The Olympics Hit London

This weekend I went off to my first Olympic event, Volleyball (don't cheer yet... it wasn't beach volleyball... and it was women's... so no hunky men in pants). Anyway, making up for lack of half naked athletes, I was lucky enough to have tickets to see my team of Great Britain take to the court. Although they won the beach volleyball yesterday, sadly Team GB lost their first match but it was so fun! 

I remember when it was announced that the 2012 games would be in London and my 15 year old self couldn't help thinking how OLD I would be... 23!!!! It was practically another century away. Now they're finally here and, as with any host of the Olympics, us Londoners can't help but moan about the resulting transport hell, venues across the city being made out of bounds and the general increased horror of the daily commute. That said, I've got to say that it is just a tiny incy wincy little bit exciting being in the middle of it... from my window I can see an olympics venue, olympic policemen (they've even brought in the Welsh for good measure - hoorah) and have even seen some terrifying missiles about...

Anyway, I couldn't really think how best to do an Olympics post (it had to be done) without making a long and rather dull list of books written by athletes. I hope this will suffice...

Since 2008 the Cultural Olympiad, a huge cultural celebration inspired by London 2012, has featured thousands of events attended by millions of people. As part of this celebration, poems have been selected for each of the 204 competing nations in the 2012 Olympics and ours has been written by Richard Price (happens to be my Dad's name so it's automatically going to be awesome...). The poem, entitled 'Hedge Sparrows', aired for the first time yesterday morning, read by actor Jim Broadbent, and has already picked up praise from poet laureate, Carol Ann Duffy.

Anyway, I'm not about to do some kind of critical analysis of it you'll be pleased to hear, so here it is:

You don't see many hedges these days, and the hedges you do see they're not that thorny, it's a shame, and when I say a hedge I'm not talking about a row of twigs between two lines of rusty barbed wire, or more likely just a big prairie where there were whole cities of hedges not fifty years ago, a big desert more like, and I mean thick hedges, with trees nearby for a bit of shade and a field not a road not too far off so you can nip out for an insect or two when you or the youngsters feel like a snack, a whole hedgerow system, as it says in the book, and seven out of ten sparrows say the same, and that's an underestimate, we want a place you can feel safe in again, we're social animals, we want our social life back, and the sooner the better, because in a good hedge you can always talk things over, make decisions, have a laugh if you want to, sing, even with a voice like mine!