5 On The Fifth - Summer Special

Welcome to a special '5 on the fifth', a posting where you share 5 photographs taken on the days leading up to the 5th of the month. Remember to mention my blog on your own blog, so that your visitors can find the other contributions. You can take 5 random pictures or follow my suggested theme: 
  
SUMMER.

  

Complete the form below with your name and location in the 'link title' field and like magic, you will appear in the list of contributors.

  

  

Here are my images, all taken on Friday and Saturday:
  

The Good, the Bad and the Ugly #4

The good:
  
We were once driving in France behind a white Ford transit... I said "You know what that is?... Vin Blanc". I am a genius.
  
The Bad:
  
Fernando Torres, you may be gorgeous, but you're paid 5 million euros a year to kick a ball... stop complaining about sometimes being a substitute you spoilt immature twat.

The Ugly:

The Olympic torch relay has begun in the UK and a number of people have been selling their torches after their run on eBay.  It is an honour to be picked for this event and the torches are a gift to be cherished; to sell them minutes after running is shocking and those involved should look at themselves closely.  I don't care about their reasons - in fact, I believe most are lying about the reasons they listed the torch on eBay. These are such scummy people.

Posters for 2012

We found out this week that the Olympic torch route passes a couple of miles from our house next year. It will interesting to see what event is planned for that particular part of the route.  And of course, that question that we all ask has been answered: what happens if the flame goes out?!

Last week, a range of official posters were released and I have to say that I was disappointed and underwhelmed.  We had an opportunity to 'wow' people and yet we have some bland offerings.  One of them by Howard Hodgkins looks like a 2 year old baby painted it. And this one by Martin Creed is just boring!

However, there are a couple of interesting ones:

Olympic hopefuls #1 - Louis Smith

It's less than a year to the London Olympics (we have tickets for 4 events!) and I thought it would be a fine idea to highlight a few of our sporting hero's who are hoping to be part of Team GB next summer. And of course, they will all be male, fit and cute!

Let's start with 22 year old Louis Smith, gymnast who specialises in the Pommel Horse. I have seen him interviewed a couple of times and he seems a dedicated and grounded guy.

Snippits October style

Before the next 5 on the fifth blog entry (see last posting), here are a few random thoughts...

FlashForward has started showing in the UK and from what I see so far, I think it's pretty cool. It's a shame that nobody watches Channel 5. It's from the guys who made Lost, so nothing will make sense and I don't expect it to!

For the TV record... The Sky+ box now records daily Frasier and King of the Hill with weekly recordings of Derren Brown, Peep Show, Futurama. Pete tapes True Blood and errrm... Ugly Betty. No accounting for taste.

For rugby fans everywhere, gay friendly bear Ben Cohen is on the front of Attitude this month. I don't buy it as it's trash, but will enjoy looking at the cover. On the rugby-ish topic, the posh England player Olly Barkley is a tease in a new calendar.

Great to see that Rio will be hosting the 2016 Olympic games. It's strange that no country in South America has never hosted a games. London will be fantastic in 2012 and I have already (mentally) booked a weeks holiday to see lots of sports. I think that the USA needs to stop bidding at every opportunity - the games need to travel a bit.

There was a strange coincidence when we were in The Netherlands that I forgot to mention. One of my brothers is a cabinet maker, but does other work if it comes up - well, he had been asked (with his friend) to make handmade wooden windows for an old manor house (when I say old, we are talking 600+ years old). When he turned up at the house, he recognised is as once being the home of the friend I was visiting in The Netherlands about 15 years ago! What was very strange however, my friend and I had "decorated" his bedroom walls with some hand drawn album covers and a funky black, red and grey line across the wall and ceiling... they are still there and it's amazing as we did this twenty years ago!

I don't usually like the questioning of someones sexuality, but... I had always assumed that Russell Howard (star of Mock the week) was gay for some reason - then he mentions a girlfriend. Is my gaydar in need of a finetune?

I have ordered a new company car, after being forced to drive around for nearly two years in a car I don't like! Assuming I am still employed, I will pick the car up in December. It's a BMW like this and it should save me loads in tax.

Next week will be interested as I am presenting in 2 training days. Public speaking was something I used to really loath, but now I enjoy it and actually get a buzz from ad libbing.

Please take part in "5 on the fifth" on Monday. Tell your friends!

Lovebox

Yesterday Pete and I spent the day at the Lovebox festival in London - the next stage of the musical month of July. For me, it was too crowded and the park wasn't quite big enough for the number of stages and other entertainment. Also, my growing disdain with the general public was not helped by me being barged out of the way many times, seeing girls urinating in public, many guys doing the same and young people especially, just throwing rubbish on the ground.

The real reason for going was to allow Pete to obtain his Duran Duran fix as they were the headliners. I haven't seen them before. They are certainly accomplished musicians and showmen, but this was not the right event for them as a small proportion of the crowd were not that interested at all and one young guy (around 18) said "they should really only play songs that we all know". Idiot.
We stayed in Stratford which is not the nicest of areas in London, but is being slowly transformed into the main London 2012 Olympics venue (though many locations across London are being used). The stadium looks huge when you are up close to it - see a picture below and a couple of other misc things too:

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