Yes, there is still beauty in the world...

which is good to remember in these absurd and worrying times...

Happy Christmas!

Hope everyone out there in Blogland is having a great Christmas / Hanukkah / non-denominational holiday. Best Wishes from The Glass Walking-Stick...

Andy Murray, Wimbledon legend!

 

 Congratulations to Andy Murray for his amazing win over Novak Djokovic at Wimbledon today! It was a gruelling match, played out in blistering heat, with both players performing incredibly... but there could only be one winner, and it was the 26-year old from Dunblane who took the cup and became the first British winner of the mens' title in 77 years. An astounding victory!

Olympians

Team GB are still working wonders in the Paralympics, with 17-year old Ellie Simmonds ( second from left above ) proving to be a real inspiration with her haul of two golds, one bronze and one silver. Congratulations to all the athletes, heroes all!

My previous post on the 2012 Olympics has stacked up over 2500 pageviews in just over a month which is probably some kind of record for this 'ere blog... and entirely down to the athletes and not to my blogging skills... which mostly consisted of drooling over pics of Jessica Ennis and Victoria Pendleton ;-)

In celebration of these awe-inspiring athletes here's a classic by The Skids from their second album, Days In Europa...

Even these guys can't catch Usain Bolt...

The fastest man alive...

( Check out this blog post about Usain by my mate Tom... )

Team GB

Victoria Pendleton


Katarina Johnson-Thompson

Louise Hazel
Jessica Ennis

I'm not that shallow ( really! ) that I'd watch the 2012 London Olympics just for all the gorgeous female athletes...

...but it helps :-)

Good luck for tomorrow, Jess!

Things I haven't blogged about recently

We've been down in our beloved Cornwall for the last week so I haven't been able to do any blogging.

( I know, I know... what's my excuse the rest of the time? ) Above is a picture Sophie took of the beach at beautiful, legend-shrouded Tintagel... a wonderful place that I've wanted to visit for years. There will be plenty more pics of glorious Cornwall to come.

Also on my mind at the moment:

On a sadder note, two former Doctor Who actresses have passed away recently: Caroline John and Mary Tamm. Although their characters were both relatively unsung companions ( possibly because they both only appeared in one season each ), they were however fine actresses who rose above the often limiting material they had to work with back in the day. There are plenty more tributes on t'internet in the usual places but I will just say that both of these ladies feature in two of my fave Who stories ( the tense, apocalyptic Inferno and the witty, summery Androids Of Tara ) and they will be greatly missed.

Sport isn't a subject that crops up very often at TGWS ( if at all ) but very occasionally an event comes along ( like the recent Federer/Murray match at Wimbledon ) that grabs my attention. Like this understated little happening taking place in that there London town:

Of course yesterday was the Opening Ceremony of the 2012 London Olympics, which turned out to be spectacular and slightly bizarre... in a very British kind of way. Danny Boyle's celebration of our idiosyncratic Brit culture took in Beatles, Blake and Bond, with a celebration of UK life from maypole-dancing rural idylls, through dark Satanic mills of the Industrial Revolution, through the ever-accelerating changes of the twentieth century, to the Information Age of today. Loads of great music complemented the spectacle: Pink Floyd, The Sex Pistols (!), Blur, Led Zeppelin, The Specials, The Who, The Jam, Muse, Dizzee Rascal etc. with Sir Paul Of McCartney finishing the show with The End ( of course ) and Hey Jude.

Now, after all the pomp and circumstance it's the turn of the athletes to do their thing...

( Cue gratuitous photo of Jessica Ennis... )

Men's Walk 2011

Here's my mate Kev ( no. 319 ) and me ( no. 317 ) having just finished the Men's Walk 2011, a 10km sponsored walk in aid of Cotswold Care Hospice. I'd been saying for some time that there ought to be a men's version of the Race For Life or Midnight Walk - two all-female charity races / walks - and now here was my chance to do my bit for the wonderful people at Cotswold Care.

700 blokes started out at 9am on a grey, gloomy Sunday morning at Gloucester's Kingsholm rugby stadium...

...passed Gloucester Cathedral...

...on through the historic docks...

...and around the outskirts of the City.

By the time we were about half way round the sky cleared and the sun came out. Well, they say the sun shines on the righteous :-)

After two hours of good exercise and good company Kev and I arrived back at Kingsholm for a pie and a pint and a lap of honour around the stadium.

Why is this man smiling? Is it because he's proud to have walked and raised money for a worthy cause...

or because he's just seen the following lovely ladies?

I am not a number I am a free man...

OK, I'm a number today.

I even got to watch my first rugby match, which was far more enjoyable than this strictly non-sports fan had expected. And Gloucester hammered Newport...

Cheers Kev! Same time next year?

Update: whilst I was otherwise occupied, Sophie hacked into my blog and added the tag "Hot Girls" to this post. The little minx. Luckily she didn't add the tag "Middle-aged men with beer-bellies".

Update 2: it turns out that James did the hacking, not Sophie. Little bugger etc. etc.