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Hey America! You should be watching the Paralympics, it's fab! (And how you can watch....)

Wow, you should have seen the London 2012 Paralympics Opening Ceremony yesterday. It blew me away! It was so inspiring, so flipping awesome.

What's that you say? You live in America and couldn't watch (or didn't even know it was happening) because although NBC have the rights they aren't showing it (see update below), despite the USA fielding the third largest team at the Paralympics (223 athletes)?

Wanna watch it? You are some of the highllights (yes, the Ceremony opened with Stephen Hawking!) it took us from Shakespeare to Ian Dury, via Newton...and an acknowledgement that it rains a bit in the UK ;) It "shined a light on the beautiful diversity of humanity":

And here's the WHOLE ceremony (yes, you can fast forward through the 166 countries coming in if you really want to):

If you read my blog, you'll have seen my rant about the Paralympics, the second largest sporting event in the world, not being shown AT ALL in the USA. Well, since then NBC seems to have relented, perhaps because of all the petitions.....now, of the whole 11 days of world-class, utterly amazing triumphs of humankind, they're going to spoil us with...........wait for it, a whole 5 and a half hours of coverage, as highlight shows, not on the main channel, but on the Sports Network channel, and of this 1.5 hours of it will be a whole week after the Paralympics finish. Stunning isn't it. Oh sorry, I meant pretty disgusting and disappointing actually. 

I suppose something is better than nothing? Hmmm. NBC have pointed out this is an improvement on the amount of coverage since the Bejing Paralympics. Hmmmmmm.

As I've said before, according to Government statistics, 1 in 5 Americans have some sort of disability.....but forget that fact as a reason why the Paralympics should be shown, it ISN'T just for people with disabilities.....this is ALL ABOUT ABILITY........this is sport at its world-class best. 

There are ways you can be watching, and I'll let you know how in a moment, and I've been watching the Opening Ceremony and some of Day 1 with my kids. None of us have a physical disability, but I've been loving being able to talk to my kids about what we're watching, answer their sometimes wonderfully blunt questions about some of the Paralymians and their disabilities, and have been overjoyed that these kids can watch the sport for what it is - exciting, inspiring, amazing.....not watching it in a patronising way, in a "ooh aren't they doing well inspite of their cerebal palsy/amputations/shorter limbs etc" but just "wow, did you see how fast they went" etc.

Americans and especially American kids (our next generation and hopefully better generation for being more accepting and respectful of EVERYBODY) should be able to watch these Paralympics.

Melchett (my youngest, who's 10) has always been the child who pointed (sometimes to my intense embarrasment) and asked questions about anything and everything. I love her for this, she has such an innocence and an incredibly inquisitive mind. I am also very thankful that both my girls have an incredible desire for everyone to be treated fairly (I don't know if I'm describing this well). They ALWAYS root for the underdog, they ALWAYS seem to find the 'different' kids, the sometimes loners or wallflowers, or simply those who are new to situations, and make them their friends. They ALWAYS get annoyed at injustice in the world (Goth Child particularly, being 15 now, is a huge advocate for equal rights for EVERYBODY). Sorry, I'm rambling......my point is Melchett started last night with "what's wrong with that one, he looks normal" (ooops, yes I did cringe, the PC in me sometimes forgets she's just 10 and is allowed to ask questions and be blunt and from this both of us have had some of our greatest learning experiences). It's been nice to talk with my kids that sometimes you can't see a disability. Goth Child was very quick to point out "you shouldn't say 'wrong', nothing's 'wrong', they're just 'different' from you, we're all 'different' in some way". I'm trying to get through to them that one of the things the Paralympics shows us is it's all about ability, you might not be able to do something someone else can, but you can do something.

Look, for example at your first gold medallist today America:

 (screencap of www.jessicalong.com's website - a fab website check it out!)

I tell you, Jessica is a total inspiration - born in Siberia and adopted from an orphanage at 13 months, she's been brought up in Baltimore.  She was born with fibular hemimelia so without fibulas, ankles, feet and had further amputation to enable prosthetic limbs as a child. One of 6 kids, her parents made sure they all stayed active. Do you remember how fired up America got about Missy Franklin, Michael Phelps etc..................Jessica should be JUST as well known, she holds the World records in 13 Paralympic events, and since the 2004 Athens Games she's won 7 golds, 1 silver, 1 bronze medals, and at the London 2012 Paralympics she's swimming in 7 individual events and 2 relays...............and as I say, she's just won Team USA's first gold medal in the S8 100m butterfly, an awesome race!

OK, so how can you watch the Paralympics in the USA.....various ways (excluding cough cough using a vpn tunnel like Strong VPN should you want to cough cough):

• the Paralympic Sport TV channel on youtube
• the official Paralympics website livestreaming (and tons of other stuff), they're showing 780 hours of the Games on various channels on the website: www.paralympics.org

And you might want to try these for more info. about the Team USA Paralympians during the Games (yes, sorry I'm concentrating on Team USA here, even though I mainly support Team GB, because America doesn't have it easy to find things out due to the lack of mainstream coverage):

Team USA Paralympics website (tons of stuff and news here)

Team USA Paralympians twitter account (very useful for finding out what's going on)

And I'll be raving about the Paralympics as they go along.... ;)

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First week of 2013, first makes of 2013

Do you know the London 2012 Paralympics are coming?

If you're British, you're probably going to say "yeah der, everybody knows that".

If you're American, unless you know someone close with disabilities you might not know....because......and I can not believe I'm going to say this but:

DESPITE 227 athletes from the USA competing for their country in 16 days time....

DESPITE NBC dedicating 5,535 hours to the London 2012 Olympics on television....

NOT A MINUTE OF THE LONDON 2012 PARALYMPICS IS GOING TO BE SHOWN ON AMERICAN TELEVISION!!!

Are you as gobsmacked as I am about this?

(Please don't get me wrong, I'm not judging America, though I am judging the tv networks and advertisers....I just want to get more people aware of it and watching).

I have this theory that not one of you reading this has gone through life without meeting or knowing someone with a disability. OK, so there are lots of disabilities that aren't visible...but from a very quick search, from figures from the US Department of Health and Human Services, there are 54 million Americans with disabilities.....that's 1 in 5 people. 

Let me repeat, not ONE SECOND of the Paralympics are going to be shown on American television.....

And the Paralympics are AMAZING! 

(Here's a link to the video about the action-packed, full-on contact sport of Wheelchair Rugby at the Paralympics on Youtube in case that didn't show up in your reader).

I love this advert from the Canadian Paralympic Committee too....unstoppable:

(Here's the link to this ad on Youtube in case it doesn't show up in your reader).

I have to admit, I've only really gotten into watching them since Athens, and coverage on UK tv did take a little while to get off the ground. But for London 2012 Paralympics the Brits get to see 150 hours on television, with the broadcaster showing them, Channel 4 (and it's sister channel More 4) also creating viewing opportunities online and via apps.

The Paralympics are going to be shown on television in the UK, Australia, Brazil, China, Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Egypt, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Russia, Slovakia, Spain, Sweden, Tunisia, Turkey, (even) Iran (!), Japan, Malaysia, S. Korea, New Zealand, Sub-Saharan Africa and Thailand............

NOT A SECOND WILL BE TELEVISED IN THE USA.....despite American heroes like Sgt. Robert Brown repsenting this wonderful country:

(Here's a link to the video from Team USA on Youtube in case this isn't showing up in your reader). 

BUT all is not lost though - thanks to technology, YOU CAN WATCH ONLINE at www.paralympics.org. They'll have 5 channels, 780 hours of live sport, over a 1000 hours of video on demand. Here's their trailer:

The International Paralympic Committee says:

"Not only will the Paralympics inspire and excite the world, but they will change it, making for a more equitable society"

There will be 503 gold medals awarded at the Paralympics, 4200 athletes from 166 countries, across 20 sports, and 15 countries will take part for the first time.

Shall we watch the Paralympics together?

You might have to forgive me, I might be banging on about it for a few weeks on here, on Absobloominglutely, on twitter etc. Humour me ;)

I'd really like more people in America to know this is happening. I don't want them to miss out on 11 days of fantastic sport and incredibly inspiring stories. After all, it only comes around every 4 years....and it would be really nice to do some stuff to try and get some television coverage for the next Paralympics.

ALSO, if you're on Twitter....

Did you know that despite having 54 million people with disabilities in the USA and over 300 million total population, the Team USA Paralympians twitter account @USParalympics has just 9,200 followers - FOLLOW THEM! Find out about the Team USA paralympians and what's going on.

(If you want some competitive spurring on, the UK has a tiny population of 62 million, and about 10 million with disabilities, and yet Team GB Paralympians twitter account @ParalympicsGB has 39,423 followers....come on America, we know you love a competition....get following!)

AND if you read this in time, today 13th August, Team USA have organised 8 twitter chats with members of the Paralympian team....check out the details here.

Here's also a list of 10 fun ways you can support the Team USA Paralympians. 

.....................................................................

PS. thank you for all the kind and supportive comments on here, on Sew Weekly and via gmail about me going through a bad patch at the moment. I'm still here and I'm still fighting though I keep getting swamped by the dark cloud and am not able to do all the things I'd like to.....speaking of which I'm waaaaaaaaaaay behind on my Sew Weekly challenge this week and need to try and sort that, I can't concentrate long enough to understand patterns and am having a huge battle with a jersey fabric yoke that despite stabilising just wants to wrinkle up into a scrunchie.....ah well.

Thank you.....I'll be back.

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Harry Potter - it's not over if you don't want it to be

So have you seen HP7-P2?

Don't you think that would be a fab name for a distant relative of R2-D2? Sorry, I digress, I mustn't get side-tracked onto the links between Harry Potter and Star Wars, I mustn't.

I noticed the glee that news broadcasters jumped on the 'Harry Potter - the end of an era/it's all over/grown women crying in the streets etc' stories at the Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2 premieres. And I totally see how people could be incredibly upset about it all being over. I'm not feeling that way at the moment though.

 

(Yes, I and my sister-in-law are totally shameless publicity seeking mothers, dressing their cute kids up and going to the opening screenings/book launches knowing the newspaper photographers would be there too ;) Spot Goth Child and Melchett with their cousins....yes, we are aware they all look like one family....adds to appeal to newspaper photographers!)

 *******

I have to admit I was sad about it ending reading Deathly Hallows for the first time....I faced the difficult balancing act of wanting to devour the book as fast as I possibly could, but slowing my reading down, trying to only read a few chapters each day because I didn't want it to end.

Now those of you who know me, or know my family, know we're geeks. We love great stories, we love partying and we definitely love any excuse to dress up.

Harry Potter was a godsend to us.

 

(Goth Child far left with her cousins....the littlest, far right didn't see CoS at this time as we considered it too scary for him, he saw it when the DVD came out, he was just dropping his brother and sister off with us....on my chest in her Baby Bjorn carrier was Melchett though, who slept through the whole movie....thank goodness)

*******

I have to admit the first two books initally passed us by. We can't claim to have been Harry Potter fans from day 1. I remember being at a friend's house and seeing he'd built a cardboard model of this castle with a sign saying 'Hogwarts'. "What the heck is that?" I asked and got preached to by an exisiting Harry Potter convert with all the conviction of a fire and brimstone pastor about why I HAD to read Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone and the Chamber of Secrets.

It was 1999 and there was a smattering of news coverage on the newly released Prisoner of Azkaban. I also watched a programme about JK Rowling and the Harry Potter phenomena even though most of it made little sense. But everyone talking about Harry enthused, their eyes brightened....so as I hate to be left behind on any craze, I bought the Philosopher's Stone to read on holiday.

IT WAS BLOOMING FANTASTIC!!

I don't think I've ever read a book so fast, or read so much late into the night. Probably the funniest thing was that even though I loved it, I mistook it for 'just a kid's book' and thought myself soooooo clever all the way through to have worked out that Snape was the baddie. Finding Professor Quirrell down in the chamber blew my socks off. I'd been fooled. This wasn't just a book for 'kids' like so many other 'kids' books I'd read, this was intelligent, witty, massive, wonderful (in the true full of wonder and delight sense of the word).

Straight back off holiday I bought Chamber of Secrets and Prisoner of Azkaban (which remains my favourite novel and my favourite movie of the whole saga).

My sister-in-law got heavily into Harry Potter too and soon we were reading the stories to our children and getting them hooked.

The next joy was the Stephen Fry read audiobooks. These kept Goth Child company before sleep each night and HAD to listened to on every car journey, even the short ones. Stephen Fry is the BEST at all the multiple voices in Harry World world - I adore his Molly Weasley and his Aunt Petunia. (More on this later).

The Harry Potter birthday parties followed...I can't find at the moment photos of when we hired the village hall, set out tressel tables and prepared a Hogwarts feast all for just 8 or so children. My youngest nephew sprayed his hair bright orange to be Ron Weasley...he's probably be quite glad I can't find the photo. I have got these ones though from the opening of Prisoner of Azkaban....

 

(First appearance of Melchett there. It was her turn not to see the movie, she had to wait a couple of years before we let her watch the Dementors)

*******

And this...one of the many Harry Potter photoshopped birthday cards we did, this one for my brother-in-law's birthday:

 

There were the games of Quidditch we played in the back garden:

 

 

And the planning holidays so we could visit places they'd filmed the Harry Potter movies:

 

(By the way, if you're near Alnwick Castle next week they've got special Harry Potter themed events on for the UK school hols!)

As you can see we dressed up for the movie openings, and for the book launches. The best two of these were for the final two books and organised by the world's best bookshop Wenlock Books!

After what seemed an eternity after the release of Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix my sister-in-law rang me full of excitement - Wenlock Books had chartered a steam train for the launch of Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince!!!

The Severn Valley Railways train left Bridgnorth station just before midnight so that we arrived at the next station on its route in time for midnight when Dumbledore and lots of other characters from the books (played by members of the local drama group and secondary school) met us and presented us with our pre-ordered copies of the book. A bird sanctuary had also come along with owls for the kids to marvel at.

It was possibly one of the best nights of my life (I'm such a saddo ;)). The tickets sold out stupidly fast (predictably) and almost everyone on the steam train came in costume. What I cannot believe was that I didn't take any photos but I was in the pit of a deep depression at the time. Luckily there are some pics on the Wenlock Books blog.

I do have photos of us at the launch of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. Wenlock Books this time took over the local science museum and decked it out for the night like Hogwarts. There were magic displays by wizards (ok, magicians), dance lessons from Professor McGonagall, songs from the resident band the Weird Sisters, plus butterbeer, chocolate frogs and everything else you could imagine would be part of the perfect Harry Potter night. Then at midnight, we queued up the spiral staircase to the 'Astronomy Tower' and were presented with our books by Professor Trelawney.

Here's the husband as Remus Lupin (do you like the werewold rips in the t-shirt?) and brother-in-law as Severus Snape (he got hissed and booed by kids all night, how little we all knew) and just behind his shoulder, you can just see me, with newly reddy-purple hair being Tonks:

 

So now that all the books have been read (including of course Beedle the Bard and the Comic Relief specials) and all the films have been seen, DVDs bought, HP Top Trumps & Trivia games & Playstation games played, Lego Hogwarts built, fan fiction read and written, Leaky Cauldron and other HP forums posted on etc.......is it all over? :(

NOPE!

Harry Potter is having a new lease of life with us!

Despite the fact that Melchett always loved posing with the books as if she was reading them...

 

...she's actually only started reading well this last year - and Harry Potter is all new to her again.

PLUS, with our Stephen Fry audiobooks all being on cassette and therefore not on the more acceptable ipods, we've had to start anew with the American Harry Potter audiobooks, read by Jim Dale of Carry On fame. I'm sorry but Jim's voices are not a patch on Stephen's but it is breathing new life into Harry again.

And then there's Pottermore! Loooooook look, I found a magic quill on Day 4 and I've been accepted for early entry before all the rest of you plebs (haha, to be honest, if you've read this far, you're probably as obsessed as I am and have been accepted too):

 

If you haven't found your magic quill and been accepted, tomorrow (6th August) is your last chance. Here's some extra hints about when the Pottermore clue will be appearing (between 12.30am and 3am BST) and what to do.

I'm SnitchFirebolt82 by the way.

So you see, Harry Potter isn't over, not until the Fat Lady hangs up her hat and retires forever from the Gryffindor Tower.....or something like that.

 

 

 

Mischief Managed.

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OK Christmas 2012, that's a wrap.

The world's scariest Happy Meal toy

Nope, it's not this one....I didn't want to scare the life out of you too soon, we'll work up to the scariest...

 

 

Melchett LOVES McD's and would eat Happy Meals for EVERY meal if we'd let her.

We don't.

She's allowed one a week, as a treat on take out night (when the grown ups explore the zillions of takeout restaurants in Phoenix and Goth Child joins her for a Chicken Selects meal).

And yes, she eats all of her McNuggets Meal....but we all know that what she really wants is the toy.

One of the things I've found interesting here is that even though we occasionally get the choice of "Boy or Girl" at the drive-through window in the UK to determine the toy (usually when they have Hot Wheels or Barbie), here, they spilt the choice nearly every other promotion period.

Which is ok, because frequently we turn to Melchett whilst ordering the meal and ask her, "are you a Boy or a Girl this week?" and she decides on what the toys are or how she feels that night!

So, for instance, when she was a "Boy" we collected the How To Train Your Dragon toys:

 

 

We particularly liked these as they're bright and colourful, and we went to see the movie at the IMAX and it was amazing.

And then sometimes she'll be a "Girl":

 

 

These are Littlest Pet Shop Happy Meal toys...which have the added value of STICKERS and a code to play on games on the McD's website. Big and exciting stuff to an 8 year old!

But, and brace yourselves for this, just now we've come to the scariest range of Happy Meal toys I've ever experienced (and trust me, my eldest nephew is about to turn 16 so I've bought a ridiculous amount of Happy Meals for my nephews, nieces and daughters through the years). I don't think you'd ever see Happy Meal toys like these in the UK...

Are you ready for this?

You can hide behind the settee/couch if you get too scared...

Ok, here goes:

 

 

(wait for it)

 

 

 

 

I am so sorry if you are going to require any form of therapy after seeing that.

It's a 'Madame Alexander for McDonald's' limited edition 'Wendy as the Big Bad Wolf' doll. She pairs a Little Red Riding doll, and we've also collected a Mad Hatter and a 'Wendy as Alice' (no, I have no idea why they have Wendy as any other character, rather than just having the character. Weird.)

We've never had anything like this as Happy Meal toys in the UK have we? Or have I just blanked them out so I didn't have nightmares?

Look her eyes follow you around the room:

 

 

And when you lie her down, she pretends to be asleep:

 

But we all know she's just faking it, don't we.

I swear to you I keep tidying her back away into Melchett's room only to find her mysteriously back in the family room with me....watching me....

Perhaps I've watched Dead of the Night too many times... (I love that movie, but it does explain my automatonophobia). Joke.

Anyway, she's from a set of Madame Alexander exclusive dolls (no, I'd never heard of them either, supposedly they're highly collectible American dolls that have been made since the 1920's - and people really love them, look here's a Madame Alexander Happy Meals Flickr collectors' group page showing current and past ranges.

Anyway, I just wanted to show you...

...just in case anything sinister happens to me...

I'm going to put her back away in Melchett's room now...

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Warning, grumble approaching: BRITISH FOOD ISN'T BAD!

There are certain 'truths' I keep having thrown at me whenever I get into conversations with Americans about being from the UK.

The top 2 are:

1. British people have bad teeth.
2. British food is bad.

Grumble, grumble, grumble (I'm actually doing an impression of Muttley here but I don't know to spell any of the sounds I'm uttering).

The teeth thing is a whole separate argument for another day, though in brief I dispute it, there's a difference between having 'natural' teeth and having 'bad teeth'.

But the food thing...

I've heard American comedians do whole routines about how bad British food is (although they usually say English because lots of Americans don't understand the difference between England and Britain....but again, that's a whole other grumble for another day).

On Saturday night I went out for a fantastic meal at a Brazilian restaurant here, only to have the mickey taken out of me about my nation allegedly thinking the height of cuisine being a blood pudding...

It's beginning to wear thin.

Then this morning, I saw a BBC America trailer that told the USA:

"We lost our Empire, we suck at tennis, our food is lousy. But our television sure kicks ass"

WHAT?! BBC?! The BRITISH Broadcasting Corporation - you're ours. You're supposed to be on our side, promoting our wonderful country...but instead you're perpetuating a stupid myth about our food being bad? I despair.

Grrrrrrrrr.

Well, it's a whole load of tosh!

 

 

Yes, there are some places that don't cook food well, where they boil the living daylights out of the vegetables and use the microwave to finish anything else off that boiling didn't manage...

Yes, there are some people who would eat meat and two veg and never try anything else because they know what they like and and they like what they know...

But you CANNOT write off ALL British food as BAD!

It's not.

We're actually a nation who care passionately about our food and are constantly trying to improve our skills and recipes. 

If you ever pop to the UK and turn on the tv, you'll find wall-to-wall food programmes extolling creations that can be achieved in the average kitchen and striving to find the very best of culinary expertise that we can aspire to - MasterChef, Great British Menu, The Hairy Bikers, Something For The Weekend, everything Delia's done, The Great British Bake Off, Come Dine With Me, River Cottage, Heston's Feasts, Ramsey's Best Restaurant, Hell's Kitchen, Britain's Best Dish....and this is just scratching the surface. (It's quite interesting that two of the biggest British stars on American tv at the moment are Gordon Ramsey and Jamie Oliver).

Cookery books are constantly in the bestseller lists (Jamie Oliver's latest book 'Jamie's 30-Minute Meals' in currently in the amazon.co.uk Top 10 bestsellers and it's not even out yet! That's just on pre-orders).

 

 

Throughout the country there are food festivals showcasing the very best of British food.

Heston Blumenthal's The Fat Duck is the 3rd best restaurant in the world according to S.Pellegrino's World's 50 Best Restaurants list, (with the first American restaurant not appearing until 7th place). More and more restaurants throughout the country are gaining Michelin stars:

"Britain's place as one of the world centres of gastronomy has been enhanced by the influential Michelin guide, which has awarded more stars to the nation's restaurants than at any time in its 35-year history" - Harry Wallop, Daily Telegraph, 15 January 2010 

Aaanyway, what I want to say is....British food isn't bad, it might have taken a knock during the war with rationing making meat and two veg part of our staple diet...but that was nearly 70 years ago! The UK is actually obsessed with good food and good cooking, my mouth is beginning to salivate just thinking about lancashire hotpot, steak and kidney pie, cucumber sandwiches, queen of puddings, bubble and squeak, afternoon tea scones, cornish pasties, toad in the hole, syllabub, baltis (yes, I'm claiming those as we anglicised them), beef wellington, treacle tart, gooseberry fool, spotted dick, summer pudding, custard, baked apples, porridge, eaton mess, fish and chips, welsh rarebit, rhubard crumble, the full english breakfast, roast parnsip and chestnut crumble, neeps and tatties, shepherd's pie, christmas pudding, bara brith, coffee cake, cauliflower cheese, bread and butter pudding, flapjacks, yorkshire puddings...

British food is good. So nerrr.

What do you reckon? Am I right, or are my rose-tinted ex-pat spectacles playing tricks on me? What are you favourite British foods? Click on the comments link below and let me know. 

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