Wise Park Benches

In the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park, every so often, you see a little plaque on a park bench. Usually these are in memory of someone who passed away. However, in the new Park, these plaques impart a piece of knowledge:

My favourite bit of information is “Twelve Plus One is an anagram of Eleven Plus Two”.

Behind the Scenes at the Aquatic Centre

The Aquatic Centre, with its wave like roof, was home of the London 2012 Swimming and Diving events is now taking on its legacy look. The temporary stands have now gone, and we now have the shape that the architect, Zaha Hadid designed in 2004 before London won the right to stage the games:

The complex was built by Balfour Beaty at a cost of £269 million. Last November I got a peak inside.It is quite impressive, using concrete as the main finish. They have used precast concrete, which has a very smooth finish, so there is no need for paint or cladding. The Aquatic Centre boasts 2 x 50 metre pools:

A training pool, which has a moveable divide, which can turn the 50 metre pool into 2 x 25 metre pools:

The main pool, here with the view from Lane 5, where the US Swimmer Michael Phelps won his record breaking Gold Medals:

Plus a 25 metre diving pool. Unfortunately I didn’t get a proper picture of this pool. However, it does have an unusual feature. For safety reasons, the floor moves. This has been designed in case a diver has an accident, and is knocked unconscious. Air is used, to push the floor up, and thus bring the diver back to the surface.

Behind the scenes were quite impressive as well. Most of the water is recycled, and re filtered to keep clean. Once full, the pools need very little water added to maintain them. There are a huge number of pipes, tanks and dials used to regulate the water.

On the tour of the centre, the guide asked if anyone had noticed the smell. Everyone looked at one another, but couldn’t come up with an answer. We were told the answer would be provided at the end of the tour. The answer was there was no smell. No smell of chlorine that is commonly used to keep the water in swimming pools clean. This is thanks to a new filter system that they employ in the pool that uses natural materials which the water is pumped through.

The water passes through this system every 24 hours, which results in this lovely clear water:

Back at the Bridge

The 2013/14 Premier League season has really got going. Tonight, was Chelsea’s second game of the season, and the second home game. This is quite unusual, but tonight’s game with Aston Villa had been brought forward to allow Chelsea to play Bayern Munich in the UEFA Super Cup later this month.

Come in into tonight’s game, both teams won their first game of the season. Aston Villa surprising everyone, by winning 3:1 away to Arsenal.

Chelsea started the game on fire. It seemed that Villa hadn’t touched the ball for the first five minutes of the game. Everyone looked sharp. Ba started up front in place of Torres, behind him was Hazard, Oscar and Mata. In fact the whole starting line up was the team from last season.

On six minutes, Eden Hazard collect the ball on our left, twisted and turned in to the penalty box before shooting. GOAL!!!!! I was just about to tweet great goal, when the replay showed the Villa keeper had saved Hazard’s shot, but it hit a Villa defender, Luna, and rebounded in to the goal.

With the high tempo start, I was expecting Chelsea to score more, but as the first half wore on, Villa came more and more in to the game. Ba didn’t seem to be helping he cause, constantly being caught offside.. Deep into injury time, Villa won a free-kick. I’m not too sure if he Chelsea defence thought it was already half time, as thy were caught napping, as Beneteke hit a pinpoint strike in to the goal. Virtually the last kick of the half made it 1-1.

The second half began as the first finished. Chelsea struggling to make a way through the Villa defence. However, now, Villa were hitting Chelsea on the break, and had the better chances to score.

After an hour Mourinho made a couple of changes. Off came Mata and Ba, and sent on to replace them was Lukaku and Schurrle. The game changed, and became a little scrappy. Lukaku reminds me a little of Didier Drogba, and fights for everything. This seemed to encourage the rest of the team, as the game got a lot more physical.

There was a bit of controversy, did Branislav Ivanovic elbow a Villa player? The referee didn’t think so, but judged that he committed a foul and booked him. Both Villa fans and players thought here was more in it, and were demanding he was sent off.

A couple of minutes later Lukaku won a free-kick. Chasing a ball that really wasn’t his to win. From he resultant Lampard free-kick, Ivanovic rose the highest to hit a powerful header in to b goal to make it 2:-1.

Villa had a couple of chances to equalise, one thanks to a lazy back pass by Ramiries, but thankfully Petr Cech was wide awake, and cleared the ball away.

The game ended Chelsea 2 Aston Villa 1. The atmosphere at Stamford Bridge was fantastic. There is an air of expectation now, n with Mourinho back in charge winning, it looks like we are in for n exciting season.

Latest Meerkat Advert – Agent Maiya

I seem to have failed to share a few of the meerkat adverts, so thought I would remedy this, with this video:

Family Reunion Day

I have been looking forward to today for a couple of months, ever sine it was announced the Jose Mourinho was appointed as Chelsea Football Club’s new manager.

He was last in charge 6 years ago, where he left the club as a legend. Winning back to back championships, the first of which, was the first in 50 years. Still to this day,not many people know why he left 6 years ago, but along with 99% of Chelsea fans, I am so happy he’s back.

Before today”s game, Mourinho has been describing today as being very emotional, and a kind of family reunion, I know Mourinho is great with he press, but I do like the sentiment. Although last season turned out to be a success, winning the UEFA Europa League, us fans never seemed to bond with Rafael Benitez, and although towards the end of the season, the boos dissipated, there was ever any love there. Mourinho recognised this, and has also talked about healing the family rift. By this, he means a rift between the owners, who made the managerial decisions and the fans.

So here we are, the start of the 2013/14 FA Premier League season. Chelsea versus Hull City.

The atmosphere before the game was fantastic. The Chelsea Brass Band were playing outside the stadium.

While in the ground, my fellow supporters were chanting for Jose Mourinho.

Our new manager was captured on the big screens blowing kisses to the crowd.

As for the game, well the first half was fantastic. I was thinking if this is how they are going to play, we are in for a real treat. There was plenty of lovely interaction, running off the ball, and it was no surprise that we won a penalty. Normally I have every confidence in our regular penalty taker, and Chelsea’s record scorer, so was expecting Frank Lampard to score our first goal of the season. The Hull City goalkeeper had not read the script, and saved the spot kick.

It was not long to wait,until the first goal went in. A move which sore Torres, Hazard combine to feed the ball for Oscar to hit into the goal. 13 minutes gone, and it was Chelsea 1 Hull City 0. At this time, Hull were not in the game. It was all Chelsea.

With 25 minutes on the clock, Chelsea won a free kick – 40 yards from goal, Up stepped Frank Lampard to take the kick, and what a free kick. The ball swerved and dipped, before finding the back of the net. Unlike his penalty, this time the goal keeper had o chance. Looking at the replays, the free kick could not have been any more perfect. 2:0 Chelsea.

I was expecting a lot more goals, and my ore-match prediction of a 4:0 Chelsea win looked promising. The rest of the first half was full of scoring opportunities, and as the stats at half time showed, Chelsea had 18 attempts on goal, it was a surprise that it was only 2:0.

The second half began, with Hull in charge. Steve Bruce, the Hull manager, must have given a great team talk in the break, as they came out a much better team. Although they had plenty of the ball, they very rarely threatened to score. It wasn’t until the 73 minute when Mourinho swapped Torres for Lukaku, that Chelsea began to see more of the ball. Lukaku managed to hold the ball up more for our attacking players to run on to out of defence. This resulted in a few more half chances, but I think with an eye on the fixture list, and with a 2:0 lead, they decided to take their foot of the gas.

A comfortable win, but it would have been nice to have a goal at the end to send us home in even better spirits than we were,

Bush Telegraph

I have recently paid a visit to the first part of what is now known as the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park. The north part of the park is now open, which is roughly the area from the Copper Box to the Velodrome, and took me around 10 minutes to walk around the outside of the park.

Although relatively small, the park still packs a lot in to see. It also has a new cafe, The Timber Lodge Cafe. This is run by Urban Food Collective and the food on offer looked great.

There will be more pictures to come from this visit, but today, I wanted to share this one:

At the moment you can only view this from a distance from across the River Lea, but during the games, 12 months ago, you could get up close, and see more detail of this installation.

However, I do think this art work, works just as well from a distance, set in what appears to be a managed wilderness. It also has echoes of hat was here 10 years ago, before London won the bid to host the Olympics. This area was famed as a refrigerator cemetery.

Why Did The Goose Cross The Road

On a recent outing to the lovely village of Finchingfield, while having lunch at The Fox Inn, I witnessed a rather strange sight.Climbing out the stream that runs through the village, came 3 geese. They walked across the green, and then started to cross the road:

We were left wondering what they were up to. Was there more water to be found? Well the answer turned out, they had a lunch date. They waddled up the road to the village Tea Rooms, where they appeared to get fed. As soon as they had finished their food, they started to waddle back, again crossing the road without a care in the World, back to the stream, where they swam away.

Explored

I have had another picture on the Flickr Explored stream:

I still have no idea what makes a picture become so popular to merit an entry on the Explored page, but it is nice to note that one of your pictures has made it.

This picutre is of one of my best friends, Toby. He is now 10 years old, and still acts like a puppy. A trait, I must admit, I find so endearing.