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…?

It’s ridiculous.

Still going through photos from Paris and getting them onto flickr so feel free to stroll over now and then. I quite like this one. It’s funny going into the room where it is because there’s suddenly this mass of people who you just know are only there to see the Mona Lisa and nothing else. Y’know, like they’re on a coach tour of Paris and are trying to fit in all the big things. I wont lie, there wasn’t a massive amount in the Louvre that I was fussed about seeing but I’m happily ignorant about art. The Egyptian sections were great and it was nice seeing the Venus De Milo (though all I could think of was the Gummi de Milo) but I was really just too tired to take in much else. It’s overwhelmingly big (the museum) and there’s so so so so much to see if you’re into that type of thing.

Regardless, more photos to come!

Spent the weekend just gone in gay Paree and had lots of fun. It’s slightly odd that I’d not really been before (except as a very very young child) considering it’s a mere 40 minute flight away from Southampton (or a painstaking 6 hour flight/coach home via Birmingham - but the less said about that the better). Thankfully, the weather pretty much held out and we did the whole tourist thing in fairly decent sunshine and almost no rain. By ‘tourist thing’ I mean, queuing to get up the Eiffel Tower, queuing to get into Notre Dame and queuing to see the Mona Lisa in the Louvre amongst other things it was fun. Most of the sights are within walking distance, but we ended up getting the metro to most places after the first day. Probably one of the nicest/easiest public transport systems I’ve ever been on. Good stuff.

Venturing into cafes for brunch or a quick pit stop occasionally only served to remind me how bad my French is but we got by with some really nice (if not a tad overpriced) meals. I’m so so so glad we never actually got ’round to ordering Steak tartare though. Ewww.

A selection of photos from the thousand or so that I took will be up on Flickr in dribbles over the next week or so, so have a look over there for the goodness. Til then, enjoy the 1 that’s attached to this post. Les parcs à Paris sont magnifiques!

As promised, please find a selection of photos from my recent trip to Sicily..

Many more on flickr.

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.

I’m still playing GTA IV a fair bit. I’ve got 64% complete which isn’t bad considering I’ve not actually gone overboard with the hours playing it.. Haven’t really delved into the online play yet because I’m saving it until I’ve at least completed the main story missions (I’m on the last one). There’s a slight concern that I’ll get bored after finishing the main missions but I suppose I can always do it again but make all the different decisions. Fun fun fun. Not to mention I’m looking forward to actually just roaming the city doing random stuff - which leads me to this post here.

I stumbled on this flickr set called ‘Sightseeing in Liberty City‘ which does a great job at highlighting the level of detail R* put into recreating New York for the game. It’s ridiculous. Makes me yearn even more for a trip to the Big Apple. I’ll get there sooner rather than later. Til then I’ll stay rocking the threadless tee. Anyway, look at the flickr set. It’s good.

There’s a small part of me that thinks the only really good form of journalism(/photography) comes from wars. But then I remember all the other things I like (see Boogie for example). So I think I actually mean that the only good thing to come from wars is journalism(/photography)(?) Who knows. What I do know is that Reuters consistently provide some great work surrounding awful subjects; like the Iraq War.

So, after half a decade of fighting in this current version of the war, Reuters have put together this site illustrating the work of their photographers, correspondents and staff during the conflict. Regardless of what you think about the war, the efforts these people go through to bring this type of stuff to a worldwide audience surely has to be acknowledged.. and I think the site does a great job of that. Some really brilliant photos in terrifying situations. I’d love to have a job doing that type of thing but I know I’d be really bad at it. I still find it weird trying to take photos of people in normal everyday locations, let alone in a war zone. Leave it to the professionals I reckon..

Bearing Witness: 5 Years Of The Iraq War

‘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..

Some great photos which have rightfully been awarded various honours at the 62nd College Photographer of The Year. A lot of testament to being in the right place at the right time (or even the wrong place at the right time), armed with a camera. It reminds me that I really should carry my camera around with me more.. But then, I don’t wander around war zones, and I don’t think a photo series of me walking to and from my office is quite as engaging.

The main photo above is Silent Protestors by Brandon Kruse - Link

A silent protestor shows how he feels towards the head of a local wing of the National Socialist Movement, a group referred to as the modern Nazi party. Over 1,000 Columbians showed up for the party’s march through town that would leave 8 protestors arrested by the end of the day.

Evidence by Dominic Nahr - Link

A bloody hand print on the wall in a stairwell is left in Mohamed Ghorayeb’s house, a colonel in the Palestinian Preventive Security Forces. He and six other Fatah members died in their house after clashes erupted between Hamas and Fatah around and in the colonel’s house, also destroying his home and seven cars on the January 4, 2007, in Jabalia Refugee Camp, Gaza Strip.