It wouldn’t be right to let such an awesome spectacle go completely unnoticed; although I think that the BBC are managing to single-handedly cover enough Olympic action for the whole world. Apparently if you were to take every televised minute and written sentence that has been produced by the BBC about this years Olympic games, turn them into tiny people called Olymbits whose natural inclination is to stand on each others shoulders Cirque du Soleil style, then climb up the Olymbit stack, you would actually bump into God and the baby Jesus in the sky. Apparently.

I actually love the amount of coverage the beeb are putting out this year. Non stop live coverage online for every event, mostly with video footage - 6 different live streams on the red button on tv - hours of dedicated coverage on the terrestrial channels - and 5 Live doing the business for the radio. It’s loco. All your needs catered for. Unless you’re not a sporting person of course. Actually, scratch that because surely no-one can deny how good these games have been. Pure entertainment and so many amazing feats I wouldn’t even know where to start with a list of my favourite things thus far. Though it would probably be something like…

The opening ceremony.

Managed to see bits of it while we were in Paris, and the sight of Li Ning running around the inside edge of the stadium roof was brilliant. Unless we have someone running in the London Eye like it was a giant hamster wheel, I don’t think we’ll be able to top that in 2012. (more pictures here)

Argentina coasting to the football final
After the mini dispute with Barcelona regarding Messi was sorted, they’ve not looked back, winning every game on the way to Sundays final against Nigeria and are moving one step away from retaining their Olympic title. I’m not a big Argentina fan (blame it on this) but they deserved to beat Brazil in the semis yesterday. Ronaldinho has been a bit of a non-event which doesn’t bode well for Milan this season but who knows.

Yelena Isinbayeva jumps insanely high (with a pole)
Helped in it’s greatness because of the ‘gonna kick her butt’ comments by her American rival who really couldn’t compete..

“For the first 90 minutes of the competition Isinbayeva did not attempt a vault but sat trackside, her baseball cap pulled down low over her eyes. When the bar reached 4.70m she decided to stop passing and cleared the height at her first attempt. By that point seven of the 12 competitors had been knocked out.”

- The Guardian

She then went on to sail over 5.05m (16ft 7in) for a new World Record. See, that strikes me as kinda cocky (and rightly so) but not as cocky as..

Usain ‘Lightning’ Bolt

How can someone not even really try for the last 10m or so and still get a World Record in the 100m(?) At least he worked hard for the 200m record last night. Both are unreal achievements but the latter in particular is probably more memorable. Michael Johnson, while commentating on the race, seemed happy for the Jamaican but surely deep down he’s curled up in a ball, hugging his gold shoes and weeping.

Natalie du Toit comes 16th in the 10k swim
16th doesn’t sound especially impressive but if you know about her, you’ll see why I think this is worth a mention. Good stuff. It’s the first year that the 10k outdoor swim has been an event, and I can think of few events that I’d least enjoy doing. Utterly knackering.

8 Golds, (7 World Records, 1 Olympic Record) for Michael Phelps
Not to mention approximately 173 drug tests too I’d imagine. Not that I’m trying to imply anything. He’s clearly not on performance enhancing drugs, he’s just a machine sent from the year 2029 by a race of artificially intelligent computer-controlled machines who want to crush every humans will to compete in swimming competitions in order to dominate the medals table in all future Olympic games. And speaking of the medals table..

Great Britain is 3rd
With 17 gold, 11 silver and 11 bronze (at the time of writing). Kudos to everyone involved. So many individual success stories and noteworthy moments but I’m happy to leave it at a general level of praise. Does this mean we get a massive bronze medal at the end?

Just three days left to go til the closing ceremony on Sunday and I’m sure it’ll be on a par with the opening. Politics aside, it looks like China have done a great job hosting this and heaped the pressure on London to match it in 4 years.. I’m sure it will. I mean, the logo is a great start isn’t it(?) What could go wrong(?)

Anyone know how to get tickets for the opening ceremony…?

Regular readers should know by now that I’m a fan of Atmosphere. They’re easily my favourite group, and my last.fm profile proves it. I’m also a fairly decent Brother Ali fan. I’ve pretty much bought anything and everything that Atmosphere have put out in the last 10 years or so and consequently got put onto Brother Ali quite a while ago too. I’ve also seen Atmosphere before (in 2002/03?) but Mr Dibbs was playing the Ant role so technically I suppose it wasn’t quite ‘Atmosphere’. Blah blah. What I’m trying to get at is: there was simply no way at all I was going to miss the ‘3 The Hard Way‘ European tour this summer. Atmosphere (with Ant) and Brother Ali doing a joint show. Wowser.

They’ve already covered a hefty chunk of Europe but there’s quite a few dates left if you fancy it.. It comes heavily recommended. Last night was the Bristol stop, on board the legendary Thekla (which is actually much bigger than I remembered, but still easily small enough to be considered an ‘intimate’ venue. None of this stood-miles-away-and-cant-see-shit shit).

The drive to Bristol from Bournemouth is horrendously tedious but undoubtedly worth it. We arrived a little early and while generally, that’s not a great thing to do, it turned out alright because I got a chance to speak to Slug outside, and then Ant at the bar. I’m sure I said some stupid shit (I kinda told Ant, in a smug way, to give up smoking) but they both seemed cool about being interrupted by an over-excited me in a Rhymesayers shirt. It’s nice when your idols (strong word but seems apt) turn out to be normal and amiable isn’t it(?) Not that I thought they wouldn’t be but y’know..

Kidz In The Hall opened up, and though I’m only vaguely familiar with their music (a fact attributable to the vast majority of people there by the looks of it), I enjoyed the set. Credit due. Driving Down The Block was an obvious highlight. Also, I don’t want to sound old, but they were really really loud. My proximity to the stage/speakers didn’t help at all but still, loud loud loud.

After a short break, during which I randomly bumped into a couple of people I used to rap with back in Plymouth (word to The Cohorts), Ant came on and introduced Slug and Ali as ‘two of the best mcs in the world’. He wasn’t lying. For just under two hours, they weaved through their respective repertoires with ease. Haha.. That’s an awful line. I suck at reviews But they did do that; I don’t know how else to put it. With a group like Atmosphere who have such a massive back-catalogue, there were bound to be some tracks I’d've liked to have heard that they didn’t do but the set was more than diverse enough to keep me happy.. The tracks off the new album were dope - Guarantees is a great singalong, the bass drop on Puppets is immense - and the older tracks like The Woman With The Tattooed Hands are instant crowd pleasers by now. Scapegoat was a particular highlight for me.. *ahem* scpgt *ahem*.

Brother Ali proved why he’s such a renowned performer and I’m glad I’ve finally got to see him live. The man knows how to control a crowd.. Definitely an mc’s mc. Rain Water, Bitchslap, Forest Whitaker and Truth Is were stand outs. Throughout, they acted as each others hypeman and the whole sharing the stage thing worked really well, but it worked best with the songs they have together. Obviously. Blah Blah Blah and Cats Van Bags have always been favourites of mine, and seeing them done live, by both mcs, with Ant on the decks (/MacBook Pro) was sublime. When they walked off, my throat was red raw (haven’t had that happen in a looong time) but they reappeared to squeeze in an encore of Your Glass House and a little freestyle which is always entertaining. I don’t think I could’ve asked for a better show. Truly superb.

I got plenty of photos, a few of which are here and the rest are on flickr. Got a couple of bits of video too but the sound is atrocious. Ah well. You had to be there really

More photos on flickr.

So, I spent most of Monday night hitting redial in the phone and refresh on 3 different computers trying to get tickets for this years Reading Festival and after many many hours (and a stack of money going from the account), I can now say I’ll be there on the Friday and Saturday this August. And I can’t wait.

Regular readers will be aware that I’m not really fussed about the type of bands that would generally play at a festival like this (though I did have fun a couple of years ago at Reading), however this year is clearly different. Rage Against The Machine with their only appearance in the country this year (possibly ever again??). Can I get a ‘fuck yeah!’?! Awesome. There’s actually also a few other names I’m quite up for seeing but really, let’s be honest, who’s going to be watching Babyshambles with RATM on the main stage? (Who would watch Babyshambles at ANY point come to think of it..)

Should be amazing. Can’t wait! Yay! etc.. Been waiting for this for years and although I’d rather’ve seen them at Rock The Bells last year with Wu-Tang, I’m sure this’ll do

‘sunset over the river nile‘ by Matt Northam (me )

A couple of months ago, I went to Egypt and had fun. It was nice. I also took a couple of thousand pictures, most of which aren’t anything special. They’re holiday photos - you know what they’re like. However, I did take a few that I thought came out rather well, and you can see them in a ‘egypt’ set on flickr. I also submitted one of them to the Guardian Unlimted (The Guardian Online) travel section (Been There) and now, many moons later, I’ve been awarded the ‘February 2008 Photo Of The Month‘. Awesome!

I’m still fairly surprised and genuinely stoked to have won because it puts me in fairly illustrious company. It’s an honour and all that.. I’ve been smiling all week.

My winning photo is recreated above in all it’s glory but you can also see a larger version on flickr, or the individual photo page on ‘been there’, or the rest of the months entries.. Whatever takes your fancy.

Ranjit Dhaliwal, the Guardian’s assistant picture editor, says:

“This is a wonderfully evocative travel image, it oozes atmosphere. The use of an architectural feature to frame the subject shows that the photographer has a good eye for composition.”

I says:

Oooooh yeah!

Apparently I win a canvas print of the photo so we’ll see how that goes..

Stumbled on this last month on cpluv but didn’t actually get ’round to watching it so it’s just festered in my ‘don’t forget to look at this at some point’ bookmarks folder for all that time. Finally made 5 minutes to watch it last night and it’s uber cool.

On a cold Saturday in New York City, the world’s largest train station came to a sudden halt. Over 200 Improv Everywhere Agents froze in place at the exact same second for five minutes in the Main Concourse of Grand Central Station. Over 500,000 people rush through Grand Central every day, but today, things slowed down just a bit as commuters and tourists alike stopped to notice what was happening around them.

The reactions of people walking around are what makes it. Great stuff.

Go and watch: http://improveverywhere.com/2008/01/31/frozen-grand-central/

You ought to know by now that there’s a new Batman film on it’s way. Next summer apparently. I cant wait. It looks the bees knees. There’s a 6 minute ish preview taken from the IMAX showings of ‘I Am Legend’ that you can watch here if you’re quick. The Joker looks sooo sick (both in the mental sense, and in the ‘whoa dude, that’s sick!’ sense).

What I’m really liking though, is the teaser stuff viral build-up they’re doing online with the various sites tied into the film. I’ve mentioned the Dark Knight and the Harvey Dent ones before but they’re increasing by the week it seems.. There was We Are The Answer for Harvey Dent, and then there’s been whysoserious (and it’s sub-sites) and Rent A Clown and rory’s death kiss which rather splendidly get people to engage with the Joker in ‘real life’ (if I wasn’t afraid of looking like a prick, I’d don the face paint and send a photo in). And then more recently, there’s A Taste For The Theatrical with its links to the high quality preview for the film, and the Gotham Times. Then there’s The Ha Ha Ha Times which is an alternative version of the Gotham paper.

Not to mention the other promo stuff, like this Joker cake or the Gotham Novelties box..

Super stuff! I love it. How cool would it be to be working on this project(?!) Note: WB, if you’re looking for some extra Photoshop work or CSS type of stuff, get in touch. I’ll do it for free. Fact.

I’m sure there’ll be more to come before the film gets released. It’s doing a superb job of building up anticipation (for me anyway) and I’ve no doubt the film will meet all my expectations :). My spidey-sense says so. (Oh wait, wrong film…)

Briefly, I went up to that there London this weekend to see ‘nineteeneightyfouria’, Shepard Fairey’s wee show at Stolenspace. Twas good. And well worth the 3 hour diverted train journey and trogging around in the cold and wet to go see. Been an admirer for ages now and while I saw a couple of pieces of his in L.A. over summer, it was cool to see the work up close..

The website says:

The exhibition entitled ‘Nineteeneightyfouria’, a reference to the surveillance culture of Orwell’s 1984. (Shepard believes London’s CCTV coverage to be ‘Insane’) is comprised of a range of artworks, from large scale multi media installations to smaller album screen prints Shepard’s artwork both scrutinises and distorts the narrative of the modern American Dream. Commenting on underpinnings of what Shepard terms the ‘capitalist machine’, it aims to critique those who support blind nationalism and war. Fairey addresses monolithic institutional authority, the role of counter culture, and independent individuals who question the cultural paradigm.

I says:

Good stuff.

More ‘nineteeneightyfouria’ pictures at flickr.

I spend a lot of time listening to hip-hop. I like it a lot. It’s my shit, if you will. But now and then I’m partial to something a bit different. Variety is the spice of life and all that. And something that definitely adds a nice bit of variety to my musical life is Cobra Starship. I stumbled on their music when I got their first album before seeing them support Fallout Boy (FOB weren’t good. CS were), and I’ve been a pseudo-fan since. They’re fun and catchy and entertaining.

The other day I saw someone wearing a Cobra Starship t-shirt and remembered that it had been a while since I gave them a listen, so I casually went to their site to see what they were up to and by golly gosh, they have a new album! ¡Viva La Cobra! (dope title btw) is more of the same fun infectious vaguely alternative rock type of shizzle from the first album, if not a little harder to get into (though maybe that’s because I’m old and jaded), and it’s good stuff. Two thumbs up. Go and buy it, it’s out now. Or, click here to listen to the entire album and then buy it.

Some rather nice photos from the Burning Man festival which I still really want to go to at some point in the far off future.

http://www.jonathan-clark.com/photos/burningman/