Some call it the greatest show on Earth. By gum, did Beijing deliver it.

From the start, the world’s most populous nation gave the world one of the most amazing public spectacles of human endeavour ever seen. Zhang Yimou’s vision of creating a performance for an Opening Ceremony using China’s best resource, its people, was simply mind-blowing. If there was ever a perfect ceremony to open any event, Zhang provided it. It was poignant, celebratory and an invitation for the world to see what China is all about, yet, I thought, without being particularly arrogant about it. It was trying to show that China was all grown up as a nation, as my friend Sanney Leung puts it, "the man of the 21st century".

But there was only one way to describe the opening ceremony, and spectacular is the word for it. And indeed, even before the sports events started, question started in my mind over how anyone in London can surpass that. Yes, it’s a challenge!

Over the next 16 days, the real reason why everyone was there, the sports themselves kicked off and there was even more to make the games memorable. Apart from the obligatory mentions of the phenomenal Michael Phelps with 8 gold medals in swimming, and Usain Bolt’s triple gold (and three world records) in athletics, there were plenty of other inspiring performances.

For me, one of the great performances has to be the Chinese gymnastics team. I remember watching the gymnastics as a kid (my mum loves the sport and every spring when the world championships were on, we’d watch all the coverage). I haven’t watch much gymnastics in recent years (not at least for the last two Olympics), my memories were that it was a difficult sport, won mostly eastern European athletes competing.

Well, all that has clearly changed. And watching the gymnasts this year, I can simply say the standards have improved, and certainly a change led by the Chinese team. Never have I seen so many audacious moves on so many pieces of apparatus, never have I seen so many landings nailed perfectly. An astonishing team, and even if those girls turn out to be (illegally) less than 16 years of age as alleged, well, we can only say, “watch out London 2012″.

British highlights for me include: the superb cyclists on the road and the track, including triple gold for Chris Hoy and also Rebecca Romero who has now won Olympic medals in two sports; our sailing medals, including Ben Ainslie’s third gold in three Olympic games (knocking on the door of the Redgrave/Pinsent club); and the clinical performance of Britain’s rowers.

But even the low-lights and disappontments had some positives to admire. As a follower of Paula Radcliffe, it was disappointing to see that her fight for fitness was lost, but knowing that she is the genuine fighter she is (no matter what non-followers might think), it was heartening to see her give it a go. Similarly for Liu Xiang, the Chinese 110m hurdler, China’s Olympic pin-up who had the weight of 1.3 billion people’s expectations on his shoulders, but couldn’t even get over the first hurdle. Lesson simply is that it’s just not possible to compete without being fit. But one has to give it a go.

Michaela Breeze, Britain’s under 63kg weightlifter, demonstrated that true Olympic spirit. She had been selected for the Olympics, but had picked up a back injury in the weeks before she was due to compete. She had thought about pulling out, but seeing that there was no one else to replace her for GB in her category, she went anyway. And lifting through the pain, there was no fairy tale story. She came last in her category. But the heart of everyone watching was warmed. One woman, not giving up on a dream.

In the last two weeks, it has been an inspiring demonstration of what one can achieve if you want it so badly, and you are willing to put the work into it. From an Opening and Closing ceremony that took a year just to rehearse, to the four years of hard work that each athlete at the Games has to put in to just be on the stage, anything is achievable. One world, one dream – yes, you can live that dream.

China walked away with 100 medals, more than half of them (51) golds. Great Britain are coming home with 47 medals, of which 19 were gold, the best performance in the last 100 years or so. An astounding achievement by both teams – I’m certainly inspired!

And so, as the 29th Olympiad closed, London takes over in 2012. As I currently live just a hop, step and a big jump (or a DLR ride) away from where the cauldron will be in four years’ time, my mind wonders as to the spectacle that the UK can put on. I very much hope it can surpass what is so far the greatest show on Earth.

Come on London!

Links:
Sanney Leung on The Olympic Opening Ceremony
BBC News: Olympics
BBC News: Michaela Breeze in the weightlifting (UK only)
BBC News: Olympic Review (UK only)

Hi all.

Apologies for the big hiatus on this site. Unfortunately, I’ve been having some problems with Wordpress in that it only shows the front page of the site and while I’ve made a temporary fix for my blog posts, it hasn’t solved all the problems with the site. I’m hoping for a solution some time soon.

But in the meantime, felt I should mention a couple of things.

Last week’s opening ceremony for the Beijing Olympics were outstanding. Watching it at home on the Beeb, it was one of the most awesome spectacles imagineable. To be honest, I have no idea how London will top it in four years’ time, but we can only try. Ok, so there are new headlines that not everything was as it seems, but to be honest, some of the segments were simply outstanding.

My hiatus on this site has not been reflected on the other site I’ve been working on over the last few months, that is, Swing Dancers of London. Phase 1 of the site has been a success, and we’re dreaming up of new ideas for the next phase. There are some exciting ideas, and we’ll get cracking on it soon.

Meanwhile, I’m in the middle of organising a 30th birthday tour as I’ll be celebrating it with friends and family in London and Hong Kong. Should be great fun and I hope to see some of you at the events!

Other than that, bear with me. Whilst everyone is on holiday season, I’m not yet, so still very busy here. Not that it’s such a bad thing when summer is wet in London.

My deepest apologies. Yes it’s been a while since my last post and that’s simply down to the fact that I’ve been extraordinarily busy. Not just all the swing dance that’s been going on, but also juggling work, play, and a budding relationship too (no, I won’t go into that!).

But in an effort to get this blog moving again, I’ll post up an addition to The Odd Spot, which showcases a few odd things I’ve seen around.

This entry features Andy Saunders, a mechanic from Poole in Dorset, UK, who has converted a Suzuki Wagon into a "mini-Hummer".

It’s supposed to look like a miniature version of the giant American gs guzzler. But I can’t help but notice, It doesn’t really, does it?

(Photo courtesy Ananova)

In any case, Mr Saunders is quoted as saying that he’d like to get £15,000 for it at auction. If you’re thinking of buying it, all I can say is, it’s still a Suzuki Wagon underneath!

Full details from Ananova and BBC News.

I’m trying my best not to be completely obsessed with dancing. (Which is, admittedly, one of the reasons for not having posted on this website for at least a month!) But I have to admit that it is an addictive activity and I am starting to get a little envious of my brother who dances professionally. And it’s difficult not to dance once you’ve started.

Last weekend I organised Bomb The Bank on behalf of the Swing Dancers of London. A wet and soggy affair, at least 30 dancers came down to the South Bank to dance. I admired their dedication as I sat underneath an umbrella for much of the afternoon, playing the tunes off my laptop and watching my own feet get soaked. It was tremendous fun, and to prove it, look at these guys dancing!

Anyway, I’m looking forward to the next one at the end of this month. All I can say is that I hope it doesn’t snow like today!

But it doesn’t stop there. This past week alone was a chance for me to learn a couple of new dances. At work, there is a weekly class for salsa, one of the more popular dances at the moment in London. So I joined in with the class which started with a Merengue, followed by a Salsa. I impressed with myself: I’m not completely sure that I ‘get’ the music, but I was surprised at how easily I picked up the steps. But I know that it does have something to do with the fact that after nearly two and a half years dancing Lindy hop and jazz steps, new dance steps are coming ever easier to me.

And on Friday, I also joined a tango class at Dragon Hall in Holborn. This dance and music I do ‘get’ more and I love it as it is such an expressive dance. Ever since seeing Al Pacino dance in Scent Of A Woman, and dare I say it, Arnold Schwartzenegger and Jamie Lee Curtis in True Lies, I’ve always wanted to learn to dance tango. And in this one lesson, I did manage to get the ‘basic’ pretty easily. And there I surprised myself again – dancing can be easier than you think. Okay, so I’m still a long way to being any good, but I’m on my way!

Ultimately, I’m looking still to dance socially, but from the two extra classes I did this week, I’m loving the idea that I might some day be able to mix different styles of dancing and improve my ‘vocabulary’. But I’ll still try not be completely obsessed with it all. Dancing for fun is a great feeling in itself and having done aikido competitions as a kid, I doubt that I’d ever want to do much more than dance socially. In spite of this though, I know one thing: it’s going to hard to stop my feet from moving.

And they’ll keep on moving, particularly as I’m off for three days of dancing at the London Lindy Exchange this coming weekend!

So for our intranet at work, I was asked to do a one-minute interview. I thought I’d reproduce it here for fun, so hope you enjoy it. It was actually written a month ago, so some of the entries are slightly out of date, but hey, does it really matter?

One minute interview – Lester Mak

Where did you spend your last holiday and what was great/bad about it?

I’ve just come back from skiing in Bardonecchia in Italy (about 60 miles from Turin in the Alps). Having never skied before, I impressed myself over the course of the week by being able to ski comfortably at the end down the whole mountain without falling over, hitting a tree or taking out a bunch of five year olds in those trains of moving chicanes on the slopes. But it was slightly depressing when you see them skipping around off-piste on the snow and you feel like a heavy klutz.

What’s your favourite meal?
My father is a chef, so as a kid I was taught to appreciate good food – which also means being spoilt by having lots of it as well, of course! But, ironically, my favourite meal is a good simple fry up for brunch on a weekend morning. I’ll never miss that!

What was the last book you read?  Struggle or pleasure?
After Dark by Haruki Murakami. Murakami is such a fantastic author and he has a brilliant imagination, albeit somewhat very twisted for some!

When was the last time you went to the cinema and what did you see?
I went to see Lust, Caution by Ang Lee a couple of weeks ago. I’m an Asian film fanatic in general and love watching films from the region. Tony Leung Chiu-Wai who plays the male lead is one of the best actors in the world in my opinion and Tang Wei made one of the best debut performances I’ve ever seen as the female lead. And of course, Ang Lee is simply a directorial master.

If you could be anywhere in the world right now, where would you be?

Anywhere I can take a good landscape photo: the mountains, the desert, the sea, cityscapes. Which pretty much means anywhere.

What do you consider to be your greatest achievement?
Not necessarily an "achievement" as such but certainly a claim to fame. I appeared on Countdown in February 1999 and won one of the first Countdown teapots. But in the process, I set a new record by winning a letters round with a three letter word (‘RUN’). The record still stands today as far as I know.

What was your first job?
My first job was Director of a Summer Camp in Shenzhen, China, which was set up to teach schoolchildren English over the course of six weeks. It was tremendous fun with the kids, although it was also one of the hardest jobs I’ve done as I had to deal with very difficult people within the school administration. Yes, harder to deal with than some of Ofcom’s stakeholders!

What was the last music album you bought?
I bought a few swing jazz albums. I’m into swing dance and moonlight as an organiser of free swing dance events in London in my spare time so I need to build up a collection of music. I’m currently involved in planning a number of outdoor events on the South Bank over the summer.

Cats or dogs?
Well, Garfield is my favourite cartoon character. But I don’t have pets at home.

What is your favourite word?
Jazz and zyzygy, mainly because they have strange letters. But they are of absolutely no use for Countdown or Scrabble.

Who is your hero and why?
I don’t like to name drop, so I won’t mention his name, but you probably could guess who he is. A family friend, I remember once sitting in his tiny workshop as a small kid and being impressed with what he did and what were then his relatively small achievements. Starting from a very humble background, over the course of a couple of decades, he’s become one of the world’s most famous shoe designers, and yet he is still the same humble "uncle" I knew as a kid. He is still a big inspiration to me.

What is your pet hate?
People who drive Porsches, particularly those who drive them on a dual carriageway more slowly than caravans…

Tell us a joke
I’m not good at my own jokes, so I’ll borrow one from Colin Mochrie of Whose Line Is It Anyway? fame. This was one of his headlines in a game called "Weird Newscasters":

"Today, legendary human cannonball, the great Zambonee, who was famous for bringing his pet donkey to each of his performances, escaped tragedy today when, just as he was about to be launched, his pet donkey walked in front of the cannon. It took paramedics three hours to remove Zambonee’s head from his ass. Both are resting comfortably."