With this in mind, I have today come across some further information that causes even more disillusionment. The Fair Pay Network and the Institute of Public Policy Research (IPPR) have recently launched a campaign that calls upon all Premiership clubs to become ‘ethical’ employers and pay ‘fair’ wages to all its staff that are working off the pitch.

Despite the Premiership being the most lucrative football league in the world, every club appears to be condemning many of its workers off the pitch and away from the media gaze to a life of what the campaign describes as ‘working poverty’. Whilst more than £600 million has been eagerly spent on bringing new players to the league, that same eagerness clearly does not apply to the cleaners, vendors, caterers and so on.

Research undertaken by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation has shown that a single person in Britain needs to earn at least £13,400 a year before tax to achieve a minimum standard of living. Very few service jobs in Premiership clubs meet this standard, so a situation ensues where an extremely wealthy – and greedy - sport has people servicing it who are, despite working, also being forced to live in poverty.

In London, all of the five London clubs are regularly paying at least £2 per hour less than the established London Living Wage. What is staggering is that even Boris Johnson recently announced that in London, people need to earn an hourly rate of nearly 18% above the minimum wage. If this is so, then Premiership clubs would need to be paying their staff at least £7.45 an hour. Unfortunately, in recent advertisements for a variety of vacancies, few have been offered at above the legal minimum of £5.25.

To support this, the Fair Pay Network and the IPPR have produced the following evidence:

A club not actually paying any set wage for 2 part-time shifts per week (in all seasons) selling lottery tickets door to door in streets surrounding the stadium. The pay was instead one match ticket per month and some possible commission.

A club paying a £25 fee for 5 hours work as a steward on match days (technically illegal under national minimum wage legislation).

An English supplier chain for 3 Premiership clubs paying an aggregated rate of £3 per hour for the production of official club merchandise.

A club paying £15 for 4-5 hours work as a programme seller with a possibility of commission after 50 are sold.

A club offering no wage for match day shifts selling club lottery tickets. Instead, a match ticket is offered as reward.

All clubs paying the lowest legal wage for cleaners, kitchen porters, kiosk cashiers, bar staff, conference and banqueting staff.

When staggeringly ridiculous prices are being bandied around about players costing £135 million whose weekly wages amount to more than £125,000, it seems completely untenable that these same employers are treating their staff with such disdain and disrespect.

But should we be surprised? Of course not, no.

English football – even outside of the Premiership – is nowadays driven by the dreams and aspirations of the WAGs, the Bentleys, the driving bans, the Hello magazine wedding shoots, the Lucozade adverts, and the Nike sponsorship deals. All are de rigeur and that is an extremely myopic and dangerous thing.

The campaign is calling on all clubs to move towards a “Hatrick Gold Standard” of living wages and associated conditions for the thousands of cleaners, shop assistants and hotel and catering workers who work so hard to make the clubs financially successful. Whether it can make the clubs remember the workers any more than it does the fans is though another matter completely.

Forget the fans then forget the workers. Whatever next, maybe even forget the football…?

In a week of Arab millionaires, over-priced Brazillian players forgetting which team they’d signed for, and a whole raft of other nonsense, maybe we already have.

Linked posts:

Socialism: "it's the way I see football, it's the way I see life"

"Greed is good" or so the mantra goes, but it will be the death of football for the fans...

This work by Chris Allen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 2.0 UK: England & Wales License. Based on a work at www.chris-allen.co.uk.

Perhaps because the graph tended to support human caused global warming, and perhaps because it showed its data so dramatically, some scientists and non scientists attacked Mr Mann’s work. Some said it was based on flawed data, others that the geographical spread of the data used was wrong, and others said that Mr Mann had got his sums wrong.

Even though (or perhaps because of) the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change used the hockey stick graph prominently, the theory of anthropogenic climate change was attacked because it was said that the hockey stick graph was wrong.

Mann and his team responded to the criticisms by publishing a correction in 204 which corrected some of the graph’s errors but still showed the hockey stick shape.

The debate continued with the kind of intensity and criticism that scientists seem to engender when each scientists is sure that he or she is 100% right. Minor inconsistencies in the calculations were seized on by those who disbelieved climate change by human activity. An example of this was Boris’s John’s essay in the Daily Telegraph, when he wrote about grapes being grown in England in medieval times as evidence of a warmer past.

Criticism of Mr Mann’s work was at its highest in the United States, where climate change sceptics were also the most vociferous. The Congress instituted an enquiry with the sub committee’s chairman asking for every scrap of data, source code, identities of “collaborators” and details of all funding for Mr Mann and his team. It is clear that if someone does not like the message they attack the messenger.

Now, climatology is a very complex science. It operates in three dimensions and in time. It does not permit the student to stand still and make an observation, because such individual observations are fairly meaningless. It requires that most difficult of observations – one of trends.

There is no single measure of climate change. There are many different measures. There are sea temperatures, surface temperatures at sea level, and temperatures in the stratosphere, on high mountains and of rivers. There are temperatures in cities and measurements of light. In additional there are all the measurements of precipitation, winds ocean currents to consider, and that is probably just the start.  

As you will understand in order to see whether the climate is changing you have to first establish what the climate was at given points of time, and that is where Mr. Mann’s hockey stick came under its most plausible attack.

In 2006 another study broadly found Mr Mann’s hockey stick to be an accurate portrayal of climate, finding that in the Northern Hemisphere temperatures are now warmer than any time in the past 400 years and probably in the past 1400 years. They have also been supported by studies of growth patterns on trees and corals, ice cores and sediments, all of which can provide evidence of what the climate was at a given period of history. Mr Mann’s previous work tended to use mainly tree ring data, but that in itself might have been misleading.  Recent work shows that even if you discount all the tree ring data, the hockey stick shape of the graph still remains.

Further, Mr Johnson’s point about grapes shows that medieval times’ temperatures were about the same as the 1980s- things have got warmer since then. Of course there is a great deal of more work to be done, before we are certain. There are large gaps in data – particularly from the Southern Hemisphere.

The hockey stick shape is a frightening one, because if it is right projections show that things could really get out of control. So far as a nation and as a species we are ignoring the warnings of what should be done; we are pandering to vested interests, or making political capital out of climate change and simply procrastinating. That thief of time, procrastination, is stealing from us every day.

To continue Boris's analogy, the forlorn who await their damson crop in vain are those who learn a skill or a tick-box competence in isolation, never linking it to other skills nor seeing the wider context.  Those who transfer their attentions to more successful harvests, this year's 'apples' and 'blackberries', have transferable skills that allow them to recognise similarities in fruit and employ slightly adapted processes to make worthwhile products.  For that to occur, the education 'farmer' needs to sow and nurture curiosity, experience, creativity, reflection not just this year but every year, from pre-school to extreme old age.  As the debate rages on about the lack of UK Government support for ELQs and lifelong learning (see jiscinvolve.org/he-in-general/) it is down to each and every one of us to do what we can for ourselves, our families and wider communities.  As the US, mainland Europe and UK academic years begin, its time to harvest old skills, put them to use and develop new ones.

Tonight's admission that Governor Sarah Palin's daughter Bristol is, indeed, pregnant will at least scotch the bizarre rumours that the teenager is the real mother of Palin's youngest son, Trig Paxson Van (sounds more like a utility vehicle than a child to me, but then I'm not Alaskan). It is however bound to increase the doubts many commentators have been expressing as to the wisdom of John McCain's choice of running mate. The more one learns about Sarah Palin and her family, the more they seem to belong less in the White House than on the Jerry Springer show.

Sarah Palin was supposed to be a champion of conservative Christian values, which tends to imply a family life of irreproachable respectability; many on the religious right take a dim view of fornication. The grassroots activists who warmed to Palin's brave decision to carry a Down's baby to full term may be less impressed to learn that her daughter was not anxious to make "true love wait", as the spin has it.

Then there are the kids with trailer-trash names like Bristol, Track and Trig; Palin's past as a small-town beauty-queen; her blue-collar husband with a reputation for interfering in political hiring and firing; her moose-hunting; her support for creationism; the tales of small-town favour-swapping.

In other circumstances, the Palins might have made excellent subjects for a docu-soap, a sort of gubernatorial Osbournes. Perhaps that's going to be the next political trend, with politicians elected on their ability to make public fools of themselves for the entertainment of the masses.

There are several British politicians who fit that description already! for example Robert Kilroy-Silk, George Galloway, or Boris Johnson.

The picture opposite. There is nothing more embarrasing for me, as a Londoner, than seeing this particular muppet waving the olympic flag in the Birds nest stadium.

The Mayor of London, Boris Johnson, has announced that Londoners can use their gardens to fight against the Climate Crunch, but only if they are on the roof.

Rooftop gardens will be encouraged in the capital as a way of retaining more rainwater, as at the moment, most rainwater tends to run along the street and make people’s shoes wet.  Gardens already at ground level will be moved to higher ground, so that the rain doesn’t have to fall as far. 

It is likely to be a popular scheme, as many British people do like a nice garden.  Gardens after all offer ample opportunity for spying on neighbours, sleeping in the afternoon and sitting on plastic furniture. 

The scheme is also likely to have an economic benefit as many London tradesmen will find extra work repairing buildings that have had 3 metres of soggy soil installed above them. 

Shareholders at the All England Lawn Tennis Club are thought to be pondering the need for a rooftop garden on the new Centre Court roof, as the rainwater collected during the last week of June and first week of July could keep Buxton Spring supplied for several months. 

Si el matrimonio gay fuera correcto -y tengo mis dudas sobre esa cuestión-, no vería ninguna razón por la cual no debería consagrarse la unión entre tres hombres en vez de entre dos, o entre tres hombres y un perro.

Lógicamente, Boris fue elegido alcalde de Londres.

No por una gestión irregular de su antecesor Ken Livingstone, no porque fuera el candidato del otro gran partido, o incluso, no porque el millón largo de votantes que le eligieron como primera opción estuviera de acuerdo con frases tan exquisitas como la anterior.

Si le eligieron, fue porque la política, tal como la entendemos, ha sido exterminada. Uno acude a la Wikipedia y ve que la política es el proceso y actividad orientada, ideológicamente, a la toma de decisiones de un grupo para la consecución de unos objetivos.

Luego uno abre el periódico y ve que la política son alcaldes de cualquier signo detenidos por corrupción. Ve familiares de diputados que adquieren terrenos rústicos por los que casualmente un año después pasará una autovía o la nueva línea del AVE, y claro, han de ser expropiados a un precio diez veces mayor al que pagaron. Ve la inquina, la inmensa podredumbre del ser humano por la cual se tiran millones de litros de leche a la alcantarilla porque de lo contrario reventarían los precios, dicen unos señores en Bruselas. Los mismos que declaran que se puede encarcelar sin cargos durante 18 meses a un inmigrante por el mero hecho de serlo.

Toda política convencional está ya supeditada a los intereses económicos. Ahora tomamos más conciencia de ello, quizá porque vivimos en tiempos de cíclica crisis.

[Crisis que son inventadas por el sistema financiero, como lo fueron las de 1907 -J.P. Morgan empezó a difundir rumores de quiebra para asegurar la creación de la reserva federal que él controlaría-, 1920 -donde la reserva federal empezó a reclamar el pago de los préstamos que desde 1919 había duplicado unilateralmente para introducir más dinero en el mercado y preparar la caída del año siguiente- o la de 1929 -donde crearon años antes los Margin Loans para poder exigir su pago en bloque en Octubre, lo que provocó el crack y la ya famosa depresión-. Como aquella, también esta crisis de las subprime está planificada desde tiempo atrás y será la Historia quien juzgue este nuevo robo global, no yo.]

Ahora, decía, tomamos conciencia de la preponderancia de la economía porque vivimos bajo el paraguas de su crisis-excusa. ¿Qué responde el campo político a esto? ¿Cómo trata de paliar sus efectos? ¿Qué medidas toma para ser realmente quienes lleven el peso ejecutivo de la gestión política, de la administración de las ciudades, de las naciones, de los conglomerados transfronterizos?

Nada. Silencio. Una bala de paja cruzando un parlamento.

Por tanto, ¿qué sentido tiene votar a un político preparado para un cargo?

Sólo a través de la muerte de la política convencional se puede entender que una persona que promete cambio (Barack Obama) elija como vicepresidente a un senador de 65 años que nunca ha hecho nada, o que una persona que promete inmovilismo (John McCain) elija como vicepresidenta a una gobernadora de 44 años sin ninguna experiencia.

Sólo a través de la muerte de la política convencional se entiende una Gran Coalición como la que lleva 3 años funcionando en Alemania (¿alguien puede imaginar un gobierno de concentración nacional PP-PSOE?), en la que se masacran los pilares básicos de cualquiera de los dos partidos, eligiendo una tercera vía en la que se aniquila la ideología y se prioriza el beneficio operativo de las corporaciones.

Los ciudadanos ya han comprendido que la política está muerta. Que votar a las grandes opciones no tiene ningún sentido, porque son igual de pasivas ante los poderes fácticos y jamás van a crear medidas que solucionen el día a día de la gente, como bien se demostró en el bipartidismo del siglo XIX. Por lo tanto, el primer movimiento de protesta es la elección de cenutrios por vocación como Boris Johnson (o en ejemplo español Jesús Gil); gente que es estúpida, pero habla claro, o que incluso es divertida a ratos por sus ocurrencias entre el gris panorama de la corrección política de trajes grises y feministas conservadoras.

Cuando la gracia se acabe, la muerte de la política se encaminará a su último estadio: la elección de partidos de extrema derecha como única opción fuera del abanico que hemos detestado ya de tanto ver.

El ser humano es el único animal que no aprende de los años 30.

When it flashed across the news Web sites that John McCain had chosen Palin as his running-mate in the forthcoming presidential election, my first thought was one of surprise.  Michael Palin had never really struck me as Republican material but with an educational background of Shrewsbury School and Brasenose College, Oxford, perhaps he was.

I am eagerly looking to forward to his first speech on the campaign trail.  No doubt the Republican strategists will advise against Palin wearing the red robes of a cardinal.
 
"Nobody expects the Republicans!  The main issue of this election is the war in Iraq; the war in Iraq and the economy.  The two issues in this election are the war in Iraq and the economy, and health care.  The three issues are the war in Iraq, the economy and health care, and immigration.  The four…  No.  Among our policies in this election are those relating to issues such as the war in Iraq.  Could I start again?"
 
Out in the sticks, a rendition of The Lumberjack Song should go down well in the Republican heartland.  The line, "I put on women's clothing, and hang around in bars," will show that he is in the same mold as J. Edgar Hoover, thus establishing his credentials on law and order.

 
To assure the Republican Party has the necessary funds to mount a winning presidential campaign, Palin will host the TV show Blackmail. 

The dollars are sure to flow in as he threatens to expose those party supporters he used to meet in the bars referred to in The Lumberjack Song.
 
Of course, his role will be subservient to that of John McCain and will mainly involve warming up an audience in readiness for an appearance by the presidential candidate.  Palin will excel at performing this task.  In Robinson Crusoe garb, he can announce, "It's…" only to be then cut off by the entrance music for McCain and the man himself.
 
His biggest test will come in the televised head-to-head debates with Joe Biden, the Democratic Party's candidate for vice president.  Here, Palin's skills at argument will come to the fore and ensure that Biden is in for a hard time.

 
That might not have been the case if Palin had found himself up against Barack Obama's first choice.  Long ago, Obama had penciled in Michael Richards, Kramer from Seinfeld, as his vice-presidential running mate.  But after Richards' infamous outburst during his stand-up routine, his chances went the same way as the Norwegian Blue parrot.  They passed on.  They were no more.  They ceased to be.  They expired and went to meet their maker.  They became bereft of life.

The selection of Palin rounded off quite a week in terms of Monty Python nostalgia. On Sunday, the Mayor of London, Boris Johnson, gave a Pythonesque speech in Beijing after the Olympic flag was handed over.  His reference to ping-pong coming home could easily have been written by Eric Idle and Johnson's delivery was redolent of the late Graham Chapman at his blimpish best.  I half expected Johnson to conclude, "This speech is getting too silly," the camera to pan to John Cleese and for him to announce, "And now for something completely different."
 
It was good to see the Python influence in evidence almost 40 years after Monty Python's Flying Circus first aired on the BBC in 1969.  Boris was only five years old at that time, 10 years old when Monty Python came to an end in 1974, but the show's comedy legacy has endured, helped by feature films such as Monty Python's Life of Brian and Monty Python's The Meaning of Life.
 
In 1975, Monty Python's Flying Circus received its first TV broadcast in the United States, airing on the Dallas PBS station.  It met with such success that it was soon being broadcast by PBS stations throughout the country.  It must have been around that time when McCain spotted Palin's vice-presidential potential.

Yhteistyösopimukseen kuulunut kaupunkisuunnitteluneuvonta mm. julkisen liikenteen, jätehuollon, turismin ja ympäristöasioiden suhteen pääsee nyt solmitun työsuhteen ansiosta kuitenkin toteutumaan.

BBC: Livingstone to be Chavez adviser (28.8.08)

Estrelas do pop, atletas do time da Grã-Bretanha e convidados, policiais, árbitros e mais de 40 mil pessoas reuniram-se no último domingo, 24, em frente ao Palácio de Buckingham, no centro da capital inglesa, para iniciar a contagem regressiva para as Olimpíadas de Londres, marcada para 2012. Cantando “We are the champions”, os organizadores da festa esperaram passar a idéia de felicidade e diversão para os próximos Jogos Olímpicos.

Um grande palco foi erguido em frente à morada da família real inglesa e, enquanto a música tocava, os mestres de cerimônias convidavam os policiais fardados a entrarem na festa, uma cena difícil de imaginar em Pequim. Uma infinidade de bandeirinhas com o logo das Olimpíadas 2012 eram agitadas durante as apresentações e quando entradas nos telões, diretamente do outro lado do mundo e outras localidades no Reino Unido, aconteciam. Além de Londres, cerimônias e festas marcaram a transmissão da sede olímpica de Pequim para a capital inglesa, em 20 localidades do Reino Unido.

Enquanto isso, em Pequim, outros britânicos ilustres, como o prefeito Boris Johnson, o jogador de futebol David Beckham, o guitarrista Jimmy Page e a cantora Leona Lewis, participaram da cerimônia de encerramento da edição chinesa nos jogos. Os londrinos que acompanharam a cerimônia chinesa mostraram-se mais entusiasmados com a presença de Beckham do que com a do prefeito da cidade, que estava no encerramento para receber a tão aguardada bandeira com os aros olímpicos.

A rainha Elizabeth II felicitou a delegação britânica que esteve em Pequim por uma "competição memorável", a melhor em cem anos. "A todos os participantes, e a todos os que os apoiaram tão bem, envio minhas mais calorosas felicitações. Como nação, agora voltamos nossas atenções para a realização dos Jogos Olímpicos de Londres", disse a chefe de Estado em sua mensagem oficial.

"O movimento olímpico serve para fazer o mundo ficar junto", afirmou Michael Phelps, que compareceu no show londrino. Os organizadores de Londres-2012 sabem que não conseguirão fazer os Jogos nas proporções de Pequim, já que o investimento feito será menos que a metade do que foi gasto na cidade chinesa.

Mas nada desanima os ingleses nesta nova empreitada. "Esse dia marca o começo de nossa jornada de quatro anos para sediar uma grande Olimpíada em uma grande cidade", disse o presidente do Comitê Olímpico de Londres, o ex-atleta Sebastian Coe. "Os olhos do mundo se voltarão para Londres nesse dia em que Pequim se despedirá e nós estaremos prontos para receber o mundo".

O evento terminou com o vôo dos famosos aviões Red Arrows, considerados embaixadores da Força Aérea Real (RAF) e do Reino Unido em espetáculos aéreos. As cores da bandeira inglesa coloriram o céu no final da tarde de domingo.

So I was a little bit disappointed on Sunday night to find the news on the BBC showing an interview of a smiling Gordon Brown (at least we were spared the rictus grin of Blair.) and a confused and slightly frightened looking Boris Johnson waving a flag about a bit. Gordon was obviously hoping that some of that gold medal glory would rub off on him and his dismal government and give him a lift in the polls. Rather like the World Cup of 1966 was meant to do for Harold Wilson.

So what was Mayor Boris up to then? Well it seems that jolly old London has been awarded the games for 2012 (Gripes, somebody get Matron!) So our man of the people was there waving the flag and uttering wise words about ping pong and other mass participation sports, whilst the rest of the British lamely tried to convinced the rest of the world that the future of the Olympic games was safe in our hands by having David Beckham kick a football into the crowd from the upper deck of a London Double decker bus, god bless you gov'nor!

I wanted to weep. Is it too late to phone the French and let them have it? Apparently Boris has said that the London games are going to come in under budget. Which means that they will be cheap and nasty and I had a brief vision of Stuart Hall and Eddie Waring (yes I know he is no longer with us) presenting the opening ceremony as the athletes were ushered across a plastic swimming pool on little polystyrene floats, all of course except for the Germans who would have played their joker.

I know they only come around once every four years, though if you count the winter Olympics and I think you have to, then its every two years and of course I don't have to watch any of it. But of course as its in London we are going to have to live with all the cost overruns and accusations and scandals and fears that the venues won't be ready on time, for the next four years. And of course there will probably be a change of government at some point, so that will mean that it will have to be relaunched, re -packaged so the new lot can claim it as their own.

I wonder why the kids call me Mr Grumpy?

Virtually every single one of our international sports were either invented
or codified by the British and I say this respectfully to our Chinese hosts who have excelled so magnificently at ping pong

Ping pong was invented on the dining tables of England in the 19th century and it was called wiff waff.

There I think you have the essential difference between us and the rest of world.

Other nations, the French, looked at a dining table and saw an opportunity to have dinner, we looked at a dining table and saw an opportunity to play wiff waff. That is why London is the sporting capital of the world.

And I say to the Chinese and I say to the world, ping  pong is coming home.

An extract from Larissa Ham's article [25th August]

[incase you haven't heard London is hosting the next Olympics - 2012]

LINK - Watch Johnson's Ping Pong Speech - [youtube]

LINK - Boris Johnson's Biography - a clever toff  & cycles to work @ city hall

Black & White photo by Mark Pritchard [flickr]

Image courtesy - Matt From London
.

●Info on the original painting by Ingres

LINK - Gorgeous BIG blow up

Title:
Napoleon 1st on his Imperial Throne - 1806

Artist:
Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres - French

Born: August 1790
Died: January 1867 Paris

The french hated it!
More info on the painting
Watch Me Paint

"...may be said to have been a lonely phenomenon in the art of the nineteenth century" NewAdvent

I'm sure he must have used the camera obscure? with a lens to get such stunning detail

LINK - The Louvre - France's National gallery/museum?

Napoleon on his throne doesn't seem to be there - have run out of time - anyone know where it is & how large it is?
I wonder if it's in the British National Portrait Gallery in Trafalgar sq with Nelson on his colomn!

LINK - The National Portrait Gallery' 2 photos of Ingres

Tim Blair today disputes Philip Adams' assertion that Malcolm Turnbull is the federal opposition's best bet for leader, and that the Liberal Party would do well "to attack Labor from the left, as British conservatives are learning to do with new-style leaders such as David Cameron and Boris Johnson".

Ever the climate-change opportunist, he counters Adams' argument on environmental grounds, claiming Cameron's rise in popularity follows his "shift away from greenism". He also cites a couple of Johnson's "about-faces" on environmental issues.

Tim concludes with the following:

Australian conservatives tried to neutralise global warming as an issue last year by making happy sounds about carbon trading and such. They lost the election anyway, and now find themselves tied to various warmster words. They should cut loose and declare themselves the party that will save the jobs Rudd would destroy.

Malcolm Turnbull doesn't seem like the man for the job.

Tim Blair isn't the only high-profile NewsLtd blogger arguing along these lines (and we'll be awarding no boxes of cigars for guessing which other outspoken, fiercely independent thinker is nodding furiously in agreement), but his advice for the Liberals warrants some analysis.

It seems to me madness to suggest there are enough votes in climate-change denialism to get the Liberals across the line in a forthcoming election, irrespective of who leads the party and notwithstanding the jobs Tim alleges will be "destroyed" as a result of the Rudd government's environmental policies.

Tim appears already to have forgotten that John Howard's reticence to acknowledge the electorate's concerns --- or make "happy noises" --- about climate change was one of the key contributors to his government's resounding defeat at the 2007 ballot.

Can this tide of pubic opinion have changed so dramatically so soon? Could it do so before the next election, or even the one after that? I wouldn't have thought so.

Tim Blair's and Andrew Bolt's daily pronouncements that the scientific proof is mounting against the thesis of anthropogenic climate change are, as we've argued at this site, often little more than bluffs and white lies delivered to a gaggle of sycophants eager to gobble them up.

It goes without saying that Tim's and Andrew's regular commenters are not representative of Australian society as a whole (to be fair, neither are ours), and that these two bloggers wield far less influence than they or their employer would like to believe, preaching as they do to the largely converted. 

So what is the prevalent mood in Australia about the challenges we face in dealing with climate change --- whether the problem is real or imagined, anthropogenic or natural, trivial or critical? And seeing that the debate is now utterly politicised, what shade of government would be best equipped to tackle such issues?

Furthermore, is Tim's advice to the opposition indicative of another form of denialism --- i.e. an unwillingness to acknowledge that Australian attitudes moved well beyond the Howard government's right-wing ideology in the latter part of its incumbency, and that the last thing that will bring the Liberal party back into power is a sudden, uncompromising return to its thoroughly repudiated (electorally speaking) conservatism?

Love to hear your thoughts.

But this isnt a blog about the controversy of this years Olympic games, this is more a blog about the 2012 olympics due to be held in London... Yeah right.

Already the EU is sticking its fat nose in and asking countries to submit a proposal that the EU use one big team... What a crock of crap... That effectivly steals the Olympics from London and the British and gives it to Europe (and in this day and age of handing over massive amounts of power to Brussells, this will probably happen) which frankly isnt on. If a EU team gets used, then THOUSANDS of atheletes will loose their place to compete in the Olympics which frankly isnt on either... But can you honestly expect the EU to want any British atheletes there? No I didnt think so either...

Failing that we can almost guarantee that the 2012 olympics are gonna have workmen on the track at all times, I can almost see the 1500 meters being confined to a track with one lane, a workman standing every 15 meters with a hazard barrier. I have no faith in the governments ability to finish the stadium on time... that and the opening ceremony I can almost guarantee everyone is going to want stab-proof vests incase a group of 'youths' come and ambush an athelete for his shoe laces... Instead lets have a whole new set of events! The Drive By, The Hit and Run and The Knife Endurance! I can see them taking off in the next 4 years at schools across the UK...

Nik

What do we do now?  For the past 16 days, the Olympic Games in Beijing have gripped TV audiences across the world.  People have marveled at the amazing feats of honest human endeavor; the levels of speed, endurance, grace and agility that the human body is capable of.  I include myself among the many who have probably stared at their flabby and out-of-condition bodies and said, "Where did it all go wrong?"
 
Yesterday, the curtain came down on an Olympic Games that has surpassed all others.  From the comfort of our sofas, we have witnessed not only sporting history in the making, on the track and in the Water Cube, but also one of the greatest spectacles in living memory.  In the latter respect, the Beijing Games will be a hard act for London to follow when the Olympic flower blooms once again in 2012.
 
Beijing will go down as the games where Michael Phelps emerged as one of the greatest Olympians of all time, winning eight gold medals to beat the record set by Mark Spitz in 1972.  Two of those eight gold medals provided edge-of-the-seat excitement – the Men's 4x100m Freestyle Relay, where Phelps had to rely on Jason Lezak to swim the race of his life to overhaul France's Alain Bernard in the last couple of meters; and the Men's 100m Butterfly, where Phelps just beat Serbia's Milorad Cavic by a fingertip.
 
Those eight gold medals for Phelps, described by some as the great haul of China, brought his gold medal tally to 14, the most any Olympic competitor has won.  He plans to add to that total in London.
 
The gymnastic competition saw the ascendancy of China's men and also the never-say-die attitude of the USA men's team, which secured them a bronze medal.  The USA women's team sulked as the controversial Chinese team took gold. But in the individual competitions, the grace of Nastia Liukin and energy of the irrepressible Shawn Johnson won our hearts.  Investigations are still ongoing to find out whether the Chinese did field under-age girls. 
 
A touching moment came in the men's super-heavyweight weightlifting when Germany's Matthias Steiner unexpectedly snatched gold from the favorite, Evgeny Chigishev of Russia.  Steiner was beside himself with joy, for a big man to be so delighted looked somehow comical.  But at the medal ceremony, a poignant moment came when Steiner displayed his medal and a photograph of his wife to the cameras.  His wife was killed last year in a car accident.
 
The track events provided the biggest, in every sense of the word, sensation of these games.  The Jamaican giant Usain Bolt, at 6 feet 5 inches, towered above his rivals in the 100m and 200m finals to perform phenomenal sprints not only to take gold but also set two world records.  His blistering pace in the Men's 4x100m Relay Final helped put the Jamaican team on course for gold in another world record time.  Three gold medals, three world records and the headlines rightly proclaimed him as Lightning Bolt.
 
His personality will stand out from these games just as much as his running.  Bolt exudes fun and the Jamaican laid-back manner.  He is undoubtedly the best sprinter the world has ever seen but his greatness also embraces the ability to clown, a rare quality these days when sport has become such a serious business, with the emphasis on winning rather than taking part.
 
It was impossible not to warm to Bolt and the rest of the Jamaican athletes.  They set a shining example of how sport should be conducted -- play hard, give it your best and, if you win, celebrate.  Shelly-Ann Fraser's delight at winning the Women's 100m Final was a joy to watch.  And if you fail to win, as Jamaica did in the Women's 4x100m Relay Final, you just accept it as part of life; no excuses and no recriminations.
 
Jamaica's response to a clean sweep of the medals in the Women's 100m Final was in marked contrast to the USA's clean sweep of the medals in the Men's 400m Final.  LaShawn Merrit's in-your-face attitude and Jeremy Wariner's sneer may win races but few friends.  They should learn from colleague David Neville about good grace and charm.
 
Being British, I have to say that I am extraordinarily proud of the exploits of the GB Team In Beijing.  Fourth in the medal table and fourth in the number of gold medals won were the stuff of dreams before these games.  The British athletes have set the standard for greater things to come in 2012.  And with home advantage, who knows what Britain's medal tally will be?
 
British officials are already saying that they have no plans to compete with the scale of the Beijing Games and that the London Games will aim for something quite different, promising a more fun-loving and relaxed atmosphere.  I have a feeling it is going to be an event where pop and rock meet sport; a party mood that sees the regeneration of Cool Britannia.
 
Just how free and relaxed the London Games turn out to be remains to be seen.  In these days of world terrorism, security is going to have to be tight and it may curtail the organizers' hopes.  I can imagine terrorist groups are presently in the process of submitting bids to the International Terrorist Committee for the right to attempt to disrupt the London Games by some heinous act and thereby grab headlines across the world.  Forget Cool Britannia, it may well be a case of Fortress Britannia in 2012.
 
For now, the baton has been passed from Beijing to London and all our personal planners should have July 27, 2012 entered in as the date of the opening ceremony of the XXX Olympiad.  London becomes the first city to stage the Olympic Games three times, having previously hosted them in 1908 and 1948. 
 
The Mayor of London, Boris Johnson, said yesterday, "London is the sporting capital of the world.  Sport is coming home and we are going to give those sports an Olympic Games to do Britain proud, to do London proud and to do the world proud."  I hope he is right.

• A stadium full of the world - everyone dressed to the nines or looking immaculate or both. But Boris - well he looked scruffy, even in a suit.
• And then there was the stage-managed procession with Beijing's mayor - but Boris seemed in a bit of a rush, and so bounded up the dais steps two at a time and got there first. Perhaps he'd forgotten that this was the only Olympic race whose result had already been decided - it was definitely London's for the taking. But perhaps we should give him a gold medal anyway, for effort.
• Then the question of the flag-waving itself. Boris had claimed he'd been practising for his big moment for weeks. Fortunately, he was not the only one who found it quite tricky. Having been handed a half-unfurled Olympic flag by a PRC soldier (who'll probably be court-martialled for his efforts) the Beijing mayor struggled - as did IOC president Jacques Rogge. But Boris manfully manged to unfurl his banner - and London could breathe a sigh of jubilant relief. Their mayor had not dropped it nor speared someone with it. His rehearsals come into their own.

All in all, it made me feel proud to be a Brit and a Londoner (in contrast, i should say, to the sight of aging rock stars and footballers on top of a fake London bus). Roll on 2012.

But such superb athletic endeavours pale into insignificance compared to the performance of our capital cities mayor, Boris Johnson.

It started out, as with many things done by Boris, with a little trepidation as to how he could embarrass, not only himself, but the entire country as he appeared on worldwide television. He came onto the stage, next to the perfectly turned out Chinese representative, with his blond disheveled hair, suit jacket open revealing his ample gut, and his constant urge to put his hands in his suit pockets. Then as he receive the Olympic flag, in his own unique manner, struggle to wave it. Every Britain watching the feed live on TV must have had their heart in their mouths wondering how he could cock it up for us.

But he didn't, he managed to walk off the stage without much trouble, and then onward to the British Teams celebration of being the next hosts of the games. His speech was one of his best, the ever present bumbling and fumbling over his words, and the non pc language he may use, but unlike virtually all other politicians he can make a speech interesting and funny, as well as bring across serious points as well, which many people rarely notice, he thanked the Chinese hosts for their hosting of the games and the athletes performances. Most people though will remember him wishing to bring back the sport of pankration and his now famous Ping Pong (or Whiff Whaff) speech.

If anything, rather then the excruciating 8 min segment in the closing ceremony by the winner of a talent show an aging guitarist and a footballer who just stood there and did nothing but be famous, we should have let Boris stand there and give his speech, showing what is great about Britain, wit, wisdom and good old eccentricity.

Remember everyone, in 2012 'Ping Pong' is coming home!!!