Wednesday 20 August 2008

Ironic juxtaposition


In the last two days I've written two articles. One was for our newsletter reflecting on the Olympics. (Congratulations to Jess Harrison who came 12th in the Triathlon - respect, as I said before.) GB is doing surprisingly well. Well, I think everyone's been surprised - even though most of the medals have come on bikes or boats of one sort or another. But it's come at a price: £235 million in training our athletes. I don't begrudge it them. But it made me think about all the money we spend on entertainment.... Could it be better used? When you think of the budget for the London Olympics, £9.3 billion pounds - and did I hear right that the Beijing Olympics cost more than £20 billion? That could surely go a long way in relieving famine, providing clean water, treating HIV/AIDs?

The other article was for 'Thumbprint', the magazine of the MND Association. It was about writing my book (see above). There's an ironic juxtaposition with my donkeybody which refuses to do what I want and these incredible athletes who have trained and tuned their bodies to do exactly what they want. (How impressive is Elena Isinbaeva, the Russian polevaulter, or Usain Bolt, the Jamaican sprinter, or the Chinese divers! I love watching them.) Anyway, I suppose I'm experiencing a sort of accelerated decline of physical fitness. But that doesn't mean life is over. In fact I wrote about my next career! So here's the book cover. Hope you like it.

2 comments:

  1. Wow! Great cover, Michael! I really like it. itis very striking. Congratulations to the designer (and to you for writing it!!!) Hugs, jules x

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  2. Nice cover. Though bit surprised, thought it was going to be pink or was that a dream!!

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