The Chapman Zone Dave’s Blog

Ah, the 2012 Olympics in London. So much possibility, so much to inspire our young people to get out there and learn a new sport, to excel, to strive. And now we have a logo to encapsulate all that drive, passion and zeal into one focal point. According to the dignitaries of London:

“This is the vision at the very heart of our brand. It will define the venues we build and the Games we hold and act as a reminder of our promise to use the Olympic spirit to inspire everyone and reach out to young people around the world. It is an invitation to take part and be involved. We will host a Games where everyone is invited to join in because they are inspired by the Games to either take part in the many sports, cultural, educational and community events leading up to 2012 or they will be inspired to achieve personal goals.”

Seb Coe - Organising Committee Chairman

“We want London 2012 not just to be about elite sporting success. When people see the new brand, we want them to be inspired to make a positive change in their life. London 2012 will be a great sporting summer but will also allow Britain to showcase itself to the world.”

Tony Blair - Prime Minister

“This is a truly innovative brand logo that graphically captures the essence of the London 2012 Olympic Games - namely to inspire young people around the world through sport and the Olympic values. Each edition of the Olympic Games brings its own flavour and touch to what is now well over a century of modern Olympic history; the brand launched today by London 2012 is, I believe, an early indication of the dynamism, modernity and inclusiveness with which London 2012 will leave its Olympic mark.”

Jacque Rogge - International Olympic Committee President

“This is an iconic brand that sums up what London 2012 is all about - an inclusive, welcoming and diverse Games that involves the whole country. It takes our values to the world beyond our shores, acting both as an invitation and an inspiration. This is not just a marketing logo, but a symbol that will become familiar, instantly recognisable and associated with our Games in so many ways during the next five years.”

Tessa Jowell - Olympics Minister

“The new Olympic brand draws on what London has become - the world’s most forward-looking and international city. That message of welcome and diversity was one of the main reasons for London’s success in winning the Games. We offer the world the same exciting message that in 2012 every athlete and every visitor will feel at home in our city.”

Ken Livingstone - Lord Mayor Of London

Oh wow! I can hardly wait to see it - it’s going to be phenomenal. Something that delivers all the promises made in the above quotes has to be pretty extraordinary, doesn’t it?

Would you like to see it? Well here it is (brace yourself)

Well……

What can one say really?

Its………..well, its………………………

What it is is an absolute pile of shit! I mean good God! Look at it! It’s a bunch of jaggedy lines that vaguely form the numbers “2012″! That’s it! It’s garbage!!!

It’s absolute f*cking garbage!

I’m speechless……..OK, that’s a lie. I work in design, and while I would not even dream of calling myself a fully fledged “Graphic Designer” (although I do whenever anyone asks me what I do for a living) I can tell straight away that the guy that vomited this up from his mind spent a grand total of, ooooooohhhh, I don’t know………twenty minutes on it? The colours are gaudy and irrelevant. The font used for “London” adds nothing to the overall look of the piece (he must have picked it at random)……….

…….you know what? I was planning to spend a good few more paragraphs slating this design, but is really is so utterly bad, that I cannot even find the words to describe it.

And the guy got paid £400,000 pounds for doing it! Four hundred thousand f*cking pounds!!! The bastard must be laughing himself to sleep every night! What a bunch of retarded f*ckwits to buy whatever line of bullshit he must have fed them!

Honestly, this is exactly he kind of thing that shows one of the major weaknesses of our country - our leaders will believe anything they are told. In an age where no one wants to take the blame for anything, everyone in a position of authority turns to so called “experts” and believes everything they say. It’s really great, because when it all goes pear-shaped, they can simply say “I was only acting on advice given from the experts in the field. It’s not my fault!” and the experts can say “Well we acted upon the brief that we were given - if the information is faulty, we can’t be held accountable. It’s not our fault!” And no-one gets blamed. The experts still keep their gargantuan consultancy fees, and the managing director still gets to keep his job…and probably gets to get rid of some lower level staff, just so that he can be seen to be “decisive” to placate the already rich pigs gorging themselves at the stock option trough, when their shares drop by one millionth of a penny.

Am I getting off track? I don’t think I am. Look at the design again, then go back and read all the quotes I put at the top of this post. Look at them all - are they giving you their own opinion, or are they reading from text that was provided to them? And who do you suppose wrote that speech? Someone from a private PR firm no doubt, hired on consultancy to ensure that the minister in question does not do anything stupid, like actually give his or her own opinion. The Olympics has to be sold to the people, they have to be inspired and enthused and brought on-side, so to say what you actually think about this logo would not be in that best interest. Doesn’t matter if it’s the truth - f*ck the truth, there’s money to be made! Every word that comes from an official’s mouth is utterly meaningless today - it is all sugared words spun to decieve us and protect themselves. The media have lost their relevance as well: “A terrible thing happened today. In response to this terrible thing that happened, a Police spokesman says that the Police are very good. In a thoughtful and unbiased response to his statement, a criminal interviewed on the street said that the Police were very bad. This is the news at ten, thank you and good night”.

OK, back to the Olympic logo…

F*ck me, it’s awful.

To sum up, here’s an alternative logo that someone sent me at work - I feel it says more plainly what the official logo is saying to us all:

Here’s one final quote from Lord Coe (all quotes taken from the BBC.co.uk news article here):

“It won’t be to be eveybody’s taste immediately but it’s a brand that we genuinely believe can be a hard working brand which builds on pretty much everything we said in Singapore about reaching out and engaging young people, which is where our challenge is over the next five years.

“If we don’t do that, then frankly the whole project is unsustainable.”

Oh shit - we are going to be humiliated as a nation.

Actually, that’s nearly true - I’m learning how to make a shaving horse.

None the wiser? Have a look at this:

(This is not the actual plan that we’re working to, but it’s pretty much the same thing).

What happens is, you place a piece of wood onto the angled platform to the left of the picture, and operate the upright bit with your foot - when you push it away from you it pivots, and the top bit clamps the item to the angled platform, so you have both hands free to shape it with a drawknife.

When I did my Camp Leaders Training weekend years ago, I was told about the anatomy of the wooden tent peg, and how to make them properly, and I’ve wanted to have a go ever since. Not to mention that I’ve always had a fascination with old country woodcrafts. Actually, I had a fascination with it when I was a kid, watching “Out of Town” with Jack Hargreaves, then I became a teenager and forgot all about it. Since getting back into Scouts, and back into the countryside, I have had a yearning to try some of these crafts, and have wanted to incorporate them into a Summer Camp, and see if any of the Scouts could get interested in them too. Well, now I am doing that very thing.

While out on District camp, I had a chat with a couple of members of the Scout Fellowship whom I knew to be active in the Everetts Coppice working party. I enquired if they had recently felled any ash trees down there, and if so, would I be able to pinch a few logs. The answer was not only yes on both counts, but they even offered to meet me down there and cut the logs up for me with a chainsaw.

While I was out on Cub Camp last week, I got a phone call to ask if I was free on Saturday afternoon, which (handily enough) was the day after I came home from camp. I popped up there to meet them, and they were very helpful indeed. They found me a few good size ash logs in amongst the wood pile, and lopped them up into good length logs for me. They actually cut me several more than I expected them to, to be honest, and I have now got a dozen logs in my HQ stores ready to go. Now for something to cut them on…

I mentioned that I was in need of an oak log, about four feet long by nine inches thick. Whoosh - off they went to find me one, and after looking over a few, we settled on one which they promptly cut to size, and then even flattened for me. This saved me days of solid graft, and the ash logs saved me a major hunt, and potentially a fair wad of cash, so thanks to Alan and Pete for all their hard work.

So, I now have a large (and very heavy) oak log that me and my dad have to make into a shave horse like you see above. Very quickly, thanks to Limpet (or “Random Boner” as we like to call him this week) for helping me get it from my car to the back garden.

First problem: when I asked Alan to flatten it for me, I had no idea how thick it needed to be, and of course it needs to be thinner than it is…quite a lot thinner as it happens. 3 inches thick it needs to be. We decided to go for 4 inches thick to give ourselves a little balls up room when cutting. First things first, we measured and marked up the sides with a wooden baten, then ran the circular saw down to mark it more clearly.

The plan was then to take a ripsaw and cut along the line created by the circular saw. We knew it would take a long time, but after I had been at it for five minutes solid, and had only progressed about 3/4 inch, it was time for a rethink. We decided to roll the log around a bit, and cut slots into the top, stopping when we reached the markers:

… and then chisel out the slots, chunk by chunk:

The sawing part got a lot easier when Dad popped back out and we had a go with the two-man cross cut saw. Chiselling was fun - never done it before…but I’m going to be doing a lot more of it. Dad said he wants to mark the slots on the other side with the circular saw tomorrow, which could save us a fair bit of time and effort. We’ll see.

Progress at the end of day one (about two hours or so of work):

…in a manner of speaking.

A couple of weeks ago, I was driving home from work, and got hit from behind by another driver.

[to all those that thought I was finally coming out of the closet - sorry to disappoint you!]

It was a lady in her fifties, and she was very apologetic about it. I was perfectly pleasant, as these things happen. Apparently, she was distracted by this massive truck that was bearing down on her, and forgot to brake. I would normally dismiss this as a crap excuse, but a few years ago I had the same thing with a bus - it came hareing it towards me, and put the wind up me so much that I nudged a car in front of me. Fortunately, that one was the tiniest of nudges, and there was no damage at all (not even a scratch), so we agreed to forget the whole thing.

Back to a few weeks ago, when I looked at the car, there was no visible damage, and I thought that it might be another case of “forget about it - no harm done”, but I took her details anyway, as a matter of precaution.

Good job too, as when I got home and had another look, I noticed that there was some damage after all. The rear bumper on the drivers side had popped off and broken it’s mounting, and the body work had been pushed in about an inch or so. The boot does not shut properly (it still locks fortunately), so I had to phone her and let her know that she should get in touch with her insurance broker.

Next morning, I got a phone call from the insurance agent, to tell me that the lady had admitted fault and that they were arranging repair and a courtesy car for while my car was in getting fixed. Nice! All I had to do was wait for the garage to get in touch with me to arrange a date and time.

I had a to wait a few days, and finally phone up the insurance company again, before getting an appointment. Something had to go wrong with the whole procedure after all…

I took the car to a place in Segensworth East Industrial Estate, which was very handy, as I only work a few minutes away from there. When the lady looked at it, she said she would have to get the valuer in to have a look, because of the extent of the damage and the age of the car. This made me a little nervous, as I had the two gigs mentioned in earlier posts to drive to, and was without robust car. That turned out OK, in the end, since dad agreed to lend me his for both.

On the Friday of the Roger Waters concert, I took the car in for the valuer to look at. After about one minute of looking, he told me that the cost of repairs was worth more than the car. Apparently, the book value of my Cavalier in it’s condition is only £495. I passed a small breeze block at this point, as I thought I was going to be faced with the prospect of buying a new car with only £495 to start with (which would have meant selling my bike). The quoted cost of repairs was around £1200.

It struck me as particularly unfair, as the car had only a few months ago sailed through it’s MOT, with the mechanic telling me that it had a good few years of motoring left in it - worth much more to me than £495.

I asked the valuer what my options were. He replied by first offering to write me a cheque for £495, and taking my car away and scrapping it.

“Bugger” thought I.

Then… a lifeline! The other option was for him to write me a cheque for £495, and for me to keep the car and sort out the repairs myself. When he recommended a course of repair that consisted of:

1. Taking the plastic trim out of the inside of the boot, and using a piece of 2×4 and a sledgehammer, beat the back end into shape till the boot closes normally.

and

2. Using a self-tapping screw to re-attach the bumper to the body.

…I obviously took the second option. I think I will try a slightly more secure approach to 2, and see if I can attach the two parts of the mount together, rather than drilling holes into the body work.

So, I went from facing having my car written off and only getting £495 for it (which would have meant me having to sell my bike to buy a new car), to having a nice fat cheque for £495, and having to spend in the region of a tenner (and a few hours work) to get my car back to the way it was)!

Nice!

…..and when I say ‘nice’, I mean……niiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiice!!!