The Olympic Torch

[gizzy]

So it's a new month, a new picture comes up on the four calendars hanging around my house, and I can actually get the torch live relay on my screen for a change. I'm finding the whole thing very uplifting. It comes through my own city on July 8, but it'll be in Formby, Lancs very soon.

I have to watch it, particularly with my right eye, whose cornea comes from Formby. 24 years ago, a "younger than usual" donor helped me to see. 20 years later, another donor cornea in the other eye, statistically probably younger than I was by that time. There are, I suppose only so many times you can cheat age by coming out of the operating theatre a teensy bit younger than you went in.

Have a bright - a BRIGHTER - day all of you, wherever you are on the route!

And if I can, I shall be watching it go up Hope Street in Liverpool where they're also going to be "passing" the peal of bells from one cathedral to the other. Oh dear, I'm fillin' up now! must go

xx

Gizzy in Cambridge

[Gill the Piano]

Conversely I'm sick of the whole thing already and find it a monumental waste of time and money just to watch people run round in vests.
Ah well, different strokes ad all that...

[gizzy]

waste of time and money just to watch people run round in vests.
D

Don't forget the shorts, though

[athomik]

I'm not bothered by the Olympics (never was interested even when they were organised properly), but it's the IOM TT and EURO 2012 next.

[gizzy]

Aerial view of Liverpool on BBC torch cam now. It is, as they say, looking stunning.
It's one of the several places I'm "from". I thought it was frightful when we first moved up there (I was almost dragged kicking and screaming, didn't want to leave Somerset) but that sight this evening is giving me a lump in the throat. Ex husband and one daughter still live there, and the other is on her way for extended leave as from Sunday.

Gizzy in (where was it this week?) Cambridge

[Gill the Piano]

it's the IOM TT and EURO 2012 next.

AAAAAAAAAAAAARGH! I may go down a hole and come back up when it's all over.

[Nutroast]

For me the Olympics has been ruined, I can't watch all those talented athletes who've put in so much training without thinking how the games that were supposed to showcase Britain is being sponsored by Cola, McDonalds etc etc etc.

It's all about making big ££$$$ for the companies that already have big ££$$$

What a shame. It's also priced some people out of the housing market in that area of London as rents have been hiked and the tourist industry will suffer as hotels are extra expensive and pre-booked up. That and the cost of security is going to cost this country an absolute fortune.

Do I sound like a grumpy old bag?

[gizzy]

It's the only way we could afford to host them. why on earth we wanted to (that's for some value of "we" of course) in the first place, when we saw what happened to Greece, I don't know. We went on holiday there while they were still building the stuff ready for the Olympics, and many people were already saying they feared the economy would suffer.

But isn't almost all sport heavily and publicly sponsored by megabuck companies? I feel I want to be resigned to the inevitable, look beyond it to the athletes and their own ideals. Not that we'll see a lot of it, as we go off to Orkney on holiday at the start of the fortnight and come back at the end, so we'll probably only see anything if it's too rainy to go out and we have to sit staring at the telly instead.

[Gill the Piano]

What really hacks me off is little old ladies knitting Olympic rings or little shops doing Olympic displays and some plank from the Olympic Committee coming round and telling them they can't do it because it infringes copyright. Arses.

[gizzy]

What really hacks me off is little old ladies knitting Olympic rings or little shops doing Olympic displays and some plank from the Olympic Committee coming round and telling them they can't do it because it infringes copyright. Arses.

Amen

I'm looking forward to watching on Sunday if I'm home. It goes to Orkney and Shetland. Happy memories of both those places, and we're going to be in Orkney, on South Ronaldsay, during the whole of the Olympic period.

I flew from Shetland to Orkney on my own in about 1998. I did the whole trip on my own because normally I'm good at the planning but no good at the finding my way around bit, and I wanted to prove to myself I could do it. Particularly I have no idea how to do airports. I needn't have worried when I got to Sumburgh in Shetland, there were two check-in desks right inside the front door, marked Aeroplane and Helicopter.

Nice view of the tiny diamond-shaped Fair Isle from the air

[gizzy]

Torch coming in to Cambridge around 6 this evening. I'll try and catch it where Brooks Road turns into Brookfields. You'll see me if you follow live, probably, as I will probably have Father Christmas with me (I'm married to him, you know, but the reindeer are only rented)

I read that it's preceded by a great razzmatazz of commercial vehicles from Cocal Cola and probably loads of banks etc, which of course you don't see because the last vehicle has the torchcam looking out of the back of it, so it gives the impression of the torchbearer leading the way.

I wonder if much fuss has been made of the grey-clad "outriders" who run and walk alongside the torchbearer. They have to do far more of the trip than the guy in white who is famous for about 2 minutes

[Gill the Piano]

Friends of ours are marshals for the stupid torch thing which will hold me up all next week. They were told that the sponsor vehicles will go first and C*ca C*la may be giving out samples, but Lloyds B*nk probably won't!

[gizzy]

Well, we saw it, and I've watched the video, but the camera suddenly pulls away from just where we were as they went round the corner, so you can't distinguish anyone. Walked a mile to get there, everyone very good humoured, especially the police, and we resisted as long as possible accepting a pair of "bambams" (sort of blow-up bags with Samsung written on them which make a noise when you bang them together, only the husband wanted to take a picture of me holding some.

When it appeared it was for about 10 seconds; our bearer was a nice young guy with Down's syndrome who does some sort of martial arts at world level, half walking, half jogging - and that was that, and everyone walked home again.

For serious stalkers, we're there somewhere at 18:26 and a bit.

[gizzy]

Oh, absolutely torn between watching the opening ceremony and finishing our packing. We're off to Orkney early tomorrow morning (6am coach to Luton). Travel arrangements have been one huge cock-up all along the line, all my fault, as I'm the household travel agent. No sleeper trains, whcih we had counted on; as we're staying on South Ronaldsay and wanted to take the ferry direct into there, the only other way is to fly (because I am NOT having my husband drive hundreds and hundreds of miles with the World's Worst Passenger sitting beside him)

But the nearest airport to the Pentland ferry port at Gill's Bay (hi Gill! ) is Inverness. OK, it's a long way north, but until you try to make your plans you may not realise just HOW much more Scotland there is north of there. Trains just won't do it. So we have to get a hire car from Inverness, all along the coast road via Wick, and keep it for the two weeks. This holiday is getting more and more expensive. Shall have to get a proper job when I get home!

And apparently it's going to be raining heavily all the way.

from my TV upstairs I have just heard I'm forever blowing bubbles!!!! Dave Brum alert... it's OK, it's finished now. Back to reality.

So wonderful to see them saluting the NHS in that ceremony! It looks wonderful in its detail but I can't help thinking I woulod be very confused watching all that various action from the audience.

Hope I'm going to survive this fortnight: my neck has been more and more troublesome, and while waiting for a physio appointment (they tell me it's "wear and tear" I was expecting a cervial collar from the chemist, but it hasn't arrived. The only way to keep my neck from jolting and clicking is to keep half-strangling myslef with a scarf, but I can't do that in bed. So my new song goes "co-co-codamol, pour 'em down me neck, zap the pain from inside out, that should.... ouch.... (feck)"

I'll try and keep youse all posted if I can get a signal from the land of the puffins and the stone age and the herring

Gizzy in Cambridge

[Gill the Piano]

I intend to manage two weeks without seeing a single scrap of the poxy o******s while I'm on holiday. I too am packing - I may be the only person you know who packs a bullnose chisel to go on holiday... Have a good one, Gizzy!