Olympic pains

In case you hadn't noticed, the 2012 Olympic Games are currently taking place in the UK, predominently in London.

The Games used to be a highly enjoyable get-together of amateur athletes, but now they have turned into an overblown media circus, with herds of overpaid, tattoo-covered druggies trying to avoid capture whilst making as much money as possible by overacting, screaming, gesticulating strangely before the cameras, and generally drawing attention to themselves.

If that's not bad enough, there's the host nation trying to put on a more spectacular opening and closing show than the previous host nation, simply to show that they can, and at the same time milking their tax payers (over £9 billion in the UK so far).

Did you see the opening ceremony of this latest Olympics? It was a grey and dreary affair, so perhaps in that respect it did reflect well on the host nation. But what about the outfits that the medal bearers and their associates in crime have to wear? Apparenty, these uniforms were designed by students of the Royal College of Art. Well, they've failed their exams, I'm sure! The girls are decked out in a vile purple dresses (it's called "royal purple," but that comes to the same thing, of course), which are festooned with large zips, sometimes open, sometimes not, and decorated with a large flap of material in any colour that doesn't match the purple (so far I've seen yellow, blue, red, turquoise…). What the zips hide is anyone's guess and one can only speculate on the purpose of the flap: I first saw the canary yellow ones during the swimming events and assumed they were to dry the tears of the losers (or winners, for they cry, too), or to wipe splashes of pool water from the walkways to prevent slippage, or to offer a drying cloth to eager photographers whose lenses had become misted, or… well, who knows, perhaps they're simply to polish up the medals before passing them over to their winners? Whatever the purpose of the flaps, they certainly have no sartorial value. And each group of medal bods seems to be accompanied by a behatted individual. I wonder if the millinery is a nod to Carroll's Mad Hatter character, for surely only someone of questionable mentality could have come up with this throwback to the attire of the air hostesses of years gone by. Talking of years gone by, what about the suits and shirts worn by the male of the species Medal Bearer? Honestly, I thought that the Dave Clark Five had been reincarnated, for a more mid-1960s' outfit is hard to imagine?

Somebody actually sat down in a college to design these things?

Sadly, it doesn't end there. Along with the medals, the winners are given a bunch of flowers. Well, let's be honest, "bunch" is too strong a word. I have seen the offering described as a bouquet, but even that is stretching things. Posy. Yes, a small posy is perhaps an adequate description. This, too, was designed by someone, a London-based florist by the name of Jane Packer, in fact. It seems she died during the design process and, by the looks of things, the design process had not proceded very far by the time this unfortunate event took plac. Apparently, nobody bothered to continue it to its conclusion.

Also part of the medal ceremony is the victory ceremony podium on which the medal winners have to stand. It looks more like the cheap base of an overly decorated, ostentatious, middle-class wedding cake than a victory podium. This, again, was designed by students of the Royal College of Art. Another exam failure.

The least said about the official London Olympics mascots (yes, there are two of them, named Wenlock and Mandeville), the better. They look like a pair of mutated Tellytubbies… Anyway, here's a picture that speaks a lot more than a thousand words.

More jealousy…

About this time two years ago, I posted an entry about the planting of some new climbing plants to replace a line of Adelfas. The entry was called Jealousy because… well, perhaps you should just read the original post for the explanation.

Anyway, in the intervening two years, the Trachelospermum jasminoides, otherwise known as Chinese ivy, Chinese jasmine, Star jasmine, Jasmin rhynchospermum, and Jasmin rhyncospermum (and, I suspect several other names, as well), have done quite well, especially given the extremes of temperature and lack of rainfall that we experience in this part of Spain.


This week the plants have opened their flowers, so that we now have a sort of scented flowerfall. She Who Must Be Obeyed assures me that the perfume is gentle and pleasant (I have no sense of smell, so, as in all other matters, I must take her word for this and nod obediently); whatever aroma the flowers might have, the plants look very good.


This photo was taken today from much the same spot as the photo that accompanied the original post:

(You will notice that the area in front of the trellis has been tiled in the meantime.)


And, in case you don't remember what that photo looked like two years ago, and/or can't be bothered to go to the original post to see it, here it is:

Quite a difference!

Day of the Astrophytum

It all started yesterday afternoon, when I noticed that a brief reconnaissance sortie was being carried out by a flower of the cactus Astrophytum myriostigma nudum. It was already fairly late in the afternoon and the flower only opened briefly. Still, it was a sign of things to come.

This morning, a number of the Astrophytums were showing swollen buds and were clearly ready to flower. It didn't take long, once the sun hit them, for the flowers to start coming: first the Astrophytum myriostigma nudum showed the same flower that had so carefully taken a look yesterday, then the Astrophytum ornatum (two of them) and finally the Astrophytum myriostigma.


The A. myriostigma was very special. It showed nine flower buds. This is how it looked at twenty-past-eleven, shortly after the sun had reached around the shade:

By an hour and a half later, at ten to one, the buds had swollen considerably and were showing signs of opening:

And this photo was taken at five minutes to two, by which all nine flowers were being proudly displayed in the glorious sunshine.

The opening of the buds is a fascinating process to follow: sit and watch and it is as if nothing happens, but dare to go away for a few minutes and, when you return, the change is obvious. Perhaps even more fascinating is that, when the sun passes behind the house and the shade falls again on the cacti, the flowers close up into their neat little packages. Here's that same A. myriostigma at almost five-thirty. There is still plenty of light, of course, but the plant has been in the shade for half an hour or so, and its flowers have somehow packed themselves away, ready for tomorrow's display.

You can see more flowers from this year's cacti in my Cactus flowers 2012 album, which will be updated as the flowers come along. (And there are plenty of other albums there for you to enjoy, too.)