My Mandelbrot Set

I rather like the Olympic and Paralympic mascots. The Paralympic Mascot in particular is very cute, and clearly a cyclist with his padded gusset and aerodynamic vented head. Admittedly, I also think that the creature in Alien would have made a lovely pet if only someone had tapped it on the nose and said "no" firmly after it ate Brett and Dallas, and I have cuddly crocheted Cthulhus, so what do I know?

Anyway, when Tim discovered that the toy shop had all the Olympic and Paralympic paraphernalia heavily discounted, I was rather overjoyed to receive a giant Mandelbrot.*

I then decided that I needed more Mandelbrots, so that I could have a set of them (this makes me giggle far too much).

I have since realised that I missed a bad punning opportunity, and need to go shopping for more Olympic mascots, on order that I may have Much Wenlock, but in the meantime the Mandelbrot Set are fitting in well with the rest of the cuddly toy collection.

*OK, according to their labels, they're meant to be called Wenlock and Mandeville, but they'll always be Mandelbrot and Wensleydale to me.

Olympic road-races

The Olympic cyclists have spent this weekend racing on my local roads. It's been rather odd seeing roads that I cycle commute on (although only when I'm taking a detour due to deep snow or a quest for post-work BEER) shown on international TV and lined with cheering spectators.

On Saturday we headed down to Denbies' Vineyard where there was a cycling festival, beer, wine, and a big-screen TV. Also, a lot of sun. We watched the race on the TV, and rushed down to the road to cheer the cyclists past, before returning to the TV and beer.

The breakaway

The main peloton - Team GB working hard!

Today, the weather made Denbies' less appealing, so we stayed at home watching TV, and ran down to the High Street at the crucial point.

It's easy to tell when the peloton is approaching, because one of these appears overhead.

Some spectators had clearly made an effort

Lizzie Armitstead in joint lead

Nicole Cooke with the main peloton

Those struggling at the back got just as much applause as the leaders

The attitude of some local businesses has been a bit odd - my yoga studio (which does a "yoga for cyclists" class) has shut for the weekend, despite not even being on the Road Race route, saying that they don't think people will be able to get to the studio. Other shops (such as the mini supermarket) have opened extra late to deal with the increased and erratic demand. The pet shop next-door to the supermarket was unusually shut today. The bike shop was unusually open, and had a big screen TV inside (plus all the computer terminals on the tills were streaming iPlayer) showing the cycling. Most cashpoints in Dorking were empty yesterday, and the Penny Black seemed to have run out of beer. The Thai restaurant was serving beer from the Duke's Head next door. So it's all a bit odd with the way that business-owners seem to have not anticipated that ten thousand or so people coming to Surrey might want to spend money. Or maybe people just wanted the day off to watch the Beach Volleyball.

Edit: I've just heard that Lizzie Armitstead lost her "lucky Oakleys" on the ride (due to the rain) and would like them back. I'll keep my eyes open, though if she got a silver medal without them, she can't need them too much!

Olympic opening ceremony

So anyway, as I mentioned earlier, I went and had a sneak preview of the Olympic Park and the opening ceremony last week.

The janitor-type actors were all referred to as "Mario"s for their dungarees

The Olympic Park seemed perfectly adequate and fit for purpose - vast acres of concrete and food concessions (and a wonderful technique to tackle public drunkenness, because the only beer available was unremittingly awful). But there were lots of flowers and riverside walks which looked rather lovely, and the RAF who searched my bag (eventually - you could tell they felt awkward about it, because the RAF are Gentlemen, and a Gentleman Does Not Look In A Lady's Handbag) were impossibly polite and declared me the Official Olympic Confuser of the RAF because their scanner was thrown into confusion by one of my camera lenses. In fact, they were so polite that it made me realise that the normal levels of surly rudeness we take for granted by those in authority are utterly unnecessary, and I contemplated writing to The Telegraph about this.

Anyway. The ceremony itself was fantastic. I'm assuming everyone now has seen it on TV, and I have to say it was a privilege to be able to see it live and on the tellybox. Live, it was like a circus. We were surrounded by the action, and the Industrial Revolution sequence felt so realistic that my brain was utterly convinced that the Olympic Rings were freshly-forged steel, and not just clever pyrotechnics.

The drummers were all around us, and the entire stadium was shaking, and when the nightmare-creatures ran on during the NHS sequence (which was by far the best of the three sections) we were surrounded by screams and shrieks, and it was rather terrifying. I also utterly failed to recognise Kenneth Branagh or JK Rowling.

Bells. Some tubular

 

 

When it all goes wrong in the NHS, send in the Private Nannies!

 Because we only saw a dress rehearsal, the show was incomplete and a bit disjointed, and there were times when all the screens would go black and just play music. We worked out that James Bond would be arriving by helicopter, but we had no idea that he would be accompanied by Liz, playing herself.


The "House Party" sequence made a lot more sense on TV - live, it was a rather incoherent (if enthusiastic) jumble - possibly not helped by the fact that we hadn't been equipped with our 3D glasses.

 

On the whole, that was a lot of fun, and I'm glad I went.