The Great Gordino Newsletter – Dog Training At The Olympics?

Hi,
Regular readers will know that I love watching sport, and that I also love entertainment. So it might surprise you that the 2 stories that struck me most this week were in the fields of science and cooking…

No, they weren’t really, they were in sport and entertainment!

The Olympic flame was lit in Ancient Olympia in Greece. It’s a ceremony that goes back right to the, er, ancient times in Greece, when they staged the games in the same ancient arena.

Of course it wasn’t ancient then…


(image from BBC.co.uk click picture for the link)

There was no torch relay back then either, that is a 20th century invention, but the dancing and praying to the Gods did happen. It seems the priestesses back then had one breast exposed as a display of fertility – why some elements of tradition have to be tinkered with I’ll never know…

I loved watching it – lots of people will say it has no relevance in the world of modern sport, but sport is *based* on tradition – if you do away with that kind of history, then what’s the point of it? It’s also a lovely counter point to that very modern world of today’s sport that I just mentioned.

The torch will travel around Greece for a week, before being flown to Britain where it will come within 10 miles of 95% of the population. It goes within a 5 minute walk of me, so I’ll pop along for a look.

There was a moment when the flame was blown out by a rogue gust of wind. The priestess (well, the actress playing the priestess) had a brief moment of panic as she wondered what to do, but she remained composed and simply went back to get it lit again – grace under pressure!

(image from BBC.co.uk click picture for link)

Britain’s Got Talent had the final this week. I’ve written many times about the downsides of the show, namely the deliberate building up of bad acts just to be able to put them down, but it does have good sides.

It shows what can be done with determination and hard work, that people can change their lives with a combination of conviction and/or natural talent and belief.

Much like the Susan Boyle story, the awkward but brilliant singer was beaten into second place, this time it was a dancing dog that won.

(image from Telegraph.co.uk click picture for link)

The dog, Pudsey, really was excellent, and considering the show is about variety acts and not just singers, who have plenty of shows to go on, I like it when a variety act wins, and I look forward to seeing them on the Royal Variety Performance.

I’ll end with another Olympic story, this time about tickets.
I didn’t get any tickets when I tried the first time last year. I went for tickets to watch the women’s pole vault, but got nothing.

This week they started to open up some tickets for another chance (why they didn’t just sell them, the first time is a bit of a mystery to me).

I got a ticket for some beach volleyball, which has an ironic element considering my love of sporting tradition, because beach volleyball is the kind of sport which has purists disputing whether it is worthy of being in the Olympics.

It’s not even on a beach! It will be held on Horse Guard’s Parade in the centre of London, so the sand may well have horse manure under it.

Having initially been worried I had got tickets to see the men instead of the women, I can now look forward to watching some Olympic women’s beach volleyball. Seeing some scantily clad women rolling about in some sand and getting back up wiping horse poo off themselves will be a most enjoyable summer afternoon, I’m sure!

Ok, that’s it for this week,
‘Til Next Time,
Health & happiness,
Gordon
P.S. Have you seen my motivational book ‘Transform Your Life in 21 Days!’