Two More

Britain's gold collection continues to grow...

Nick Skelton, Ben Maher, Scott Brash and Peter Charles- Men's Team Equestrian Showjumping
Jason Kenny- Men's Sprint Cycling

Big Star & Nick Skelton













 Here's how the top 20 medals table stands as of the end of proceedings today:

Rank	Country				Total
1	China	31	19	14	64
2	United States	29	15	19	63
3	Great Britain & N. Ireland	18	11	11	40
4	South Korea	11	5	6	22
5	France	8	9	9	26
6	Russian Federation	7	17	18	42
7	Italy	7	6	4	17
8	Kazakhstan	6	0	1	7
9	Germany	5	10	7	22
10	Hungary	4	1	3	8
11	North Korea	4	0	1	5
12	Netherlands	3	3	4	10
13	Cuba	3	3	1	7
14	Belarus	3	2	3	8
15	New Zealand	3	1	4	8
16	South Africa	3	1	0	4
17	Ukraine	3	0	6	9
18	Japan	2	12	14	28
19	Australia	2	12	8	22
20	Romania	2	4	2	8

 

And There's More

Another brilliant day for team GB. It's fair to say it is extremely unlikely our haul of medals will catch either China or the USA but nevertheless things are looking very good in deed for this little island nation.

Ben Ainslie won his fourth gold by taking the lead in the Men's Sailing Finn, making him the most decorated Olympic sailor in history.

Later in the day Andy Murray destroyed Roger Federer, winning in straight sets (6-2, 6-1, 6-4) to take the the Men's Singles Tennis title. (A couple of hours later Murray and partner Laura Robson won silver in the Mixed Tennis final)

Team GB now has 10 bronze, 11 silver and 16 gold. China has 61 medals and the USA 60.

(Best not to mention what's been happening at Headingley in the Cricket LOL) 

Super Duper Saturday

Great Britain did quite well today. Gold medals were won by:

Mo Farrah- Men’s 10,000 Metres

Greg Rutherford- Men’s Long Jump

Jessica Ennis- Heptathlon

Laura Trott, Dani King & Joanna Rowsell- Women’s Team Pursuit Cycling

Katherine Copeland & Sophie Hosking- Women’s Lightweight Double Sculls Rowing

Andy Triggs Hodge, Pete Reed, Alex Gregory & Tom James- Men’s Coxless Fours Rowing

Caption not required, surely?

Now don't get me wrong- just because I'm only listing our gold winners doesn't mean I value our second and third placed competitors any less. Anyone deemed good enough to represent their country at the Olympics earns my respect. For a full list of Britain's gold, silver and bronze winners to date, visit the BBC news site here.

Team GB are now in third in the medal table with 14 gold, 7 silver and 8 bronze. Our old friends from Kazakhstan have 5 gold putting them in 8th.

While some of this was going on, Dad and SM (who are visiting for a few days) took LL and myself out in his new car to the National Trust house Basildon Park. This was used as the location of the 2005 film version of Pride and Prejudice which starred Keira Knightley dontchaknow. Here's a picture of the little fella (mostly) being sensible LOL.

 Stately home not included.

Three More

Victoria Pendleton- Women's Cycling Keirin

Stephen Burke, Ed Clancy, Geraint Thomas & Peter Kennaugh- Men's Cycling Team Pursuit Sprint

Katherine Grainger & Anna Watkins- Women's Rowing Double Sculls

Were the medals always this big?











Kazakhstan is for the moment at least a distant memory LOL.

Golden Day

After five days, Team GB has finally struck gold. In the women's rowing competition Helen Glover and Heather Stanning saw off challenges from Australia (silver), New Zealand (bronze) and the USA to win our first gold of London 2012.

 

Olympic rowing gold.










Later today a second gold followed, when 2012 Tour de France winner Bradley Wiggins added to his own impressive Olympic haul with a win in the cycling time trials at Hampton Court Palace. Fellow Brit Chris Froome came third with Tony Martin of Germany taking second place.

Well done to all our winners to date.

In the medals table Great Britain has moved up to 11th, a long way behind China, the USA and the likes of Kazakhstan! Now keep repeating: " It's not the winning but the taking part that counts." Yeah right.

London Calling*

The best show on Earth..?

RAF display team the Red Arrows overfly the Olympic stadium.











Am really very excited.


* The Clash.

4,500

Today some 4,500 beacons are being lit across the planet, in Commonwealth countries to mark the Queen's 60 year reign. These are being ignited at 10pm local time, with the first lit in Tonga, followed by New Zealand and Australia*. The final beacon will be lit tonight at around 10.30pm BST in London by Her Majesty at the end of a free concert in her honour.

Sadly it was announced shortly before the concert that the Queen's husband Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh had been taken ill and would not be at the Queen's side. It is expected he will spend a few days in a nearby hospital.



*It's always refreshing to see a staunch Republican like Aussie Prime Minister Julia Gillard having to acknowledge and pay tribute to Royalty LOL.

Long To Rain* Over Us

Wouldn't you know it- public holiday in the UK and it's chilly and raining! What happened to all the glorious weather we were enjoying last weekend? I'm seriously thinking about having to put the central heating back on for a bit.

Loving all the repackaged items currently in the shops, just in time for the Jubilee and Olympics.












* "God save our gracious Queen
Long live our noble Queen
God save the Queen
Send her victorious
Happy and glorious
Long to reign over us
God save the Queen"

I guess you might conclude I'm a bit of a Royalist at heart...

Pageant

LL and I took a trip to Henley on Thames today with a view to walking along the tow path into town and take in the sights of all the street decorations. Instead we arrived (by chance) just in time to experience the river pageant. Not the official river Thames pageant with the royal family at the head of the procession but a somewhat more amateur affair. It was a whole a lot of fun anyway.

Here's a selection of images I captured from our vantage point on the bridge...

Oh and happy 700th blog post to me!

Cuppa

What better way to start celebrating the Queen's Diamond Jubilee weekend? Cheers!

At Last

Temperatures in my little part of England finally exceeded 25 degrees Celsius (around 77 degrees Fahrenheit)- yea! It was a bit of a shock leaving the nice air conditioned office at 3.30 I can tell you. I'm now working in the middle of the office so no outside windows. Wasn't too much of a struggle to stop at ASDA on my home to pick up two litres of Cornish Ice Cream mmm.

Looks like summer might actually be on it's way (about time) although we do have a double public holiday for Her Majesty's Jubilee coming up, so you can bet cool weather and rain can't be far off LOL!

Ma'am

What better way to celebrate the Queen's reign than with the original and best yeast extract product in the world?

Weak willed fool that I am, I couldn't say no in the supermarket. Suppose I could put it down to being patriotic, I guess.

Honour

Today I got to be an "Aussie for the day" in honour of Australia Day and my guest from Down Under.

So like a good Aussie I listened to a CD of Australian music (great), consumed home-made ANZAC biscuits (yummy) and drank Bundaberg Ginger Beer (need I say more?). The only downside being that at a maximum temperature of around 6.5 degrees Celsius, the weather wasn't exactly typically Australian.

Someone even thought it a good idea to fly the Aussie flag from the roof of my car all the way down to Southampton and Portsmouth today...

Strewth!

Nice Card

You know how it is- just as you press the shutter, the subject pulls the card up and hides behind it!

...And Another Year Wiser

Eight today. Happy Birthday son.

Goodbye 2011

There's quite a lot I wanted to say today regarding this past year- my own personal highs and lows and in fact I've been formulating ideas of what to say for a couple of days. The truth is that I've left it all too late and only now have time for a brief entry. I guess I could blog something in the coming days but I suspect it will all seem so "last year" by then LOL.

To business, I took LL out today for a trip to Henley on Thames, which was lovely. Very few people out and about by the river and the weather was quite kind. We even came across this lovely black swan, who was very keen to make our acquaintance and eat the bread we were carrying. The other ducks, geese and mute swans didn't really get a look in!

You don't see many of these around here.












And later we found out that his new LEGO boat really did float (in the bath). Until that is we learnt a new word: capsize.

Elsewhere Reading FC have put on a good show over the Christmas period and have moved nicely into 5th in the Championship.

17 Dec Leeds 0 - 1 Reading
26 Dec Reading 3 - 0 Brighton and Hove Albion
31 Dec Reading 1 - Ipswich

The Royals travel to Cardiff on Monday 2 Jan.


All that remains is for me to wish everyone a happy New Year.

Nearly But Not Quite Christmas

LL came to visit today and spend some time with Dad and SM, who are staying for a few days. We all had lunch together and exchanged some gifts afterwards. This evening we had a go at tracking the progress of the Fat Man, here. Excellent fun. Maybe bookmark for next year..?

Don't you just feel all festive?












Only one more sleep to go...

Seasonal Greetings

I'd just like to wish everyone a peaceful Christmas and all the very best for 2012.

Hands Off?

There's been mixed reaction to the news BBC Worldwide (the commercial arm of the BBC) are planning a big screen film version of Doctor Who. Apparently Harry Potter director David Yates is one of the prime movers behind this announcement. Now I don't know about you but I thought he did quite a decent job with the later instalments of that franchise. However Andrew M Brown in the Telegraph even went so far in his blog to seemingly list many of the reasons often cited as being behind the series cancellation (in the 1990's) as reasons why "Hollywood" should keep well away. So because it used to be seen as fairly low budget- and I guess against the average episode of say Battlestar Galactica it still is- Hollywood money shouldn't be used to (possibly) improve these things? I dunno.

But this is not the first time Doctor Who has appeared on the big screen. Those two 1960's Peter Cushing films weren't too bad. Surely?

 Yes that was the Bernard Cribbins co-starring.

For me the jury is still out and I'll wait to hear more information before passing judgement. Perhaps a new film will be a welcome addition to the canon and assuming they move quickly maybe even a fitting 50th anniversary celebration in 2013...



1 Nov Nottingham Forest 1 - 0 Reading
6 Nov Reading 1 - 0 Birmingham

Big Bang

It's got round to that time of year again when the UK goes mad on fireworks to mark Guy Fawkes' attempt to destroy Parliament on 5 Nov 1605. The anniversary of this event is celebrated with fireworks and a bonfire on which a "Guy" is usually burnt.

As is tradition where LL lives, they celebrate on the nearest Saturday a whole week early, don't ask me why, so usually around Halloween. It seems to work and a great time is had by all. Here's a couple of images from this evening...

Great fun.



29 Oct Crystal Palace 0 - 0 Reading