A Games to Remember

It was only 4 years ago, yet I can remember very little about the 2004 Athens Olympics. Some of the sporting achievements stick out, such as Kelly Holmes winning 2 Gold Medals, the Men's 4x100 team winning Gold, and the discovery of Amir Khan. However, I can hardly remember a thing about the 2004 opening and closing ceremonies.

I'm sure I won't be saying the same about the Beijing Olympics 4 years from now.

China certainly pulled all the stops out to make this probably the most enjoyable Olympics ever. Of course, it's not so hard to pull off an amazing show when you can throw unlimited money at it; the cost of the Beijing Olympics was over twice the budget for the London Olympics. I guess it's easier to raise the funds when you've got a single-party political system.

I've certainly never been as engrossed in the Olympics as I was this time round. There were so many amazing moments. It helps of course that Team GB did outstandingly well, and I also had the bonus of being able to support the Australian athletes.

It will be good to get an early night tonight after staying up most nights after midnight following the coverage. I'm glad I did though. It wouldn't have been the same watching Usain Bolt break both the 100m and 200m world records in a replay the day after.

Last night's closing ceremony certainly lived up to expectations after the amazing opening ceremony. I'm not too sure about the 8 minute London contribution though. They were never going to be able to compete with the grand majesty of what Beijing were offering, nor should they. But to say that 8 minute segment alone cost £2.5 million, I was expecting a little more. Perhaps I was expecting David Beckham to kick the ball 200ft into the air only for it to explode with a thousand Union Jack parachutes descending into the stadium? Seriously though it wasn't so much what they did, it was the general theme that I found a little disappointing. Please, give it a rest with the stereotypical stuff (it doesn't always rain in London (thanks to global warming), and not everyone goes to work on a red London bus). Also, give it a rest pushing London's cultural diversity down our throats. Yes, we know London is a conglomerate of lots of different ethnic communities, but so is Sydney, and New York, and Paris, and most other major capitals around the globe these days.

I really hope that in 2012 they try to be less funky and concentrate more on celebrating British history and culture. Britain's got an amazing story to tell - think Shakespeare, Newton, Darwin, Raleigh, Drake, The Battle of Britain, The Beatles, the countless inventions and discoveries, and not forgetting the sports that Britain gave to the world - football, cricket, tennis, golf, rugby, even Table Tennis, to name but a few.

Don't get me wrong, I did enjoy the London handover bit even though it was a little cringeworthy. I thought 'Whole Lotta Love' went down pretty well, and although it's getting a bit tired dragging Beckham out each time for these events, it probably was appropriate given his involvement in the bid as well as the fact that he is bigger than Jesus in Asia. Not just Asia, he draws a crowd everywhere. LA Galaxy are playing in Brisbane later on this year and you can bet that the stadium will be completely sold out.

Roll on 2012. I tell you though, if the opening ceremony of 2012 involves a thousand mixed-race kids wearing bowler hats and singing in cockney accents I'll happily surrender my British passport for good!

Aussie 'Sour Grapes'

I've just been watching this video on the BBC website about supposed Aussie sour grapes over the success of team GB. If you get any Aussies throwing out the same line that 'it's not England, you can only beat us if you combine your countries', just point out to them that most of Australia's golds have come from Queenslanders. In fact, my home town of Brisbane is doing pretty well. Brisbane's Stephanie Rice is bringing home 3 gold medals. We're all very proud!

Actually, the Aussie sour grapes aren't as bad as the UK media makes out. The news reporters over here have expressed surprise at how well team GB as done, but I have found when I've watched the games that if Australia isn't represented in a particular event they do get behind the Brits. I've even heard the words 'the Brits are awesome this year' come out of the TV.

It's all to do with the Commonwealth you see. I think I've heard the word 'Commonwealth' mentioned more times in the 15 months I've lived in Australia than the entire 32 years I lived in the UK. I thought the 'Commonwealth' was pretty much a dead term only to be brought out for the Commonwealth games, until I arrived here. Not so, the antipodeans love it. Australian federal law is even known as Australian Commonwealth Law, which is passed in the Australian Commonwealth Parliament.

I wonder if the Commonwealth would be more important to Britain if GB wasn't part of the EU?

I'm happy to support both GB and Australia in the Olympics, which, as the time of writing, puts my personal Gold tally at 27 - more than the US!

UK National Risk Register

The UK Cabinet Office has now made public information from the previously classified UK National Risk Register. This is available at http://www.cabinetoffice.gov.uk/reports/national_risk_register.aspx.


This seems to backup what many scientists have been saying. The greatest risk to the UK is not terrorism, or even global warming. It's an Influenza Pandemic.

US Media 'Spins' Olympics Medal Table

I find it pretty cynical that whilst the rest of the world's media is following the IOC official Medal Table, i.e. ranking countries by Gold, then Silver, then Bronze, which currently puts China at the top, the big US media companies are instead ranking countries by total medals won, which of course puts the US in the #1 position.

Come on American, face up to it, the world order is changing. The 20th Century may be known as America's Century but things are quickly changing, and I'm not just talking about sport. The Olympics medal table as always been a good indicator for the general world order - and all the indicators point in the direction of the US heading south. Just look at the decline of the US dollar.

Now I'm not a proponent of the European Union forming an EU olympics team, but just imaging if they did, I can't be bothered to count up the total medals of the 25 EU nations but a quick glance at the medals table tells you that a EU team would have more than twice the amount of medals as the US. Now there's an idea, albeit not a good one.

With most of the Athletics events still to come there's a good chance that the US will still finish at the top of the table, using both methods of ranking, given that China's medal hopes come mainly from non-Track and Field events. It would be nice though if China did end up with more Golds and more total medals than the US. How would ESPN, NBC, CNN/SI, etc manipulate the tables to put the US top then?

IPChitChat is now LIVE!!!

I am pleased to announce that after months of development, our new website - www.ipchitchat.co.uk - is now live!

We originally hired a web developer to build this site but it didn't work out too well. His work turned out to be really shoddy. It's our own fault, we should have done better due diligence when choosing the developer.

After getting rid of the web developer there was so much work to do to try and get the site looking the way we wanted that we decided it would be quicker to start again. I'd learnt so much trying to fix the work he had done that I had confidence that I could do a better job myself. I'm not sure I'd do it again. You wouldn't believe the amount of hours work it takes to create a site such as this, particularly when it's all open-source (using free software) to save money. If we'd have spent a fortune on a top e-commerce system then I'm sure it would have only took half the time.

Anyway, it has taken a lot longer than planned to get this site up and running, and there may still be the odd bug or two that we need to iron out, but I'm happy with the results.

So how does this differ to our old site - ipchichat.com, you might ask? Well, it's like comparing a Mac to a ZX Spectrum. The old site was completely built by hand using html. None of the site is database driven and we had to use a third-party to provide our shopping cart and checkout.

In the new site, the whole site is run using a proper content management system. Everything is database driven, making it much easier to manage and make changes to the site on the fly. We've integrated a proper shopping cart system, and now have our own SSL certificate so users can checkout within the site. We've got a blog, a download area - where users can download user guides, firmware, etc. Users can properly manage their account information on the site, and see their order history. We've got different account types for regular shoppers, corporate accounts, and resellers; meaning that users will automatically get discounts on products depending on their account type. We've got an help-desk system where users can submit support requests, and they will receive a support ticket, which is managed through our Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system. The list goes on. We've also greatly extended the range of products we offer.

Over the coming months we've also got plans to introduce even more features.

Check it out at www.ipchitchat.co.uk - you can even sign up to our e-mail newsletter.