Positives and negatives of the Olympics.

Great article Ariel .

I SO hope this Olympics results in more female sport being shown on TV. It really has given me so much hope, seeing all these people cheering on women. Yes there have been the odd dodgy comments on body size/attractiveness, but on the whole, people have been really good in a way that I didn't expect.

This is a good article.

That's a whole different issue to the gender equality one though, WidowWadman

And I'd be biased against you on that argument simply because I love watching the gymnastics and diving so much

I think there's actually an argument to not count anything which can't be measured objectively but goes by judges giving points as a sport, which applies to synchronised swimming, too.

I watched the synchronised swimming final this afternoon - very impressive, and looked like very hard work.

But it got me wondering whether men's synchronised swimming existed. Especially given claims I've seen on TV that London 2012 is the first "gender equal" games.

After looking on Google, I've found this article in the Independant, talking to some British male synchronised swimmers who are upset about being barred from the games on account of being male:

Wrath of the Waterboys

Jo Pavey is amazing.The way she has plugged away for years with not much recognition is worthy of utmost respect.

Well done Jo.

Well done Jo Pavey for getting into the top 8 in the 5,000m final at the age of 38.

Ooh, hooray. I fucking hate blatter - skimpy shorts my arse (no pun intended). Encountered a few misogynist arseholes in my (decidedly inglorious) footballing career, but he really takes teh biscuit Sadly that bit didn't make the highlights show.

Big positive: Blatter the Twatter getting booed by the crowd. in the football victory ceremony

Just saw that interview too - she is lovely (and her accent makes me so homesick).

Lovely piece of Olympic inspiration going on in my local park. I arrived on Tuesday with DS (going on the bmx course), and there were two women with their daughters (aged about 10) and a son (about 7). They'd just finished a couple of laps of the park and one of the women was explaining that Olympic athletes did loads of training. We went to the park again tonight (paddling pool/bmx double - maybe DS will end up as a triathlete), and the same group were there again, running laps. So lovely to see.

Just watching the highlights of the football - we went to see Japan in the quarter finals on Friday, great game. I'm rather sad to see Japan lose, they were so good against Brazil (who were a bit dirty as usual - I remember seeing them back in the 2007 world cup and they kicked Australia off the park in the semi-finals, disgraceful). But well done USA, always a class act (shame the ref didn't spot the hand-ball though, that would have made for an exciting turn of events).

Aww, just caught up on Nicola Adams, what a lovely interview. I think gary lineker nearly set her off crying right at the end there.

Me too. It was awesome. Nicola Adams seems such a lovely person too. It was great to see Amir Khan enthusing about her brilliance.

I reckon we need a mass tweet or email bombardment to the Beeb asking to keep up the coverage.. Surely they will want to capitalise on the newly addicted fanbase.

Adams was brilliant - and put her opponent on the canvas. Taylor's was a great win too after a tough bout. Such skilful boxing to watch. I was quite tearful watching Adams win the first ever women's boxing medal.

Good letter from Jo Swinson in the Standard today asking for more coverage of women's sport - fir every 53 articles about men's sport there is one about women's, apparently.

Off to follow her on Twitter!

Is anyone watching Adams right now? Awesome.

Apparently men used to do synchronised swimming!

www.london2012.com/synchronized-swimming/about/

" Synchronised Swimming began as a sport for men in the 1800s. It is now one of two disciplines on today?s Olympic programme to be contested only by women. The other is Rhythmic Gymnastics."

Another thing.

While it is super that women are now able to compete in all sports, I think we will truly know equality when it is seen as acceptable for men to be engaged in "girly" sports like synchronised swimming and rhythmic gymnastics.

Why don't we see men in a sparkly get-up doing twirls and stuff? Why is that still so abhorrent to us as a society? It's really ridiculous and limiting.

Oh it was to the Times.

What a fucking entitled twat he sounds in that letter. It is par for the course for journalists to have stuff changed. Just accept it with a shrug, maybe a polite "oh I would rather you hadn't changed that".

Reacting like that is a guaranteed way of getting your stuff subbed to shit forever more.

x-post with yrc!

Is she really his friend outside of filming?

Giles Coren Nosh rant

Oh he IS that knobbish, didn't you ever read that horrible letter he wrote to the Guardian calling one of the sub-editors a cunt because they changed something in his copy?

Nice people can have knobbish friends, there are people who I really like whose friends I can't stand.

If Giles Coren is such a knob then why is Sue Perkins his friend?

Either he is not really as knobbish as all that or she has much worse taste than I think she does.

Giles Coren is a total knobhead, hate him.

Nice and humorous column by Mark Steel in i today (by "i" I mean the stupidly-titled Independent off-shoot) about women, immigrants and Andy Murray at the Olympics. Mark Steel