Olympic sized confusion.

If I asked how many of you watched the opening ceremony to the Olympics, the numbers are sure to be in the hundreds of millions at least. The ceremony attracted 27 million UK viewers and over 40 million in the U.S alone.

Now if I asked how many of you understood the Opening Ceremony … I think that the number would dwindle slightly.

It all started off promising enough. Danny Boyle assured us that it would be different, it was. He assured us it would be more involving of the crowd, it was.

There were some good moments. The Queen jumped out of a helicopter (I’m telling myself this was real and there was no stunt double. It makes me feel better.) There was a Mr Bean scene which made me laugh for 10 seconds.

And then there were the not-so-good moments of dance medleys; a young couple texting each other on stage (how rude) and a strangely choreographed routine (even the commentators kept quiet for that bit). I couldn’t help but feel that the whole world was watching like this..

the World’s confused face.

It was like a 3 hour long ”you-had -to-be-there ” kind of moment.

I’m not completely knocking it. The lighting of the flame was fantastic and seeing the teams coming out with their flags was moving (even if the countries you support start with ‘S’ and ‘Z’ ).  It was the topic of conversation for the entire weekend and I’m sure will be for the week ahead too.

What did you think? I’m particularly interested in your opinion if you have never been to London, England .

The Shard

I’m sure many of you have seen the new addition to London’s landscape by now. The Shard is now the tallest building in Western Europe, towering some 1,016ft directly above London Bridge station.

It’s tight up there.

I’m glad I finally got to see it up close and it really is quite impressive. Also, it’s not as penis-shaped as the Gherkin.. which is refreshing.

It will be open for public viewing from February 2013. Tickets are available now if you’re interested in seeing London as a small speck or if you think this will cure your fear of heights (It wont; shock therapy isn’t for everyone).

The view from the bottom up

Olympics in 5,4,3….

Good-day bloggers!

The Olympic torch will be stalling traffic near me on Monday. In fact , the Olympics as a whole will be stalling traffic and all other forms of transportation for the next month or so. Seven years of preparation has led to new bus lanes, new buses, olympic lanes, and handy tips like this..

Good honest advice.

We are in no way prepared for any of this. Watch a re-run of the Beijing Olympic ceremony and tell me if we’re that prepared.

Here was what we did to give everyone a taste of what was to come in 2012:

–           Boris Johnson got off a double-decker bus in the middle of the Beijing ceremony (which later turned into a Transformer..)

–           David Beckham attempted to kick a ball into a goal (which he missed and instead hit the unsuspecting Chinese public)

–          Leona Lewis (who no one had heard of outside the U.K let alone Beijing) sang a song with Jimmy Page on guitar. There’s also a high possibility no one in Beijing knew who Jimmy Page was either.

If you’re anything like me, you only watch the Olympics for the opening ceremony, falling runners and gymnasts, and the occasional streaker.

I cannot wait for this potential disaster 🙂

The Amazing Spiderman: a review

Pleasantly surprised.

I was caught up in The Avengers mania when these trailers came out and at the time, there was nothing I wanted to see less than this movie.I hated the first one (yes, hate is the right word) and couldn’t believe they managed to stretch it out and make Spiderman 2 and 3, effectively ruining Tobey Maguire’s career forever (have you seen him in anything lately?.. Didn’t think so).

Andrew Garfield pulls off Peter Parker extremely well and really builds up a solid character that we can finally relate to. Although he does tend to do this a lot..

Yes ladies, this Spiderman cries A LOT. I don’t know what they were trying to do with that. Attract female audiences? Anyhow.. worked for me!

Shooting his web all over the place, Andrew Garfield is awkward, amusing, and not very good at entering buildings the normal way. Rhys Ifans is equally great at playing the villain but then Rhys Ifans is great at playing anyone.

Overall rating? – A 7/10 from me .

Good points – Marc Webb (incidentally the director of 500 days of Summer) did a good job directing this and pressed the reset button, completely erasing the previous Spiderman movies from my memory. Thank you Marc Webb.

Bad points – is one superhero enough nowadays? The Avengers set the bar very high this year and having one hero battle it out on screen just doesn’t cut it anymore, no matter how much he cries 🙂

50 shades of s***

So I decided to read 50 Shades of Grey to ‘see what all the fuss is about’ .

There are a number of things which I haven’t done to ‘go with the flow’ .

For example, I have never worn Crocs.

About two pages in (two pages too long), I was acutely aware that I should be grouping this book with my ‘Crocs’ category.

This book is for people who don’t read. If you have read the likes of Shakespeare, Dickens, Roald Dahl, and probably even the Tintin comic books; do not bother yourself with this book. You are already too advanced.

I’m done with it now and trying to recover by watching intelligent movies and reading clever things. It’s not the content of it that bothers me at all.  I bought it because of the content (like everyone else unless you’re very strange and buy books for other reasons..) , but the delivery was terrible. And yet, this book sold to over 200,000 people in the first 7 days of release . 200,000 of us idiots.

If you want good delivery of this kind of thing, watch The Secretary (2002). Otherwise, read this book and be subject to great one liners such as :

”Why is anyone the way they are? That’s kind of hard to answer. Why do some people like cheese and other people hate it? Do you like cheese?”

I want my money back!!

London in a day

Good-day bloggers!

Today is marked as the day I realized that summer is not coming to England this year. The sun has taken us off its’ facebook friend list and un-followed us on twitter.

So what can you do in London in the rain? Here are a couple of indoor things I tried this weekend with varying degrees of success. (stop reading now if you’re expecting Big Ben and Buckingham Palace).

M&M World

”Art” in M&M World

Yes , that’s right.

There exists a place in Leicester Square where you can not only buy M&M’s, you can buy M&M mugs, t-shirts, figurines (for £120 I kid you not), posters, dolls, cushions and magnets. This is also where Londoners go to lose their children to four floors of sugary madness.

Who is this outing bad for? – Parents.

Who is this outing good for? – Those who don’t know what an M&M is , or have a mental disorder.

Camden Market (the food part)

Once you get past the layers of fluorescent tulle and leather, Camden Market is still one of my favourite places to go. I’m also pretty sure that the Stables market went through a major overhaul as it all seems a lot bigger than it was a couple of years ago. A day here will make you feel like you have been wasting your life away in an office and were in fact destined to stop washing your hair, become a painter, wear fair trade clothing, and sell your wares on the street. It’s a beautiful life.

Who is this outing bad for? – People who hate crowds. In fact London altogether is bad for that. Leave now.

Who is this outing good for? – Everyone else.

Herman ze German

If you managed to escape Camden without eating, Herman ze German is quite good for anyone who happens to be near Charing Cross/Trafalgar Square and likes wurst sausages. Their menu is fairly simple which is always refreshing to see and the wurst doesn’t have a bad taste to it either!

Here’s where they are: http://www.herman-ze-german.co.uk/locations.html

If you’re on any kind of diet – come to Herman ze German! …And make sure it’s the only meal you have that day.