So – the tax break for Mitt Romney’s wife’s horse
hasn’t produced dividends.
Sorry to say they were unplaced.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/sport/2012/aug/07/london-2012-mitt-romney-wife-horse?newsfeed=true
I’ve been really sorry to see that coverage of the Olympics has been very patchy on American TV. There has been some truly spectacular scenery,
impressive sporting feats and the crowds
have been fantastic both in the stadiums and outside on pavements during the many events that have taken place on the streets of London.
America should be so proud Galen Rupp took silver in the 10,000 metres. England expected to win with Mo Farah who originally was Somali, and we did, but the American performance was the gutsiest we’ve seen in a long time in an event that is normally dominated by Ethiopians and Kenyans. Did anyone see it?
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/olympics/article-2183775/Mo-Farah-wins-10-000m–London-2012-Olympics.html
Galen is also running in the 1500 finals. We shall be shouting him on.
You got ta love the federal tax code Di
Apparently Romney only received about a $50 deduction for the horse, as the passive loss rules didn’t permit him to deduct the full amount. The tax code is indeed complicated.
http://www.buzzfeed.com/nycsouthpaw/romneys-olympic-dancing-horse-didnt-get-him-much
Di, the TV coverage here has been abysmal. Especially for fans of track and field (athletics). My English husband has been very disappointed, not helped by the fact that my son in London is telling me he live streams BBC coverage and can watch 2 events at the same time. Plus of course he has actually been to a few of the events.
There seems to be a great emphasis on beach volleyball for some reason.
Elena:
Bit late, but didn’t you know about this?
Young friend in San Francisco is using it, as does a friend in Brussels. (Who’s actually a BBC licence payer in the UK, so was miffed at not being able to get the iPlayer when he’s in Brussels.) It gets round the BBC iPlayer seeing the geographical location of your ISP.
(Mind you, it may not last long after the Olympics, the Beeb tends to work out how to stop this kind of thing working after a while.)
Squirrel, no I did not know about that.
I am on my work computer now, but when I get home I will see if I can install. That will definitely help!
Elena:
Yes we’ve been spoilt for choice. I believe the BBC has had at least twenty live feeds on the go. We’re able to watch competitions even if we don’t have an entrant in that particular sport.
Today I watched the Long Distance swim in the Serpentine; Taikwando heats [sp?] the Women’s Boxing finals and Dressage finals. This evening from seven til late we’ll be watching athletics including the 200 metres with Usain Bolt.
Has your son told you about Michael Johnson the US Olympic medallist who works for the BBC when there is a big athletic event on? He’s a lovely guy.
Bill and I were dead pleased to see that he’d been given a slot carrying the Olympic torch and to his joy, he carried it to Stonehenge. The lucky devil got to stand right by the Stones
But – we also get brilliant coverage when the Olympics are in other countries. Beijing was well covered.
Even Commercial channels move their advertising slots when there’s a big match on.
And finally we’re getting some warm sunny weather!
Elena:
Sorry, forgot to add, the beach volley ball has two American teams fighting out for the gold. And I think its popularity might be to do with scantily clad young ladies flinging themselves about in the sand
))))))
Went for a little walk through Hyde Park yesterday afternoon; fancy going along the river up to Greenwich tomorrow.
Er, to Greenwich by the river bus, not in my kayak. (Much as I’m tempted, it’d take ages, and I’m scared of the tide anyway.)
PS, did you see Beckham’s boat delivering the Olympic flame? I want my kayak to look like that at night! (Alternatively, I’d rather like the boat . . .)
And mustn’t forget. A lot of the infrastructure will stay in place ready for the Paralympics…
Di:
‘Course, being a crippled squirrel, got a sort of vested interest in the Paralympics. I’m really pleased that London’s been doing quite well trying to make sure people don’t forget that. (I think it was the Brits who originally argued for it, wasn’t it?)
I don’t know whether it registered much, but I was really happy to see disabled people taking part in the opening ceremony: saw at least one wheelchair dancer.
(I can do that! Though the Squirrel friend objects to me doing wheelchair pirouettes, which I’m really good at, in public, I mutter and mumble that I don’t see why I can’t have fun playing with the wheels. Fortunately she didn’t see me doing that on the ramp in the Turbine Hall at Tate Modern for a group of black teenagers who’d asked . . .Hadn’t realised it was quite that steep, and if it hadn’t been for a couple of the boys I might have mown down a bunch of Japanese tourists at the bottom at about 20 mph . . .)
Glad to see the deaf choir, too.
I know they won’t get the coverage abroad, probably, apart from Pistorius, but I hope at least they do here.
Actually, got to say that these days Brits are generally pretty good at treating disabled people as people. (There are exceptions, and a few times over the years a few have been nasty enough to actually make me cry.)
But I notice in France people trying not to notice (if you see what I mean) is much more common. It’s not actually a terribly ‘cripple-friendly’ country by and large. By which I mean it’s much harder in practical terms to get around than it is here.
I almost cried getting from the Gare du Nord to the Gare de Lyon on the RER in Paris a few weeks ago. I had a hell of a job finding a lift at both, and then when I did, they weren’t working; and then on top of that, some of the escalators weren’t either, and I had to struggle up and down an awful lot of steps. Got shoved and pushed quite a bit too, ‘cos obviously I’m a bit slow at climbing stairs.
The difference when I came back to London was almost stunning.
Squirrel:
When my son was six he had Perthes disease. He had surgery on his hip which involved a metal plate being fitted, and afterwards was in a body and right leg cast for six weeks, so I borrowed a wheelchair from the Red Cross for that time because I had to get my daughter to school, and don’t drive.
In the end he refused to sit in it,and where possible struggled along on crutches, because of peoples reactions. They would stand right over the chair and stare at him. At least if he was upright on crutches he didn’t feel so threatened and could move away from them under his own steam.
I had a big row with his headmistress, because when he went back to school, she was treating him differently. Looking back I expect she was worried about being sued.
I used to take the chair with us in case he became too tired, and our young border collie Sheba, loved to ride in it instead.
My youngest granddaughter was talking about the paralympics the other day and she’s more in awe of someone disabled excelling at sport, than an able bodied person. It’s because my daughter in law’s sister has cerebral palsy and is confined to a wheelchair now.
I know my son is grateful for the easy access in most places when they take her out.
I rarely shed tears, but choked up with the deaf choir. The joy on those children’s faces was unforgettable.
Di,
I have a friend who has advanced degrees in higher mathematics & philosophy, is a trained and practicing medic, has read every book on the shelf and was a successful model in her youth to boot, and when she broke her ankle (quite badly) and had to use a wheelchair, as an adult in her prime, even she found that grown people, supposedly educated sophisticated people, would talk about her in front of her as if she wasn’t there, speak extra loudly to her as if she was deaf or unable to comprehend, and generally treat her as mentally low functioning, and she had her leg in plaster! Right in front of them.
Human beings are strangely limited creatures.
Bluthner
Bet you didn’t know we have groupies?
Happened on the bus last week again. Young woman moved down the bus and sat next to me, said how she’d broken her leg last year so she knew what it was like (you don’t, really!) and on and on . . .I’ve spent years trying to perfect not looking crippled — but it backfires sometimes, like then, when I have to explain that my crippledom is permanent.
She was quite fanciable, actually, but the groupie thing always makes me nervous. (Especially if I’m on wheels: I’ve come to suspect some — quite a lot, probably — think you’re impotent or something as well as thick. I’ve never dared to actually ask, though . . .but I have been tempted more than once to say “Hey, it’s only the legs that don’t work properly, you know?” But I know about it from comments made in the hearing of best friend, of course.)
It’s a pain, really, ‘cos you start suspecting people’s motives. Usually, I just say, “Oh I fucked up my spine in an accident years ago, you get used to it” and wait to see of they switch into ‘normal human’ mode . . .If they start demanding details, I get sulky. I mean, I don’t go up to strangers and start a conversation about how they felt when they had their appendix out or something.
I was passing the Tabernacle last week, I’d forgotten this. A woman stopped me and gave me an invitation card. To tea. At 3pm. On Tuesdays, I think. “For people who use canes and walking aids” she said. I haven’t been. Strange. Would whoever thought that up assume everyone with green eyes or hairy legs automatically had anything else in common?
I think it was a reaction, but I went clubbing that night. Shit. Four quid a beer!
I’m speechless.
My paycheck for my first job as an apprentice was ₤5 17s 6d, and that was for a 48 hour week.
₤4 a beer. Jesus, I must be old.
Red, I’ve heard a little about the groupies. A classmate of mine was in a car wreck at 22 and severed his spine just above the waist. He is very bright, and became a big cheese lawyer out west. Women were all over him. But -according to him anyway- it took him a while to learn how to sort out which ones genuinely were attracted to him and which ones were really more interested in the chair. He said he only really started to figure it out after his second wife. He said it would probably have cheaper and more efficient to just pay for the their psychotherapy from the get-go than to have married them. But they were both so beautiful, he couldn’t resist.
I had another friend in New York, really gorgeous, also found herself in a chair after an accident, and she told me the same story about the men who hit on her (all the time). There were genuine ones, and then there were the chair fetishers; being a woman it didn’t take her nearly as long to figure out which was which, and once she worked it out she could see them coming a mile off, but even she was astonished at just how many of them there seemed to be.
btw my out-west friend had a side-car fixed up for a big motorcycle, I think it was a Honda 350 or something like that; he could roll his chair right up into the side car, lock it down and drive from there. If you were his passenger you would sit on the bike’s seat and hold on to the gas tank (the handle-bars swung over to his side car). It was a great set-up. He said it more than anything else kept him sane.