As the London 2012 Olympics reach two weeks and counting, the world's news media -and enthusiastic London Mayor Boris Johnson- visit Olympic Park, the Athletes Village, some venues and give us their appraisals; #London2012, @London2012

alejandromedinafilms video:  Time-lapse footage of construction of the London 2012 Athletes' Village. (HD). February 22, 2012. http://youtu.be/bB0W8xiqQ8Y





Al Jazeera video: Al Jazeera correspondent Lee Wellings checks out the Olympic Park two weeks before it's full of 16,000 athletes. July 13, 2012.
http://youtu.be/I1ZqZfVjMYU





Australia's 7News: Inside the Olympic village. July 13, 2012. 
http://youtu.be/p1os8q-8geo





London Mayor Boris Johnson inspected the beautiful Olympic Park on Friday, two weeks before the Opening Ceremonies and comes away both impressed and proud. 


MayorsOfficeLondon video: July 13, 2012. http://youtu.be/HIlZmMBYUy8
SNTVonline video: July 13, 2012.  http://youtu.be/p6Bg7uFUays





MayorsOfficeLondon video: A new £50m cable car system -aka Emirates Air Line- linking the Excel Centre at Royal Victoria Docks across the Thames to the O2 Arena in north Greenwich in five minutes, and with an amazing view. http://youtu.be/PLAz1lM0zgs


You don't have to be a genius to know in advance that whatever else happens the first week, this cable car ride with its great views is going to be one of the early breakout hits of the Olympics, with every TV cameraman from around the world in London taking at least two trips across with one of their correspondents showing the folks back home the view from mid-air, to say nothing of the visitors and athletes themselves who will cross with their own video-cams in tow, and why not? 
But the queues will be long!!!


I expect that within a month from today, there will easily be at least 500 videos of the entire Thames crossing on YouTube.


And lest you forget, that's Greenwich as in Greenwich Mean Time -GMT- though during the summer up 'til late October, London is actually on BST, British Summer Time, where the living is easy.
In any case, where time begins on this blue planet.




SNTVonline video: Inside Olympics venue - the Excel Centre. July 13, 2012.
http://youtu.be/3VN8R2mqxvU

Speaking of Depeche Mode... the music in the cable car video above you just heard is their's 



WarnerBrosRecords video: Depeche Mode - It's No Good (Remastered Video). October 26, 2009. http://youtu.be/aieEZ950d1I
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http://www.london2012.com/spectators/venues/

Hello Miami, London Calling: Season's greetings from London 2012 Olympics; David Beckham doesn't BEND, but shoots & scores anyway -blindfolded!

London 2012 video:  Season's greetings from London 2012 Olympic Games, December 21, 2011.  http://youtu.be/u_BR_bIF1HE


The London Organising Committee of the Olympic Games and Paralympic Games, having been brought up "proper," sent us an informative email today just before lunch that includes salutations and greetings for a new year, along with the cute video above. 
That email, full of new aerial photos of the brand new Olympic Park venues that have been built in East London, can be seen here:
http://view.comms.london2012.com/v/30G50M0/6VKZY/HIWC2K0/K6MJL/MAILACTION=1&FORMAT=H


I hasten to add that I have some very sharp and talented friends in the London area who've
been hard-working volunteers from Day One, and I can tell you that they are VERY psyched!
219 days to go until the Summer Olympics of London.


London 2012 video:  London 2012 Olympic Torch Relay route animation. November 7, 2011. http://youtu.be/V1tOSzGVGeM
Interactive U.K. map of the Olympic Torch Relay: 
http://www.london2012.com/olympic-torch-relay-map



London 2012 video: David Beckham tries his hand at blind football (London 2012), November 29, 2011. http://youtu.be/9cjysuRLAAE


http://www.london2012.com/


http://www.london2012.com/mascots


Official YouTube Channel of the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games:
http://www.youtube.com/user/london2012


Sign-up for London 2012 newsletters:
https://www.london2012.com/settings/esignup.php?returl=/index.php

Blimey! Two-thirds of the 1.9 million sports fans who applied for London 2012 Olympics tickets get shut out; one-third of events are already sold-out

Channel 4 News video: London 2012 -Two thirds of applicants left without tickets

June 17, 2011.

http://bcove.me/2q11ijx7

Complete story at

http://www.channel4.com/news/1-2m-bidders-for-olympics-tickets-left-empty-handed

Meanwhile, just when you thought you'd heard it all, guess who WAS given some tickets?

Yes, no matter how you spell it, the name Gaddafi still opens important doors...

ITN News video: Libya given London Olympic tickets, June 15, 2011

http://youtu.be/sOSaCOodonc

-----

Idaho-Eastern Oregon Onion Committee video: Jeret "Speedy" Peterson - "Cooking with Speedy"

http://youtu.be/t9DN8zPOv4U

"Go big or go home!"

A marriage made in heaven -in my head, at least: marrying opera singer Malena Ernman's performance of "La Voix" to a Pairs Ice Dancing routine; @Malena_Ernman

Eurovision Song Contest YouTube Channel:

Malena Ernman - La Voix, Sweden 2009; new version. 

Uploaded April 24, 2009

Written by Fredrik Kempe.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3CchOtQMKTE

I wrote about the ridiculously-talented Malena and the song here on the blog last year: http://hallandalebeachblog.blogspot.com/search/label/Malena%20Ernman

Honestly, why hasn't SAS figured out a savvy way to incorprate this catchy song and Malena into a new TV campaign for the airline, showing sophisticated places in Europe where talented and sophisticated Malena is both flying and performing in? 
I mean the video is practically an invitation AND how-to-guide served up on a silver platter? #frustrating.

Here's the version Malena performed at last year's Melodifestivalen. 
Still gives me #goosebumps! 

https://youtu.be/5WH2OwJeMBE

The craziest, brilliant idea I've had in quite some time came to its logical conclusion in next-door Aventura late Saturday afternoon, after I'd watched the latest in a long line of dreary, punchless Indiana University football losses to Big Ten teams since that seminal Bill Lynch victory over Purdue two years ago, losing to Ohio State 38-10 over in Columbus. 
(More on the ballgame later today.)

Yes, it involves another trip by yours truly to the "Venezuelan" Target, which was in rare form late Saturday, completely living up to its well-earned reputation as being the #1 casual hangout hereabouts for all the many beautiful Venezuelan women living in Aventura and SE Broward County, plus, their very good-looking Argentine friends. Claro!
Style-wise, it's the closest thing to being back in Washington, D.C. or Stockholm.

Over the past week, I'd been going thru some songs I'd favorite-ed on my YouTube Channel since I first signed-up and created it, which included some songs that I know that 99.9% of you have never heard of. Like REALLY, REALLY never heard of.
http://www.youtube.com/user/HallandaleBeachBlog

So as a result of that, I've had some songs in my head recently that I haven't thought of in quite some time, and been humming many of them as I wait in a long line in the many left-hand turning lanes on Hallandale Beach Blvd. that you MUST endure to get anywhere in this traffic-gridlocked city next to the ocean.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kghCqyMLPFA

Catchy songs, pop songs, songs with hooks...
No, not just the delightful Kristina Pelakova singing "Horehronie" in Oslo, above, which I mentioned here recently, but also some terrific catchy French songs as well, which I'll share here soon so you can "hear" what I've been thinking about lately.
You know how I love the EuroPop!

So, with the items I needed I inside the snazzy, new streamlined Target plastic shopping carts I was piloting -SO MUCH lighter and quieter than the old metal ones- I ambled over to the back of the store to where they keep 'seasonal' products, where I spied the hysterically funny and clever Halloween costumes for kids. Sorry the photos aren't clearer!

Below, October 9, 2010 photos by me, South Beach Hoosier at the Aventura Target.




Eventually, after wandering the three aisles they have for Halloween costumes, I came across a thirty-something year old father with his kid in tow, waiting patiently for the wife/mother member of the triangle to make up her mind about whatever it was she was choosing between as the head consumer of the family.

And then, out of the blue, inspiration hit me like a bolt of lightning. 
I heard this kid humming something that I couldn't quite make out.
And the next four words that came to mind were, strangely enough, "Malena Ernman" and "Ice Dancing."

Frankly, I'm writing this now knowing in advance that I won't be nearly able to adequately describe this enough to satisfy myself, much less you, despite how clear it is in my head.
But I have just got to get this out of my head before I go crazy.

It's frustrating, like trying to describe how intensely beautiful Bloomington and nearby Brown County are, esp. in the Fall when the leaves are changing colors, http://www.browncounty.com/ 
to someone who has not only NEVER been there, and can't conceive of how magical it is.
To say nothing of only vaguely sure where, precisely, Indiana is located in the Midwest, which, shockingly, is the case with lots and lots of people I've met in South Florida since returning from the Washington, D.C. area seven years ago.
http://www.flickr.com/search/groups/?m=pool&s=rec&w=576934%40N24&q=Brown+County%2C+Fall

Reminder: west to east -Iowa, Illinois, Indiana: the Three I's.
Michigan is north, Ohio is east and Kentucky is south. Got it?

I won't even try to mention the technical descriptions of the particular dancing skills and requirements that I can so easily visualize in my head, since 99.9% of you won't understand them even if I did, but...

If anyone out there reading this knows of at least two very talented skaters who are looking for some music to accompany their choreography in Ice Dancing, especially for an exhibition, I think you could really strike gold with La Voix, as performed by fabulous opera singer Malena Ernman, which was the song she sang representing Sweden at the 2009 Eurovision Song Contest in Moscow, where Alexander Rybak of Norway won for Fairytale. 


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y4D_hguWPQE

More info on Malena and the ridiculously catchy song that WILL stay in your head.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/La_voix
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malena_Ernman

Twitter @Malena_Ernman  http://en.twitter.com/Malena_Ernman

IF anyone knows of any figure skater(s) anywhere, more likely in Europe, whether singles or pairs, who has already used this intensely catchy song in competition or an exhibition, please let me know how it turned out. 
And if there's a video of it somewhere on the Internet, all the better.

In the right hands, this song could/would/should be a dynamite crowd-pleaser for a very talented Ice Dancing couple.

Jayne Torvill & Christopher Dean -STILL the GOLD  standard!

Torvill & Dean performing to Bolero at the 1984 Winter Olympics in Sarajevo- HQ

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t2zbbN4OL98

Tessa Virtue & Scott Moir at 2010 Vancouver Olympics

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lE4TbwxMsCA

Official website for 2010 Olympic Gold Medalists Tessa Virtue & Scott Moir of Canada: http://virtuemoir.com/



Official website for Malena Ernman, chock-full of interesting photos, videos and anecdotes about her career and life. An opera singer with a great sense of humor, moxie and humanity!: www.malenaernman.com

A marriage made in heaven -in my head, at least: marrying opera singer Malena Ernman's performance of "La Voix" to a Pairs Ice Dancing routine; @Malena_Ernman

Eurovision Song Contest YouTube Channel:

Malena Ernman - La Voix, Sweden 2009; new version. 

Uploaded April 24, 2009

Written by Fredrik Kempe.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3CchOtQMKTE

I wrote about the ridiculously-talented Malena and the song here on the blog last year:http://hallandalebeachblog.blogspot.com/search/label/Malena%20Ernman

Honestly, why hasn't SAS figured out a clever way to incorporate this catchy song and Malena into a new TV campaign for the airline, showing sophisticated places in Europe where talented and sophisticated Malena is both flying and working/performing in?
You know, like Scandinavian travelers? 
I mean the video at the top is practically an invitation AND how-to-guide served up on a silver platter to SAS? #frustrating.

Here's the version Malena performed at last year's Melodifestivalen. 
Still gives me #goosebumps! 


https://youtu.be/5WH2OwJeMBE

The craziest, brilliant idea I've had in quite some time came to its logical conclusion in next-door Aventura late Saturday afternoon, after I'd watched the latest in a long line of dreary, punchless Indiana University football losses to Big Ten teams since that seminal Bill Lynch victory over Purdue two years ago, losing to Ohio State 38-10 over in Columbus. 
(More on the ballgame later today.)

Yes, it involves another trip by yours truly to the "Venezuelan" Target, which was in rare form late Saturday, completely living up to its well-earned reputation as being the #1 casual hangout hereabouts for all the many beautiful Venezuelan women living in Aventura and SE Broward County, plus, their very good-looking Argentine friends. Claro!
Style-wise, it's the closest thing to being back in Washington, D.C. or Stockholm.

Over the past week, I'd been going thru some songs I'd favorite-ed on my YouTube Channel since I first signed-up and created it, which included some songs that I know that 99.9% of you have never heard of. Like REALLY, REALLY never heard of.
http://www.youtube.com/user/HallandaleBeachBlog

So as a result of that, I've had some songs in my head recently that I haven't thought of in quite some time, and been humming many of them as I wait in a long line in the many left-hand turning lanes on Hallandale Beach Blvd. that you MUST endure to get anywhere in this traffic-gridlocked city next to the ocean.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kghCqyMLPFA

Catchy songs, pop songs, songs with hooks...
No, not just the delightful Kristina Pelakova singing "Horehronie" in Oslo, above, which I mentioned here recently, but also some terrific catchy French songs as well, which I'll share here soon so you can "hear" what I've been thinking about lately.
You know how I love the EuroPop!

So, with the items I needed I inside the snazzy, new streamlined Target plastic shopping carts I was piloting -SO MUCH lighter and quieter than the old metal ones- I ambled over to the back of the store to where they keep 'seasonal' products, where I spied the hysterically funny and clever Halloween costumes for kids. Sorry the photos aren't clearer!

Below, October 9, 2010 photos by me, South Beach Hoosier at the Aventura Target.




Eventually, after wandering the three aisles they have for Halloween costumes, I came across a thirty-something year old father with his kid in tow, waiting patiently for the wife/mother member of the triangle to make up her mind about whatever it was she was choosing between as the head consumer of the family.

And then, out of the blue, inspiration hit me like a bolt of lightning. 
I heard this kid humming something that I couldn't quite make out.
And the next four words that came to mind were, strangely enough, "Malena Ernman" and "Ice Dancing."

Frankly, I'm writing this now knowing in advance that I won't be nearly able to adequately describe this enough to satisfy myself, much less you, despite how clear it is in my head.
But I have just got to get this out of my head before I go crazy.

It's frustrating, like trying to describe how intensely beautiful Bloomington and nearby Brown County are, esp. in the Fall when the leaves are changing colors, http://www.browncounty.com/ 
to someone who has not only NEVER been there, and can't conceive of how magical it is.
To say nothing of only vaguely sure where, precisely, Indiana is located in the Midwest, which, shockingly, is the case with lots and lots of people I've met in South Florida since returning from the Washington, D.C. area seven years ago.
http://www.flickr.com/search/groups/?m=pool&s=rec&w=576934%40N24&q=Brown+County%2C+Fall

Reminder: west to east -Iowa, Illinois, Indiana: the Three I's.
Michigan is north, Ohio is east and Kentucky is south. Got it?

I won't even try to mention the technical descriptions of the particular dancing skills and requirements that I can so easily visualize in my head, since 99.9% of you won't understand them even if I did, but...

If anyone out there reading this knows of at least two very talented skaters who are looking for some music to accompany their choreography in Ice Dancing, especially for an exhibition, I think you could really strike gold with La Voix, as performed by fabulous opera singer Malena Ernman, which was the song she sang representing Sweden at the 2009 Eurovision Song Contest in Moscow, where Alexander Rybak of Norway won for Fairytale. 


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y4D_hguWPQE

More info on Malena and the ridiculously catchy song that WILL stay in your head.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/La_voix
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malena_Ernman

Twitter @Malena_Ernman  http://en.twitter.com/Malena_Ernman

IF anyone knows of any figure skater(s) anywhere, more likely in Europe, whether singles or pairs, who has already used this intensely catchy song in competition or an exhibition, please let me know how it turned out. 
And if there's a video of it somewhere on the Internet, all the better.

In the right hands, this song could/would/should be a dynamite crowd-pleaser for a very talented Ice Dancing couple.

Jayne Torvill & Christopher Dean -STILL the GOLD  standard!

Torvill & Dean performing to Bolero at the 1984 Winter Olympics in Sarajevo- HQ

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t2zbbN4OL98

Tessa Virtue & Scott Moir at 2010 Vancouver Olympics

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lE4TbwxMsCA

Official website for 2010 Olympic Gold Medalists Tessa Virtue & Scott Moir of Canada: http://virtuemoir.com/


Official website for Malena Ernman, chock-full of interesting photos, videos and anecdotes about her career and life. An opera singer with a great sense of humor, moxie and humanity!: www.malenaernman.com

Dave

Twitter: @hbbtruth, https://twitter.com/hbbtruth

https://twitter.com/hbbtruth/with_replies
http://www.hallandalebeachblog.blogspot.com/

Hardly Breaking News: Older women love the Winter Olympics but Hispanics and African-Americans are completely ignoring Vancouver's pride and joy

Lacey Rose of Forbes magazine dropped a great little news nugget or two yesterday that I've heard expressed many times in years past by other media/sports writers I like and follow, but which bears special mention now as the Vancouver Winter Olympics chugs towards its Closing Ceremonies in a few days, hours after the U.S. vs. Canada ice hockey Gold Medal game results in somebody leaving disappointed, likely Team USA.

From her perch at the Forbes blog, The Biz Blog, -media, Hollywood and celebrity- Lacey first mentions that folks on Madison Avenue are very disappointed in the Olympics TV demos from an audience-reach p.o.v. because it's skewing way too older female, which makes a lot of their trendy ad buys nothing but wasted dollars down the drain.
Surprise!

Chicken or egg?
NBC Universal's on-air talent thinks nothing of talking incessantly about a female figure skater's dead mom and any resentment between U.S. Olympic ski team members Lindsey Vonn and Julia Mancuso, prior to and since the Olympics started, Vonn and Mancuso, the Best of Rivals http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/17/sports/olympics/17ski.html , but now you're surprised that guys are tuning-out your soft-focus, pastel coverage after days of hearing you talk about the same thing?
"Among viewers 55 and older, ratings are 82% higher than the national average, according to Nielsen."

While on an errand late this afternoon, I heard a very well-produced and critical perspective on PRI's The World via WLRN-FM, http://www.theworld.org/ by Carol Hills titled
More live coverage of Olympics outside US, criticizing NBC Universal's absurd policy of tape-delayed (and overly-chickified) coverage compared to what foreign TV broadcasters are beaming back to their eager audiences around the world: LIVE coverage of everything as it happens.
You know, the method preferred by genuine sports fans around the world?

Hear Hills' persuasive piece for yourself at:
http://www.theworld.org/2010/02/26/more-live-coverage-of-olympics-outside-us/

In a related manner, the New York Times' Olympics Rings blog reports late this afternoon that Wisconsin Senator Herb Kohl is asking many of the same reasonable questions that Carol Hills raises in her radio piece about consumer accessability:
Senator Asks NBC to Explain Internet Restrictions By Richard Sandomir
http://vancouver2010.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/02/26/senator-asks-nbc-to-explain-internet-restrictions/

On the odd chance that you don't already know, Herb Kohl is the owner of the Milwaukee Bucks and -yes- is part of the Kohl family for whom Kohl's department store is named.
(He was the company president for most of the Seventies.)

Not surprisingly, he is and has been the wealthiest person in the entire U.S. Congress since first getting elected to the Senate in 1988, where he succeeded Senator William Proxmire, a true original whom we could use dozens of clones of today to make things right.

Sen. Kohl is the Chairman of a Judiciary subcommittee where his Midwestern values and moderate notions are a real plus: Antitrust, Competition Policy and Consumer Rights.
http://judiciary.senate.gov/about/subcommittees/antitrust.cfm

Later in her blog posting, Lacey Rose drops the nugget which caused me to take a few minutes today to write about a subject that I've been talking about for years with my media friends up in the D.C. area, especially my African-American reporter friends, so many of whom used to go with me to Baltimore for Oriole games via the MARC Baseball Train from D.C.'s Union Station, which deposited us right next to Camden Yards.

While older women are watching the Winter Olympics in numbers that Madison Avenue doesn't quite know what to do with, "Viewership among both Hispanic and African-American populations is 74% below the national average."

See Lacey Rose's entire post here:
Olympic TV Ratings: Bigger? Yes. Better? Maybe Not.
February 25, 2010
http://blogs.forbes.com/bizblog/2010/02/25/olympic-tv-ratings-bigger-yes-better-maybe-not/

I originally meant to post the informative daily video I receive straight from the Vancouver organizers from the very beginning of the Games but... miuex tard que jamais:



Live Olympic results are at: http://www.vancouver2010.com/olympic-schedule-results/

New York Times Olympics Rings blog, http://vancouver2010.blogs.nytimes.com/