Dates: from 6 to 15 April 1896. Participants: 14 National Olympic Committees (NOCs), 43 events, 241 athletes (men only). Officially opened by: King George I.
The Games of the Olympiad in Athens were financed by a donation of approximately one million drachmas from a rich businessman, Georges Averof, and by the sale of souvenir stamps and medals. The Greek spectators were rewarded for their enthusiasm and sportsmanship as the star event, the marathon, a new event organised for the first time, was won by a Greek peasant, Spyridon Louis. American James Connolly became the first Olympic champion of the modern era, winning the triple jump on 6 April 1896 (13.71 metres).
1900 PARIS, France
Dates: from 14 May to 28 October 1900. Participants: 24 NOCs, 95 events, 997 athletes (975 men, 22 women).
In 1900, Paris hosted the International Universal Exhibition, and the Games were organised in the framework of this Exhibition. The Games were spread over five months and there were no real opening and closing ceremonies. Women made their Olympic debut in tennis and golf. British tennis player Charlotte Cooper was the first woman to earn the title of Olympic champion. Continue Reading »
Tommy, Chuckie, Phil and Lil battle it out with Angelica in the sandpit. My abiding memory of Rugrats is that everyone used to know how to play the theme tune on the piano. Angelica also got on my nerves. The babies talked in silly toddler speak with lots of missing teeth and spittal - getting their words wrong and missing the point as all children do. The series has been going for ages and produced several spin-offs - none of which I have seen.
Mona Lisa the film was nominated for an Oscar and Bob Hoskins performance won many other awards. It tells the tale of a man released from prison who is given a job as a driver for an up-market prostitute. It’s very London - though, the seedy side thereof. The film is well shot and shows a bustling 80’s London. Simone’s long grey oversize coat is sooo 80’s it’s unbelievable. Also, her afro tied to the side is also a long forgotten hairstyle .The cars are old, as is Michael Caine’s cigar smoking pimp. The cockney accents remind me of Grange Hill. I don’t think anyone would dream of using quite so much saxophone in their soundtrack anymore. Check out the old-school sauna. So 1980’s.
The only other outstanding memory outside of the Olympic athletics was in the boxing stadium with the victory of a young heavyweight - a boxer from the United States called Cassius Clay. We all later knew him as Mohammed Ali. He later lobbed this gold medal into a river in protest against the treatment of black people. At the 1996 Olympics in Atlanta he was awarded a replacement medal.
I remember Abebe Bikila winning the 1960 Rome Olympics men’s marathon - barefoot! My image of him is just how slight he was and wondered where the energy came from to do what he was doing. He was the first person to win two Olympic marathons, winning the Tokyo in 1964. In between these two Olympics he got wrapped up in politics and was sentenced to death for a failed coup attempt. He was pardoned by the emperor Haile Selassi. He was later to lose the use of his limbs in a car accident, but joked that he would win the Olympics in a wheelchair and took to archery.
Al Oerter was an gold medal winning discus thrower from 1956 to 1968. He was among a group of gigantic shot put throwers and discus throwers who were nearly seven feet tall and very impressive to a young boy of seven! Al sadly passed away in 2007.
Herb Elliot never lost a race over 1500m or a mile. He broke the four minute mile on 17 occasions. He took middle distance running to a whole new level. As a young boy watching him compete, I’m sure he fired me up for my future spent running. It wasn’t just his physicality, it was the fact that he was mentally so far ahead of the other athletes - losing wasn’t an option to him.
Came second in the 100m dash (as it was called then!) at the 1960 Rome Olympics. She was a Barnsley lass, which generated a lot of local interest. She became something of a heroine and still has the track and stadium named after her at Cudsworth near Barnsley.
On a 14″ black and white screen, the Press sisters’ performance in the 1960 Rome Olympics is my first recollection of the games. I remember being a bit baffled because I couldn’t tell the difference between the Press sisters and the men. It later became obvious that they had disappeared about the same time as drug testing and gender verification were introduced. Not before winning two golds at the Tokyo Olympics, though. Tamara was a shot putter and discus thrower, Irina did hurdles and pentathalon.
Abba hit the international scene at the Eurovision song contest in 1974 with ‘ Waterloo’. At the finals in Brighton, England, on April 6, they won over the international juriesand went on to the Number One spot all over Europe, and even reached the US Top Ten.
Being winners of the Eurovision Song Contest made it difficult for ABBA to be taken seriously but 18 months later they hit the jackpot again with ‘SOS’ from the album “ABBA”. Continue Reading »
Trainspotting was incredibly famous for being really disgusting and nearly getting banned. You get to see Ewan McGregor’s tackle and a baby’s head spinning round like on the exorcist. It was like gold dust to young teens at the time - the most horrifying film available. My friend managed to one-up us all by reading the book and declaring it more controversial than the film.
Everything that could invite censorship was in there - drug taking, guns, fights, underage sex, defecation, stealing, the death of a baby from neglect and all the weird drug-induced hallucinations you could imagine. Renton, the narrator, claims to be opting out of the boring, pre-determined “good life” Continue Reading »
I watched “How to Get Ahead in Advertising” for the first time last night. Everything about it is so Eighties - the discontentment with the rat race, the power-suiting secretary, the smoking indoors and the Range Rover in the middle of London.
Richard E. Grant plays the madman very well indeed and that boil is absolutely horrible. I actually had nightmares about it even though the film is a very funny comedy. The cast of “How to Get Ahead in Advertising” is like a recent episode of Morse that I watched - full of Sean Bean and other famous stars who wouldn’t have the time anymore.
The speech at the end is still very true today. Despite acknowledging that consumerism isn’t everything, we haven’t got very far as a society in the last 20 years. In fact, the final speech reminded me of the “Choose Life” monologue in Trainspotting. What is the meaning of life? - they ask. Monty Python has the answer.
“Roads represent the fundamental right of man to have access to the good things in life. Without roads, established family favorites would become elite as delicacies. Potter’s soap would be for the few. There’d be no more tea bags, no instant potatoes, no long life cream. Chewing gum would probably disappear, so would porkpies. There’d be no aerosols, no tin spaghetti, or baked beans with six frankfurters. Foot deodorizers would climax with the hope of replacement! When the hydrolized mono-sodium glutomate reserves ran out, food would rot in its packets. Jesus Christ, there wouldn’t be any more packets! Packaging would vanish from the face of the earth. But worst of all, there’d be no more cars, and more than anything, people love their cars. They have a right to them. They have to sweat all day in some stinking factory making disposable cigarette lighters or everlasting Christmas trees, by Christ, they’re entitled to them! They’re entitled to any innovation technology brings. Whether it’s ten percent more of it or fifteen percent off of it. They’re entitled to one of four important new ingredients. Why should anyone have to clean their teeth without important new ingredients? Why the hell shouldn’t they have their CZT? How dare some smutty Marxist carbunkle presume to deny them it? They love their CZT! They want it, they need it, they positively adore it, and by Christ, while I’ve got air in my body they’re going to get it! They’re going to get it bigger - and brighter - and better. I’ll put CZT in their margarine if necessary; shove vitamins in their toilet rolls. If happiness means the whole world standing on a double layer of foot deodorizers, I, Bagley, shall see that they get it! By God I will. I shall not cease, till Jerusalem is builded here, on England’s green and pleasant lands!”
Some people chew it, some people smoke it, but no-one seems to sniff tobacco anymore.
In our local pub (very oldy worldy CAMRA type), there’s a rack by the door filled with little metal pots. They have funny flavours written in old school lettering on the lids. This is snuff and you won’t find many pubs where the landlord encourages you to “have a bit up”. The snuff in our pub wasn’t put there because of the smoking ban. It has been there since time immemorial. What possesses people to sniff tobacco products?
The first time I encountered snuff, I thought it was heroin. For some reason I had been invited along to Christmas drinks at a Catholic Chaplaincy in Cambridge and the priest had a small amount of brown powder on his hand which he then sniffed up. Despite the bad reputation of the Catholic Church, I thought this was going a bit far until my friend explained that it wasn’t class A but a different form of tobacco. Nobody seems to use it anymore (not that we would encourage tobacco use) but it seems strange how the fashions change. Another anachronism is short cigarettes - for those quick breaks between dances!
It was Queen Anne who first saw the potential for a racecourse at Ascot, which in those days was called East Cote. Whilst out riding in 1711, she came upon an area of open heath, not far from Windsor Castle, that looked an ideal place for “horses to gallop at full stretch.”
The first race meeting ever held at Ascot took place on Saturday 11th August 1711. Her Majesty’s Plate, worth 100 guineas and open to any horse, mare or gelding over the age of six, was the inaugural event. Each horse was required to carry a weight of 12st and seven runners took part.
This contest bore little resemblance to racing seen at Ascot today. The seven horses were all English Hunters, quite different to the speedy thoroughbreds that race on the flat now. The race consisted of three separate heats which were four miles long (each heat was about the length of the Grand National course), so the winner would have been a horse with tremendous stamina. Sadly, there is no record of the winner of the first Plate. Continue Reading »
The Queen’s involvement with racing stretches back to before she came to the throne in 1952, with her first winner, owned jointly with her mother, the late Queen Elizabeth, the Queen Mother, being Monaveen in a National Hunt race at Fontwell.
On the death of her father, King George VI, the Queen inherited the Royal string of Flat horses, which at the time were mainly trained by Cecil BoydRochford and Noel Murless. It didn’t take long for her first great horse to come along. Continue Reading »
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1896 ATHENS, Greece
1900 PARIS, France
The only other outstanding memory outside of the Olympic athletics was in the boxing stadium with the victory of a young heavyweight - a boxer from the United States called Cassius Clay. We all later knew him as Mohammed Ali. He later lobbed this gold medal into a river in protest against the treatment of black people. At the 1996 Olympics in Atlanta he was awarded a replacement medal.
I remember Abebe Bikila winning the 1960 Rome Olympics men’s marathon - barefoot! My image of him is just how slight he was and wondered where the energy came from to do what he was doing. He was the first person to win two Olympic marathons, winning the Tokyo in 1964. In between these two Olympics he got wrapped up in politics and was sentenced to death for a failed coup attempt. He was pardoned by the emperor Haile Selassi. He was later to lose the use of his limbs in a car accident, but joked that he would win the Olympics in a wheelchair and took to archery.
Al Oerter was an gold medal winning discus thrower from 1956 to 1968. He was among a group of gigantic shot put throwers and discus throwers who were nearly seven feet tall and very impressive to a young boy of seven! Al sadly passed away in 2007._456d342beee2a_w250.jpg)
Herb Elliot never lost a race over 1500m or a mile. He broke the four minute mile on 17 occasions. He took middle distance running to a whole new level. As a young boy watching him compete, I’m sure he fired me up for my future spent running. It wasn’t just his physicality, it was the fact that he was mentally so far ahead of the other athletes - losing wasn’t an option to him.
Came second in the 100m dash (as it was called then!) at the 1960 Rome Olympics. She was a Barnsley lass, which generated a lot of local interest. She became something of a heroine and still has the track and stadium named after her at Cudsworth near Barnsley.
Abba hit the international scene at the Eurovision song contest in 1974 with ‘ Waterloo’. At the finals in Brighton, England, on April 6, they won over the international juriesand went on to the Number One spot all over Europe, and even reached the US Top Ten.
Trainspotting was incredibly famous for being really disgusting and nearly getting banned. You get to see Ewan McGregor’s tackle and a baby’s head spinning round like on the exorcist. It was like gold dust to young teens at the time - the most horrifying film available. My friend managed to one-up us all by reading the book and declaring it more controversial than the film.
I watched “How to Get Ahead in Advertising” for the first time last night. Everything about it is so Eighties - the discontentment with the rat race, the power-suiting secretary, the smoking indoors and the Range Rover in the middle of London.
Some people chew it, some people smoke it, but no-one seems to sniff tobacco anymore.