Clapping Common

Highlight of the Get Loaded in the Park festival on Clapham Common for me this bank holiday weekend was undoubtedly the unstoppable energy and amazing voice of Gossip (or is it 'The Gossip'?) singer Beth Ditto. There I was in the packed tent, seriously flagging after consuming vino and vodka (and a rather dodgy burger), when she suddenly bounds on to the stage clad in a pink glittery number and sporting an eye-catching ginger bob, and sets the stage on fire. The band's performance totally invigorated me for the rest of the evening, during which I somehow ended up dancing on a table in a bar in Balham. And I don't do dancing...

Hayley on Beijing (Hayjing) *Groan*

Is anyone else puffed with pride about the Olympic success of Team GB or is it just me? We are THIRD in the medals table! Whether we'll manage to hang on to that position remains to be seen, but we've done bloody well I reckon.

My memorable Beijing Olympic moments and observations:

• Wondering how London will ever outdo Beijing's ridiculously precise opening ceremony
• Feeling slightly relieved when I found out that the little girl was miming because at least we would never sink that low...would we?!
• Telling the whole office that Chris Hoy had just won his third gold medal when, in fact, he'd just won the opening leg of his final (although he did go on to win)
• Watching some of the stuff on the big screen in Trafalgar Square in the rain
• The realisation that we seem to be especially good at the events where you sit down (cycling, rowing, sailing, eventing etc)
• Pretty much half of the teams dropping their relay batons (at least we didn't drop ours)
• Specifically, Team USA dropping their batons
• Michael Johnson's face as Bolt broke the 100m world record
• Michael Johnson's insistence that Bolt wouldn't break his own 200m record...just before he did
• John Inverdale shoving his microphone in the faces of the quadruple sculls girls as they were having simultaneous nervous breakdowns
• Watching repeats of the events on iPlayer in the office and screaming at the screen as if it was live

And many more. Other silly Olympic observations welcomed!

Help the raged (...Daily Mail readers)

This story made me chuckle today. Pensioners' groups have called for the road sign depicting old people to be revamped because the current design is 'insulting'. I can kind of see where they're coming from - of-course all elderly people don't hobble along all hunched with a walking stick. But some do, and surely they're the ones that the motorists should be looking out for, eh? Ah well, I guess the pensioners' groups in question got some publicity out of it.

*Bonus fact*
According to the Daily Mail (hmmm) "the current sign for 'elderly people crossing' was the winning entry in a children's competition held in 1981." Aaaw. (The Daily Mail comment board on this story is well worth a read).

Isn't the internet brilliant...

I have found a photo of the marvellous Big Issue seller:

See! I wasn't lying! Photo by davepatten.

The Jig Issue

Prize for the most creative Big Issue seller goes to the chap at the Trafalgar Square end of Charing Cross Road. When I saw him this evening he was stood like a statue in this position:

(minus the beach accessories) holding a Big Issue in his outstretched hand. Then, when I walked past him again a bit later, he was doing a little dance. Sadly I didn't see anyone buy a copy. But, then again, neither did I...now I feel bad.

Amazing new online game

It's lunchtime on a Friday. Only a few hours to go until the weekend. What better way to pass the time (in your lunch hour, of-course) than by participating in the world wide web's most fantastic interactive Friday-based competition, the Friday Factoid! Originally an internal game in my office, we have decided to open the weekly contest to one and all (to stop the same people from winning - you know who you are!!).

The rules:

• Check www.fridayfactoid.blogspot.com every Friday morning
• I will have uploaded this week's theme which you must find a fact about
• Submit your fact (max 100 words) as an ANONYMOUS comment to the relevant blog posting by 2pm on the Friday
• I then choose a winner
• Check back after 3pm to see if you're the victor
• If you have won, identify yourself via the blog for glorification purposes
• Err, no prizes, except the pride of having your factoid celebrated, and mass adulation

Ridiculously geeky I know but it is rather fun and you do get to learn lots of amazing stuff by reading everyone's submissions...
Happy factoiding fellow nerds!

A midsummer night's dream

Yes, I know strictly speaking the title of this blog should have a few more capital letters in it, especially since what I have to say is in fact Shakespeare-related. But I'm not actually writing about Puck and Titania, because last night a bunch of us went along to The Globe to watch a special midnight - 3.30am performance of King Lear. It's definitely midsummer-ish, it was during the night and it did indeed feel like a bit of a dream. So my grammar isn't rubbish. Ha.

Anyway, the play was fantastic - amazing pagan music and earthy costumes - I felt like I was watching it as it was originally meant to be performed. With the solar eclipse earlier in the day (which a group of us from the office successfully witnessed from Trafalgar Square by looking at the reflection of the sun in a puddle, causing a few bystanders to look at us rather oddly since it appeared that we were simply standing in a line and looking at the ground) it was, all in all, a pretty magical 24 hours in London.

Photo (in which you can kind of see us!) by little misadventure.