US and them, pigs with lipstick, dancing pants and premature celebrations

A round-up from Iraq to Jamaica:
“A person can be loyal to his country without being loyal to the people who run his country.”
So says one of the US soldiers on Sean Smith’s excellent Endgame in Iraq video for The Guardian.
It is a telling moment and should silence those who are so quick to claim that anyone [...]

Wrong directions, bad taste, Olympic sheepdogs and Pete the polar bear

As we’re heading west for a weekend with family in GOC, another quick round-up:
Online maps might be leading us astray.
That’s according to the head of the British Geographical Society, who claims internet maps such as Google and Multimap might be good for getting us from A to B but they leave out crucial information we need to understand [...]

Faster, Higher, Stronger. Better?

So how was it for you?
I eschewed my usual couch potato status for this Olympic Games. It wasn’t a boycott, as such, rather a holiday getting in the way of maximum viewing time.
But I still got a regular fix of action from the Beijing 2008 Games.
It all seemed quite exciting from a British point of view. [...]

Writers’ block, the business of sport and telling stories

I didn’t really miss too much on my 10-day break – apart from war in the Caucuses, the fastest jogger on Earth and the tale of two Birminghams.
So a short catch up.
Fellow WMBN member DJ Francis gives his views on the future of journalism, suggesting the confusion and turmoil the industry is finding itself wrapped [...]

Take your marks for Olympic overkill

The 2008 Olympic Games all set to start with the usual mixture of daft opening ceremonies and navel-gazing about British hopes, particularly in athletics, to look forward to again.
However, the Beijing Games are likely to throw up a genuinely interesting first.
Even in such a short space of time since the last Olympics were held in [...]

An Olympic boycott, bedsheets, journalism and toppled trucks

It has been a reading time over the last couple of days – plus I played hooky with Rachel yesterday to go to the cinema and took my bike for a service this morning, so I’m catching up.
But a few things around and about that have caught my eye.
A good article by Steven Wells on [...]

My Olympic dream is crumbling

I am a dedicated and experienced armchair athlete.
So, like many others of a similar persuasion, an Olympic year is always a time of great excitement, anticipation and joy.
It all started with the Montreal Games and I’ve been hooked – or slouched on a sofa – ever since whenever the Olympic flame gets lit again.
The Sydney [...]

Press freedom at the Olympics

It will be interesting to see just how successful the World Association of Newspapers is in attempt to highlight the lack of press freedom in China ahead of the Olympic Games.
The group has launched a campaign that calls on editors and publishers to print a full-page advertisement that says China is currently detaining 30 journalists, plus as many as 50 “cyber-dissidents” [...]

Chinese take-away for SpongeBob SquarePants

China is gearing up to welcome the world to this year’s Olympic Games by clamping down on foreign culture.
After introducing restrictions on foreign-made productions in 2006, even stricter rules come into force on May 1 that will see the likes of SpongeBob SquarePants, Mickey Mouse and Pokemon banned on all cartoon and children’s channels during [...]