WorkPlace Snippets

Category: Musings

  • Phelps clinches 11th Olympic Gold to break yet another record

    In what has turned out to be a very fast news day (there are so many events to cover it’s just too easy to be overwhelmed!) Michael Phelps, the American swimmer, clinched his 11th Olympic gold to become the athlete with the most Olympic golds ever!


    Phelps with his latest gold medal (Credit: Getty Images)

    The new record surpasses the likes of other top OIympics gold medal holders, such as the frequently mentioned Mark Spitz (also a swimmer), Larysa Latynina, Paavo Nurmi, and Carl Lewis who have all won nine Olympic gold medals a-piece.

    This achievement is worthy of celebration, and it helps that Phelps is a thoroughly likeable chap really who has not only shown himself to be a dedicated swimmer, but appears to have the additional quality of being humble about his achievement, something I believe that is very endearing to almost everyone but the harshest of critics.

    Some reports have called him the greatest Olympian, but I think others were more accurate in saying that this new record makes him the most successful Olympian in terms of gold medals. There was certainly a lot of debate going on the BBC’s Tom Fordyce‘s blog article Is Phelps really the greatest? which I have found to be a good read, although a number of users seem to have their pet favourite ‘great’ Olympian (including Jesse Owens). The blog post and subsequent comments continuously asks the question: What makes the ‘greatest’ Olympian?

    An Olympian who has scored the most medals? The gymnast Larissa Latynina (according to Tom Fordyce) has the biggest medal total ever of 18. Or an Olympian who has scored the most golds in individual events? Carl Lewis has a claim here with 7, says TF. Or is it the Olympian who has stood the test of time and won gold in consecutive Olympiads,? Cue name drop Sir Steve Redgrave who has won 5 golds in 5 Olympic games. Mark Spitz still holds the record for the most golds in just one Olympiad (9) and even Jessie Owens is still remembered for his achievements. The Times‘ Calvin Shulman has helpfully produced a list of what he regards to be the Top 100 Olympics Athletes, the kind of list which is always worth a browse when reading up about such matters.

    I’m going to dodge the question here, and instead move on to an amusing (but probably true, what do I know?) analysis of Phelps by Steve Parry, a former Olympic (swimming) medallist who is currently guest-blogging for the BBC. He talks in more detail about What makes Phelps so special? which was so helpfully summarised by this picture:


    Essential requirements when building your perfect swimming robot…

    Apparently our ‘man-of-the-moment’ has short legs but a long torso, which really helps with the swimming speed since there is “less drag and more propulsion“; and according to Steve Parry, being a “6ft 4ins, 83kg man” generally means you’re seriously under-weight! Like Ian Thorpe, Phelps also has the added advantage of having extremely large paddle-like hands and flipper-like feet (SP helpfully points out that Phelps is a size-14) which help propel him even further through the water.

    Combine these features with:

    • a longer than average wing-span
    • low body fat
    • muscles that produce half the lactic acid of rivals

    and there you have it, the essential guide on how to become the next swimming world champion… and possibly another great Olympian!

  • BBC Olympics 2008 Monkey Movie – A review

    The BBC have always produced some excellent promotional videos ahead of big events, such as the Football World Cup and the Rugby World Cup, and I for one always enjoy watching them, as these videos do remind you about the key characters in the game, the past greatness and of course, the music choice is usually impeccable, and naturally inspires a flurry of forum posts about ‘who composed the music?’

    However, in a change from the usual “iconic images from the past” theme, the BBC have taken a big bold step of commissioning a two-minute animated piece called “Journey to the East”, with characters from that classic Chinese tale ‘Journey to the West‘ such as Sun Wukong (the Monkey King ‘Monkey‘ who is also the mascot for the BBC’s Olympics broadcast), Zhu Bajie (Pigsy) and Sha Wu Jing (Sandy ) and even Guan Yin, the kind goddess of good fortune who has WuKong’s best interests at heart.


    Monkey and Friends

    The difference is (as the BBC’s Ollie William’s put it so succinctly) that the animated story has twisted the original to become Journey to the East for the Olympics, where the three friends/companions battle their way to the Bird’s Nest Stadium through some of the Olympic events, such as diving, throwing the hammer and the javelin, hurdling, pole-vaulting, ‘passing the baton’ (yes, the relay) and taekwando just to name many.


    The hammer’s life was never the same again…

    The animation was the brainchild of the people behind the virtual band Gorillaz (namely Damon Albarn and Jamie Hewlett) and you can see plenty of pictures of the background scenery, the characters and behind-the-scenes just by clicking on the main information page about the mascot and the production on the BBC website. Watch the animation below!

    So what do you think of the video? I’ve been reading comments posted in response to Ollie William‘s BBC blog post about this very video, and some comments are literally polar opposites, but there are plenty of others falling in-between, although I’m personally very happy to say that most are positive responses to what I feel is a highly dynamic, inventive, inspired and all-encompassing production.

    Which of course means – I like it. The music did take me very much by surprise (it switches halfway from a slow and gentle tune with a solo vocal by Jia Ruhan and traditional Chinese instruments, such as the Erhu, to an upbeat electronic track-remix as the action starts) since I was expecting something a bit less ‘Chinese’ in style and more techno (as is usually the case for these videos) but this unique piece did actually complement the animation very well!

    I think that what has made the video so unforgettable is this: the combination of a classic Chinese novel, traditional Chinese music and ‘typical’ Chinese background scenery (with a modern twist) as the backdrop to the story of friends working together towards the Olympics Bird’s Nest stadium; it so brilliantly sends out the crystal-clear message that this is all about the Beijing 2008 Olympics, even if the song lyrics might have lost its meaning through (lack of) translation.


    The “Journey to the East” storyboard

    For those who are wondering about the lyrics, with credit to marcher233 and dirtyfooty for the translation, this is what Guan Yin is singing:

    Congratulations Wu Kong, on your pilgrimage
    For hope and glory
    Kindle the dream, share life and death
    Travel the world without pause
    Push forth despite difficulties and hardships
    Break through the fear, quest for hope and glory
    A bright and colorful dream, combining body and soul

    For hope… (x4)

    On a side note, if you would like to find out more information about the classic Legend of the Monkey King tale, please take a look at this excellent website by Yuen called Journey to the West – The Legend of the Monkey King. There is plenty of in-depth commentary on the actual story, the author, the characters, as well as links to related multimedia such as TV series and films.


    Monkey, Pigsy and Sandy

    Quite a few readers will have watched one Japanese adaptation called “Monkey” or (Monkey Magic) (esp. the UK readers) that was broadcast on the BBC back in the late-70s. One of the more recent TV adaptations by Hong Kong’s TVB station, in which Dicky Cheung starred as the main character, is also known as “Journey to the West ’96” and (a slightly shameless plug here, as I am participating in the project as a translator/editor!) the series is currently being subbed into English and Spanish by a fansub group called SWK Fansubs.

    UPDATE (23/12/08): As the BBC is no longer providing the file for download, I have decided to provide it here since it is a great theme song. Please click to download the BBC Olympics Monkey Theme Song mp3 in a zip file.

    UPDATE (22/08/08): Download the BBC’s Olympics ‘Monkey’ theme song as an mp3 for free directly from the BBC (UK listeners only) for only one week starting today by visiting this site: BBC – Download our Olympics ‘Monkey’ theme. Alternatively, click on the ‘play’ button above to listen to the mp3!

  • Three swimming World Records broken in just one day at the Olympics

    Watching the Olympics is actually a surprisingly exhausting process, and no doubt everyone has their favourite events. I’ll definitely be elaborating on mine over the next few days as the rest of the events get under way, but really, who would have thought swimming would be *that* nail bitingly exciting?

    America’s B-team (and the Aussies) broke the world record (during the heats no less) during the 4x100m freestyle relay, as did fellow American Michael Phelps in the men’s 400m individual medley. He had clearly taken a leaf out of Aussie Stephanie Rice‘s book; she had done exactly that in the women’s 400m individual medley much earlier in the day.


    Michael Phelps (Credit: Adam Pretty/Getty Images)

    The Dutch also took a surprise gold in the women’s 4x100m freestyle relay, breaking the Olympic record at the same time, although the biggest shock of the day for me had to be Korea’s Park Tae-Hwan winning the men’s 400m free style gold. However, it turned out that he had won the World Championships just last year in Sydney, but it’s good to know that some people do perform well even in their first Olympics!


    Park Tae-hwan (Credit: Shaun Botterill/Getty Images)

    And in other events… Nicole Cooke won the first gold medal for Britain in this Olympic campaign, which incidentally turned out to be the first ever medal won by Britain in the Olympics women’s road cycling event!

  • Beijing Olympics 2008 – Opening Ceremony

    Did you watch the opening ceremony? I really hope you did, because in one short word, it was spectacular! I can’t say I’ve watched many opening ceremonies, but this one really blew me away, and I would have loved to have been in the Bird’s Nest stadium with the 91,000 people in the audience, plus at least 10,000 athletes, excluding the huge numbers of people (20,000) involved as performers and staff, as the atmosphere would have been absolutely fantastic!

    I managed to pick up some pictures from Flickr of the opening ceremony, and would like to thank all the photographers for sharing their pictures online. Unfortunately I was silly enough to not save all the actual links, so apologies for not giving proper and individual credit here:

    One World, One Dream
    “One World, One Dream” slogan, featuring the ‘World’ rising up from the ground, and images of children from across the globe at the rim of the stadium’s ‘bowl’. The main theme (‘You and Me’) was sung by Liu Huan and Sarah Brightman. You can just see them at the top of the world.

    Fireworks!
    A glimpse at the some of the fireworks used for the opening ceremony, and all in all, apparently there were some 40,000 shots fired into the air! Although I’ve not found a good picture yet, the fireworks representing 29 footsteps along Beijing’s “Axis” to the Bird’s Nest to mark the start of the 29th Olympiad was also very inspiring!


    The sheer scale and numbers, evident particularly during the parade of athletes from all 204 delegations … 91,000 spectators and 10,000 athletes, and this excludes all the performers and the staff working behind the scenes (a reported 20,000).


    The count down begins till the start of the opening ceremony. Can you believe this was all done by the symbolic 2008 people on the drums?


    The very ones that you see here!


    This part of the opening ceremony started off with an empty space in the middle of the scroll that unfurled to reveal Chinese culture and history, and as the dancers elegantly pirouetted their way round the paper, they added ink and drew clouds and mountains, typical of Chinese calligraphy art.


    And this is a shot of the scroll itself, unfurled…


    … which was used as a centre stage for many of the themed performances, which, by the way, were all coordinated by the director of “House of Flying Daggers“, Zhang Yimou.


    The pillars from the previous picture ‘rose up’ majestically from the ground, each with a performer in elaborate outfits, some of them being styles from different dynasties. Note the gold dragons carved into the pillars.


    Some exceptionally elegant dancers (men and women) were on show last night, and one lady in particular danced centre-stage on a moving platform on the scroll.


    The very-one that was painted live by the dancers before. This is probably a better picture showing the overall effect. This canvas was subsequently enhanced by several other painter performers, including school children colouring the canvas during a ‘lesson’. It was then laid onto the ground during the team parade, and every single athlete who took part in this parade had to step on some ink pads and leave their footprints.


    This was a depiction of the less well-known history of “Zheng He” sailing around the world at least 87 years before Christopher Columbus started his journey, and is made up of long, individual wooden paddles each held by one of the 2008 performers. They looked incredibly heavy as the performers swung them around during the performance.


    And again, more fireworks in and around the Bird’s Nest.


    Last but not least, the lighting of the Olympic torch, which no one had seen during rehearsals, and it was both amazing and very symbolic at the same time. The climax was heightened as the identity of the last torch bearer (Li Ning) was kept secret until the very last minute. After receiving the flame, he was raised up to almost the roof/ceiling of the Bird’s Nest, and seemed to run around the rim whilst another scroll unfurled itself, and the videos of all the runners who had relayed the torch and many other videos were projected onto his path.

    Alas, I’ve missed out quite a lot of pictures here, where they showcased ‘movable type’ (this was quite something, I will try and find the video for this as I was seriously impressed) ‘Confucius’, traditional instruments and operas, the art of Tai-chi and Kung-fu, the “Terracotta Warriors”, and all the indigenous tribes (50+) dancing in their traditional outfits etc.

    The ceremony was extremely high budget (apparently in the region of $100 million USD) and definitely did not disappoint, showcasing talent, flair, creativity, imagination, advanced technologies and overall it was just such an incredible scene to watch live, that I still recall it so very vividly now.

    A huge kudos to the performers, staff and everyone who have worked so very hard for the Olympics! 😀 Thank you for amazing me and no doubt the whole world!

    p/s:For some beautifully large and high-resolution pictures, please visit this article on Boston.com by Alan Taylor.

  • Olympics 2008!

    I can hardly wait, and just felt the need to post and tell everyone. 🙂

    Hope you enjoy the opening ceremony as well too!