodation that could be selected before their arrival, indeed many competitors stayed at the Poly itself; the Polytechnic also conferred honorary membership on all competitors during their stay in England

7 Pole vault 12′ 7″ no flexible pole, no soft landing

This gave them the use of the swimming baths, gymnasium, refreshment rooms and other facilities at the Regents Street building plus the twenty acre recreation ground catering for many sports and the Polytechnic boathouse and boats at Chiswick.  Arrangements were made for trips to various places for the competitors such as Windsor and Stratford on Avon and an information bureau was also set up in the Poly.

It was the games themselves where the Poly really showed what they could do, as they were responsible for the arrangements of both the opening and closing ceremonies and the Olympic marathon , this latter event was run in its entirety by the Polytechnic Harriers who surveyed the course, negotiated with all the councils whose area the race passed through and supplied all the officials needed; the Polytechnic Cycling Club supplied members to accompany all the runners during the race.

8 Steeplechase,the games suffered from terrible weather

The marathon was such a success that the Polytechnic was asked to organise an annual marathon through London thereafter; the Polytechnic Marathon became the world’s premiere marathon with the world record being broken in it no fewer than six times, it continued until 1986 and was succeeded by the London marathon, the magnificent trophy awarded by the Sporting Life for the first Poly marathon is a story on its own, having been given in perpetuity by the Sporting Life to the Poly Harriers.

In ’91, the race was revived and the Mirror Group who had purchased the Sporting Life renovated the trophy and kept it in safe keeping as to its value and the fact the Poly by then had, in effect with the institute become Westminster University in ’86; the sports clubs largely disbanded and the Harriers amalgamated with Kingston AC as there was nowhere else safe for it.

9 100mts sprint start, no blocks

But in ’94, a statement from the Mirror Group said the trophy “owned by them” was on permanent loan to the London Marathon!

Despite protests, the Sporting Life and the Mirror Group failed to acknowledge the Polytechnic Harriers’ claim to the trophy and without legal documentation, the now impoverished Poly Harriers, with no institute behind them, were in no position to go any further.

It’s now been renamed the Chris Brasher memorial trophy.

10 Marathon en route

Fortunately, the Polytechnic Marathon lives on as the 1908 Olympic marathon was run over a course from Windsor Great Park to the finish in the stadium a distance of 26 miles 385 yds.  All marathons to that time had been over 25 miles but the course was extended so that it could be viewed from the royal apartments in Windsor and the first Poly Marathon in 1909 and all subsequent ones  to this day have been run over that distance.

11 Marathon competitor with escort

There were 27Polytechnic athletes who competed in the games, in various sports and they won ten medals, an outstanding performance at a time when there were far fewer events than in the present day Olympics .

The Polytechnic continued to produce champions in many sports at at all levels, world, olympic and national, till the end of ’86, when it became the Westminster University and all the sports clubs either disappeared, amalgamated or declined; the Harriers were allowed to keep the forty acre sports ground and stadium at Chiswick but eventually could not afford the upkeep and left, all a long way from the glory days of the “Poly Boys “.

12 This was a staged photo by the hurdles winner,  protesting at having to run on a Sunday, note Bible in hand

On a finishing note, Lord Hailsham, Quintin Hogg’s son, was also quite involved with the Polytechnic and I knew of one case first hand where a club member wrote to him for legal advice and he received a reply and advice in longhand 48 hours later – I bet you don’t get that sort of service from the Westminster University.

It is also strange that apart from archive material and a few small notes in articles difficult to come by that no mention is ever made on the Polytechnics involvement in those games; the official IOC site references to the 1908 games mention not one thing of the Polytechnic and several well written newspaper articles usually written when a games is imminent or as and when were announced the winners of the bid to win the 2012 games, yet not a word about the Poly, without whose input, the 1908 games may have struggled to go ahead.

13 England’s cycling pursuit team,even they had on occasions to ride on a wet track,unheard of these days

The foyer photo is Wiki free license, the trophy photo is anon wordpress, the black and white are University of Westminster archive although many are available elsewhere. Any copyright issues, contact the webmaster here [email address in sidebar] and it will be dealt with.

Update: Nick Mason,Richard Wright and Roger Waters:

… all studied and got degrees in architecture at the Regents Street Polytechnic,Mason and Waters met there in ’63 and the rest is history as they say.

2. Tin of ASDA’s Mexican chicken [or Thai green or whatever takes your fancy] opened, at the ready.

3. Pull out two spuds from your in-the-dark, teatowel covered box [I keep mine next to the electricity cupboard near the front door], wash, cut out the eyes [hate them], julienne spuds and put in the oven at 200, on baking tray.

4. More wine.

5. Slice the tenderheart [sweetheart] cabbage, make little squares from the red pepper and steam with black pepper and honey.

6. Get the half a chicken out of the fridge [in my case, the bath with 3 inches of cold water], put the ASDA tin contents into a cereal bowl, put the bitsy bits of the chicken into this for the evening meal [later to go with buckwheat], put the two larger pieces of breast in the foil tray.

7. More wine.

8. As the finishing time of the spuds comes up, in goes the [precooked] chicken to crisp a bit, warm plate too.

9. Out with plate, arrange the veg on said plate.

10. Out with the julienned spuds, recover the ones that flew everywhere* and tip onto plate on one side, out with the chicken and put that on the plate in its “corner”, tablespoon some of the sauce from the tin over said chicken and voila.

11. Turn oven off and more wine. NB: the wine was not to cook the meal in, only to accompany it.

12. Switch now to water, eat.

19. Do the dishes immediately before you relax. Switch to dessert wine.

22. Pull out the apple you stewed yesterday, put with the Iceland apple crumble and rhubarb crumble mixed [done yesterday], crisp up a bit more in the oven, which is now losing heat.

14. Take out, arrange, add yoghurt of choice in one “corner”, pour the coffee [has been doing its thing all along], pour the whisky and have the Toblerone at hand.

79. Relax and write this post.

97. More dessert wine, just to make sure.

101. Coffee, toblerone and whisky time. Memo – buy Drambuie on Wednesday.

………..

* The 3 second rule: presuming your kitchen floor is cleaned and washed recently, any food falling on it, if scooped up within three seconds is still edible – scrutinize carefully and discard iffy bits.

These are just two of the foods you can cook without the use of pots and pans:

1. Oatmeal

Put two packets of instant oatmeal into the carafe. Add an individual packet of honey, an individual packet of fruit jam, and a pinch of salt. Put an herbal tea bag (e.g. orange flavored) into the filter basket. Pour 8-10 ounces of water into the coffee maker, turn on the machine, and the oatmeal will be ready in about 5 minutes.

2. Broccoli

Fill a coffee filter with six broccoli florets. Load into the coffee maker. Run six cups of water through for tender but still crisp veggies.

See more here.

Answer [and attribution] later.

He seems to have solved one of the primary reasons sailors don’t use the dipping lug on modern boats. The dipping lug is a beautiful sail and those with it aboard report it is powerful too. So it should be, as it uses the principle of the foot running along the gunwhale from the bow for more powerful airflow. This is as the crab claw uses, another powerful sail.

It truly has to be one of the easiest handled once it’s up – it’s just a jib, after all – and in most eyes, it’s a sail of elegance.  The critical words though are “once it’s up” because that is the issue. Various sailors report that they’re knackered after having to go about or change tack a few times.

With the modern sailboat, the craft goes through the eye of the wind, the sails set on the other side and that’s that. Modernists can rightly ask why anyone needs anything more.

Well, expense for a start. The ubiquitous tall Bermudan rig requires major bracing for the increased stresses – spreaders, diamonds, stays, backstays and heaps of lead in the keel to balance the monstrosity. The sails are good upwind but not downwind and so spinnakers are required – another expense. The boat leans far more than with the old styles.

A lug is just a sheet of material with a bit of wood holding it aloft, the mast can be short and fat, requiring no stays beyond an optional running backstay, the centre of effort is low to the water, making the motion much more pleasant and taking the stresses and strains out. This was why the design was used for so long – it works.

The problem with the yard on one side of the mast is tacking the boat – changing sides.  Traditionally, it took a few men to drop the yard, dip it so that the peak goes down and round the mast, the whole of the sail needs to be pulled through and the sail rehoisted and reset – every single time you change direction.

The price of beauty.

And the danger was legendary.  That yard on a 600 sq ft sail packed a wallop and if the sail got into bother, that was a a lot of force acting on the crew.  Modern sails, though they place near impossible forces at points of the hull, don’t have these issues.  So why bother with the dipping lugger?

Well, some of the reasons were given above but square foot for square foot, this is a most efficient sail, giving you more “bang for your buck” to employ an excruciating Americanism.  Once up, it sets beautifully, as stated and the boat moves well – this is a lifting rig, keeping the bow up.  It’s also conducive to a shallow shoal keel.  it’s a beautifully controlled sail, which is why the fishermen used them.

Now, if the tacking problem is solved as the man in the clip appears to have done – and I don’t consider having two sails, one either side, alternately raising and lowering, is a solution – then it comes right back into contention as an option on a cruising boat where tacking is less important than straight line ability, especially downwind.  Put two of these on a boat, using the solution in the clip and you have more power, including windward ability, than you would need.

This makes for lower masts, less area, less expense, more easily repairable, lower stresses and costs all round, quite easily reefed.

I like it.

Fashion is a form of ugliness so intolerable that we have to alter it every six months. [Wilde - one of the endlessly quoted lines no one seems to know the source details of]

Nowhere is modern uglification more sharply defined than in the laughingly described “high” fashion world. Leaving aside the fashions themselves, look at the models. Who told them to scowl, to have darkened eyes, to frown and look as ugly as they can, to act like satan’s cloned spawn, the Agent Smithettes of the runway?

The mafia controlling the fashion world did, of course, a world of Versace murderers and others less visible. It’s no less than the assassination of the human spirit and it’s a very political move.

Schiller Institute:

Music is everywhere, almost unavoidable—but it does not uplift, nor even tranquilize—it claws at the ears, sometimes spitting out an obscenity. Our plastic arts are ugly, our architecture is ugly, our clothes are ugly.

There have certainly been periods in history where mankind has lived through similar kinds of brutishness, but our time is crucially different.

Our post-World War II era is the first in history in which these horrors are completely avoidable. Our time is the first to have the technology and resources to feed, house, educate, and humanely employ every person on earth, no matter what the growth of population.

Yet, when shown the ideas and proven technologies that can solve the most horrendous problems, most people retreat into implacable passivity. We have become not only ugly, but impotent.

One of Benjamin’s most oft-quoted statements [was]: “Truth is the death of intention.”

This philosophical sleight-of-hand allows one to do several destructive things. By making creativity historically-specific, you rob it of both immortality and morality.

They want truth relativistic:

One cannot hypothesize universal truth, or natural law, for truth is completely relative to historical development. By discarding the idea of truth and error, you also may throw out the “obsolete” concept of good and evil; you are, in the words of Friedrich Nietzsche, “beyond good and evil.”

The whole vast construct, a worldwide construct by the way, which is one frightening aspect of it is, at the very least designed to minimize and excuse evil and in its final Nietzschean form – to deny evil altogether. That good and evil do not exist, that truth does not exist. That uplifting beauty is only in the eye of the beholder. A savage in a pit of ordure, in a hell-hole dystopia will have a completely different view of beauty and reality to a normal person from a previously untainted time.

This relativism states that that previously untainted time, which they did not experience themselves, is nothing more than relative – that the values and truths of that time were relative too and that today’s wallowing in the mire, bodies mutilated in grotesque tattooing, is just as beautiful. It’s persuasive [to them], just as leftist ideology is cunning enough to be persuasive to the left-liberal because they see themselves as the good people, nothing is sacred, nothing is intrinsically true.

Epistemology becomes a poor relation of public opinion, since the artist does not consciously create works in order to uplift society, but instead unconsciously transmits the ideological assumptions of the culture into which he was born.

The issue is no longer what is universally true, but what can be plausibly interpreted by the self-appointed guardians of the Zeitgeist.

The purpose of modern art, literature, and music must be to destroy the uplifting—therefore, bourgeois — potential of art, literature, and music, so that man, bereft of his connection to the divine, sees his only creative option to be political revolt.

“To organize pessimism means nothing other than to expel the moral metaphor from politics and to discover in political action a sphere reserved one hundred percent for images.”

Art was made ugly because, it was said, life had become ugly.

Thus, Benjamin collaborated with Brecht to work these theories into practical form, and their joint effort culminated in the Verfremdungseffekt (“estrangement effect”), Brecht’s attempt to write his plays so as to make the audience leave the theatre demoralized and aimlessly angry.

We will have to face the fact that the ugliness we see around us has been consciously fostered and organized in such a way, that a majority of the population is losing the cognitive ability to transmit to the next generation, the ideas and methods upon which our civilization was built. The loss of that ability is the primary indicator of a Dark Age.

Demoralized and aimlessly angry – this is the current state of society as a result of so many political/ideological changes but it is also a conscious goal of modern art.  The one reflects the other, which in return furthers and reinforces the other and so on.  The Mail introduces the idea that people are weary of democracy, on account of the behaviour of the political masters.  People discuss it, it enters consciousness.  Later, in referring back to it, a second article inserts, innocently: “As people increasingly turn against democracy” and so it goes.

Having created an age of ugliness, the new human spiritual and emotional wastelands are now represented in physical form, i.e. the art and fashion of the day, including music and architecture.

People are no longer able to discern beauty or the idea of uplifting, they can’t see that what is universally ugly is any more than personal opinion on aesthetics.  Yes they can have their opinion but if it is not based on any historicity of aesthetics, then it is very much moving towards the nazification and Stalinization period of the 30s, adapted for the teen years of the new millennium.

“The fundamental problem with modern life is…it’s ugliness,” said Chesterton. “Men are walking in their sleep and trying to wake themselves up with nightmares.”  there are no Masters today, because we’ve lost that sense of wonder, trying instead to create thrills with large-scale installations, abstract or surrealist paintings, and even films that frighten or disgust.

Instead of the subtlety of the whole process leading to the “entertaining part”, as the Schiller Institute writer says:

This new passivity, Adorno hypothesized in a crucial article published in 1938, could fracture a musical composition into the “entertaining” parts which would be “fetishized” in the memory of the listener, and the difficult parts, which would be forgotten.

Thus the slamdunk is the only important part of a basketball game and the buildup is forgotten. The wizardry of a spin bowler holding two batsmen scoreless for thirty minutes is boring, so it is eliminated in favour of 20/20 matches or big-hitting games where the big hit is the only important element. Drum and bass without the melody and overlaid parts. The blogpost, the “bites of life”, without the substance which people no longer have time for.

Benjamin referred to “the age of mechanical reproduction of art.”   As technology brings great art to the masses via the net, it also reproduces and reduces it to endlessly repeated bites, devoid of soul.  It’s like someone shallow “doing” a country she’s travelled to – we “did” China last year.

In the end, it trivializes greatness, does dirt on it.  Just as the very act of using a woman’s wrong passage in sex does dirt on the designed purpose of sex and just as porn trivializes and debases the whole experience in favour of the “slamdunk” highlight only, so the whole experience of modern life and the capacity of the human for greatness, even in the rationalist view that Man can be great by himself, is termited, white-anted, corroded, debased.

The direness of it all was brought to you by certain icons of modern thought – it’s not accidental or part of any natural cycle in the least although they certainly recur in alarming loops.  Eliminate these people and you’ve eliminated the problem.

In so doing though, you might have created a new and more terrifying beast than the uglifiers themselves. That’s also factored in. The Great Psychological Drama, the Great Work of Ages.

Answers tomorrow morning, clues along the way perhaps.

………..

While sport might leave you cold, Aussie sport particularly so, something happened between 2009 and 2011 which has all the elements of high drama – if it had happened over here, it would have been the stuff of legend.

There were villains, quislings, heroes, the overcoming of adversity and the renewal of self-belief after a series of kicks in the gut.

I thought it was a bit OTT when a fan made a video tribute [at the end, below] and used the Celtic song from Gladiator but later it actually seemed appropriate. Bear with me while I tell the story – it’s one from far shores which could inspire our country, if our country was but interested.

It’s a story of triumph when all seemed lost.

When my family emigrated to Oz, they settled in sleepy hollow, the town of Geelong, along with so many others from Yorkshire. One thing the town had going for it was a football team, actually one of the original two in the AFL, circa 1859, the only smalltown team to play major league. The area was a farming community and quite conservative and from the get-go, that team developed a style of play which they’ve never altered – slick passing, finessing, moving the ball quickly.

They were known for being impossible to catch if they had a sniff of victory:

… but if you could run at them hard, tie them up, entangle them and demoralize them, you could win. Some of the greatest finals have been against Geelong, more usually with the opposition winning, a few times Geelong itself scraped in.

The other thing the town had going for it was Ford, major sponsors for decades and the giver of work in the local community.

By the 80s and 90s, GFC had hardly altered -some of the greatest individual players in the history of the game had come from there but they were provincial in many ways and lacked discipline, a point made by a friend of mine who played for Hawthorn, the power team of the 80s [when I was there]. The modern era of super-discipline and all playing for one, running as a rugby team does, hadn’t yet eventuated.

Fast forward to 2003, the era of the Brisbane Lions, a constructed team amalgamating two other clubs and they won three flags, showing a sort of skills mix and brutality combined which was hard to counter, especially as they recruited massive players. The coach of that team was an ex-Hawthorn champion, known for his no-nonsense, uncompromising play – his nickname was Lethal Leigh.

Geelong must have noted that and began clearing out the dead wood in management, getting in a recruiting team and slowly bringing in that uncompromising type of recruit. They had their ups and downs for a few years but believed they were on the right track.

It paid off in 2007:

In 2008, it was Hawthorn itself which was the nemesis of Geelong once again, which left a very bitter taste and made Geelong almost maniacal to win in 2009, which they did, over their other nemesis, St. Kilda, a most exciting finish:

And this was the play which made it into the American top ten plays list:

Thus an era came to a close in most people’s eyes. They’d been up there for so long, its stars were aging, they’d lost the desire by 2010, still making it to the finals, as Brisbane had done when they’d begun their downwards path but being brushed aside by a black and white team called Collingwood.

Those were dark days. Their best player was lured north by money and even their head coach walked out on the players, by the back door, leaving the club rudderless. Two wins in four years had been a good result. Management cast around and realized that two brothers from the all-conquering Brisbane side [now retired] were looking for coaching roles. They gave the job to one of the brothers, Chris and the football world were surprised at the high-risk strategy. Scott had been an uncompromising player, many called him a thug, a Vinnie Jones but he was the new coach, when all was said and done.

Here is a clip of the brothers:

Poetically, this below was Chris Scott’s final game as a player for one ageing champion team, Brisbane, against the side he now coaches and loves, also now an ageing champion team:

Here was the press conference:

He told the players a few quite crucial things. First he told them they still had the talent to take a flag in 2011. Most smiled. They really were past it, about seven were at retirement age. He told them to let him worry about that – he’d rotate them using the interchange system and would even rest them from certain games on a rota basis or as was needed. Young players would be blooded on those days.

They began to look at each other and started to think it was possible. Still, these were all words, weren’t they? The second thing was that he didn’t want to alter their game plan but tweak it in certain areas, particularly on the backline. Thirdly he conceded his admiration for them, even when he was riding high with Brisbane. He told them Brisbane had always seen them as a tough nut to crack.

Fourthly, he told them that there was more than one way to move a ball. The other sides might outrun their legs but if they handpassed quickly and kicked accurately to a contest, he saw them winning the majority of those individual contests and thus they’d score.

Geelong have always been a confidence side and here was this man, whom no one questioned for endeavour or “grunt”, challenging their pride in themselves, their manliness, their desire. He did it from inside though, as one of them. And as men, where once they’d been maverick boys, they nodded and got down to it.

The first match was their arch-rival St. Kilda and they couldn’t have been given more of a baptism of fire. The media had been on about “too old, too slow” and someone asked, “What about too good?”

Here are the final moments of that game, with St. Kilda headed for a tight win and about a minute and a half to go [ignore the youtube counter - look at the clock onscreen]:

Over the next few games, it became obvious that Chris Scott’s tough style as a player was now coming through in them and they had certain characteristics – if the opposition was slow or dropped the ball, they’d swoop and almost inevitably goal, often through sheer opportunism. Many said they were lucky but when the soccer kick along the ground or “bananered” in from the side had been done over and over, it became clear it was part of the game plan.

They’d now crunch opposition players and with the mix of mature and youngbloods, they started scoring huge wins over all but three teams – Hawthorn, St. Kilda and Collingwood. They beat Collingwood narrowly but still not many believed it was more than a flash in the pan. Hey, who said they weren’t talented? But they’re old – let’s see how they are after a hard season.

An air of confidence, almost arrogance, took hold. They knew in their hearts they could win against the worst thrown at them. The systems were working, they played for each other, no one individualized, everyone supported whoever had scored, as in the 2009 days. Belief had returned and other teams watched with quiet dismay.

Then they lost.

They lost to the very team their ex-coach had absconded to, so it was put down to his inside knowledge. Then they lost again. Later, they lost to a team on their own home turf, their impregnable citadel. Reality check. What people had been saying about too old, too slow looked true. Other sides had learned to negate the new game plan. It had been a fine dream.

With the average score in a game about 15 goals and sometimes in the 20s on a good day, they hit back at the original team in the comp [1856], this year placed about middle of the table and posted a 37 goal scoreline, to equal the AFL record, actually held by them from years earlier. Here is how they played that day:

They came back next week and did it again against someone else. With the finals approaching, other top sides were watching carefully. Meanwhile, St. Kilda’s star had faded a bit, Hawthorn was doing quite well but Collingwood were blitzing every other team by big scores, just as Geelong were. People were speaking of a Gee v Coll Grand Final. The interesting thing which had football lovers licking their lips was that in the final home and away round of the season, these two teams were scheduled to meet at the MCG, the finals ground. The scene was set for a showdown, Collingwood blitzed them in the first quarter and then this happened:

That was the top team and reigning premiers they’d done that to, not some club down the list. The 16 goal win to the Cats was dismissed by Collingwood as an aberration but they’d taken a heap of injuries and were beginning to see Geelong as its own nemesis. They’d lost only twice in the season – both times to Geelong.

Fans from other teams were posting things like:

I’m not a Geelong fan but I do enjoy watching you guys cream Collingwood, Carlton and Essendon etc.

Over here, I was still nervous, as usual, that Collingwood would come back but more than that, first the Cats had to get over their second nemesis Hawthorn, whom they were meeting on the very first day of the finals:

A few weeks later, what everyone had predicted came true – the two top sides would meet in the final. I was working that day, so I asked two friends to check scores and text me at work. As the time came, I was more than nervous – Collingwood would come back as they’re renowned to do, surely they’d save their best till last.

They did.

They had the Cats down for the count, the main Geelong forward suffered a cruciate injury and was subbed, they were down by quite a few goals and not playing well. Collingwood were hitting hard, getting revenge for Round 24. The premiers of 2010 were heading for back-to-back. The town of Geelong was hushed.

Near three-quarter time, Geelong managed to get a few back and it was neck and neck – one of the great Grand finals, according to pundits:

They stormed away in the last term for a third title in five years, when by the law of averages, they should have been in wheelchairs in the nursing home. Not only that but this year, 2011, they’ve been one of the most complete teams in history, with every element necessary, every box ticked and certainly they’ve been the greatest Geelong team ever. They’re rated by the media as “one of the greatest of the modern era”.

My little team. The catters. From sleepy hollow. Wow. I’m not even looking towards 2012 – many of their key players have now retired, the youngsters are now in. Good if they do well but understandable if they don’t. Of course the players themselves aren’t thinking that way. They’re remembering October 2010 and plan to do October 2011 all over again.

Technology is wonderful – I have copies of the games on file and I have a feeling we’ll not see their like again, the team of 2011. In this time of adversity in society, it’s teams like Geelong which keep my head up and chin thrust out. It’s the easiest thing in the world to transfer this emotion to the political playing field and give ‘em hell in 2012.

There is always, always, a spiritual element to greatness, to belief, to self-belief. Brilliance is when all the elements in your spirit, mind and body work together in harmony, a rare thing, to achieve the end.  Greatness is when you voluntarily dedicate, subordinate that brilliance to the greater good.

Voluntarily.

Because you wish to.

When many do that, it translates into victory.

… Rowan Hutchinson went for this little model:

… and who can blame him – check this out:

Anyway, see what you think.

End of the race

For those who haven’t caught up, in a few hours there’ll be a protest against the underdog Investec Loyal which pipped Wild Oats XI by 3 minutes in the marathon race.  The multi-million dollar WOXI was meant to win but its rival supermaxi took line honours.

Just found out that it was the race committee who protested, as they did last year, not the boat which came second:

For his part Richards [skipper of Wild Oats XI] said that no matter what happened in the protest room tomorrow, Investec Loyal had won the race.  “Those guys won on the water, we came second.  That’s how we think about it.  They deserve to win,” Richards said.

Jessica Watson, the round-the-worlder is skippering a youth team and they look to have done quite well really.  There doesn’t seem to be much else of note to report.  You can get all standings by clicking the pic in the left sidebar.

………..

UPDATE:  Protest dismissed, Investec Loyal line honours win confirmed.

………..

STOP PRESS:  Loki has been declared overall [handicap] winner.

… as well as running tumblehome along the length [narrows above the waterline]:

… you create a wave piercer which doesn’t go up and over the waves but through them.  The downside is that you’re going to have a very wet deck and if you combine all that with reverse sheer [upwardly curving deck]:

… you end up with something like this:

… or this:

… or this:

Aesthetics is in the eye of the beholder but comfort is too and the reason boats have used this configuration is to provide a much smoother ride through the water, important with guncarrying ships or for people who get seasick.

It therefore makes sense on a cruising boat in colder climes.  The wetness of the wash constantly coming from the bow precludes sitting outside on the deck and thus it’s not as good for warmer climes.  For the North Sea or North Atlantic though, it makes great sense, especially if the hull is long and narrow, as in multihulls and longer monohulls.  It would be silly for an under 30′ monohull.

With any design innovation, you need to look at who is using or has used it.  In the case of this combination, it’s been warships, speedy catamaran passenger ferries, catamarans, trimarans over 60′ etc. – in other words, speed machines.  I’ve designed a 73 footer with 8 foot beam and one outrigger and it virtually “squats” on the water, with light ends of little windage and faired lines with tumblehome and curved wheelhouse.  The efficiency of the lines gives the luxury of carrying less sail, closer to the deck, which in turn allows unstayed masts [four of them].

Whether it’s beautiful or not is in the eye of the beholder.  It would sure be comfortable at sea.