Everyone comes from a position of bias and the main reason that the topic of the British media coverage of Vancouver 2010 has even touched my consciousness is because my wife is Canadian and because I spent two years over there. The bias of the British media is slightly harder to figure out. Why are they being so negative? Perhaps it's just their usual attempt to get everyone shouting to their neighbours over their garden fences “Have you SEEN this in The Sun? It's OUTRAGOUS! So much so that I'm going to keep on reading it and YELLING about it!”.
 The BBC Online coverage has been quite measured and reasonable, from what I've seen, but some of the newspapers, much less so. I think part of that is because The BBC are actually over there and not writing from an office in London. As John Furlong (CEO of the games) said regarding some of the journalists, “I don't know where these journalists are”. Great that The BBC are over there covering the games and a big piss off to The Sun who are busy moaning about the number of journalists The BBC has sent to cover the games.
Here is a breakdown of some of the main complaints:
The death of Nodar Kumaritashvili
You can debate whether the cause of the accident was due to a mistake by the athlete, a result of restrictions on access to the luge track for practice or a technical fault with the track. Whatever the case, an article in The Daily Mail (which I won't link to) is pretty nasty. The headline was “Canada's lust for glory is to blame for this senseless tragedy”.
“Canada wanted to Own The Podium at the Vancouver Winter Olympic Games. This morning they can put their maple leaf stamp on something more instantly tangible: the nondescript little box carrying the lifeless body of Nodar Kumaritashvili back to his home in Bakuriani, Georgia.
Made in Canada, it should say. Made by the perversion of the Olympic movement for national gain; made by a culture of worthless aggrandisement and pride.”
The death is a tragedy, that is for sure, but until there is an investigation, perhaps best not to lay blame. Doing otherwise is a disgrace. One of the most emotional moments during these Olympics was when the Georgian team entered during the opening ceremony.
Own The Podium
People are reading too much into this. I hesitate to go so far as to say that there is a “language barrier”, but having lived in Canada, I can tell you that there is a definite cultural difference between Canadian people and The British. Canada falls somewhere between The USA and Britain. They don't have the arrogance of The USA who will charge into the room screaming “U-S-A! U-S-A!”, but neither are they a bunch of whining, pessimistic people so cruelly aroused by failure, proud just to be able to keep their chins up against all those terrible odds. Don't worry, I include myself in this.
Canadian athletes have been under-funded for many years, and the use of the “Own The Podium” slogan in the lead-up to the Vancouver 2010 games is as much a marketing decision than it is a display of arrogance. With this in mind, remember that it is The USA who have been saying that Canada can own the podium, but we're going to be renting it for the duration of the games. Now that's arrogance.
Lack of Practice for foreign athletes
The British Media (and some sour athletes) have complained that The Canadians have had more access to tracks and facilities. I'm not there, so I don't know how true it is. What I do know is that it is normal for a host nation to have more practice on their own tracks before the live there due to a technical issue known as “fucking living there, you twat”. It is true that athletes were restricted from accessing the luge for a while but that is because a) They rested the track while it was too warm and b) the games are billed as “The Green Games” so it cannot be running all the time. Yes, it's a pity that Brits have a hard time practising winter sports in Britain, but at least we have palm trees in Torquay.
The curling stones suck
Britain and Germany have both complained. The stones come from Scotland, so... erm...
One of the torches in the opening ceremony didn't light
The opening ceremony was really impressive, especially the CGI whales and such. Let's accentuate the negative, though eh? There were technical failings in Beijing where Chinese staff had to hit pieces of scenery to get them to work, fortunately not caught on camera.
The torch is (was) trapped behind a Cold War style compound
A fair point, this one. Perhaps because it is a fair point, it has since been resolved. That's not to say this is a British Press crusade. Vancouver's mayor was also calling for the torch to be “freed”.
The weather
I'm sure Canadians find it hilarious that The British Press have the audacity to complain about the weather outside of Britain. The weather has been a problem, but you can't really blame Vancouver for that. Unless it sells extra newspapers to a nation of people who are scared at the prospect of hosting The Olympic Games and so like to see other people failing at it before us. Hey, maybe it'll make ours look a bit better.
First of all, isn't it thrilling that my blog is back? If you didn't know it was gone, then ignore this entire paragraph. If, however, you were aware that the internet was missing my blog and you are glad to see it back, then I would like to say “Thanks for reading, Mum”.
It might be February now, but that's not going to stop me from writing about the Christmas and New Year's period. You see, my mother-in-law very generously paid for a hotel for my wife and I to stay for three nights in New York City. The plan was to get there before New Year's Eve so that we could see 2010 in style.
 Of course any blog post that I write has to be filled with neurotic fear about travel and border crossings, and this one is no exception. We arrived at Bay Street Bus Terminal in Toronto with our tickets clutched in our hands like Willy Wonka's golden tickets. Okay, that's not entirely true. They were safely stowed in my wife's handbag so that I couldn't lose them. What is entirely true is that we arrived at the bus terminal early. We were early enough that we sat around for a while to kill time. We didn't realise that the queue for our bus was already forming. By the time we did, and by the time we marched to join the back of it, the line of people had snaked around the building and was almost onto the street. There was no way that we would fit on to one bus. Apparently a lot of people had been attracted to taking the bus to New York instead of the plane because airport security personnel at the time, were treating all passengers as though they might be hiding explosive material under their balls. If Osama Bin Laden is still alive, it should be possible to hear him laughing in his cave. Perhaps that is the current tactic being deployed at the Afghanistan-Pakistan border.
We waited in the queue as other people filed past us like shackled and disbelieving prisoners of war, on their way to join the back of the line. Every five feet or so they would ask “New York bus? New York bus?” as if almost willing the line of people to be going somewhere, anywhere different to them. Eventually the bus pulled away, to the horror of the hundred or so people who weren't on it. The horror was short-lived because another bus pulled into it's place. This second bus was not one of the fancy “premium” ones. No. The premium ones had more leg room and free wifi. The second bus had a cubicle inside it where you could find a seat with a hole in the middle that you could shit into. I hoped we could get onto it because I feared that the third bus (if there was one) would be the human-equivalent of a hamster wheel.
Distraught as we were about not getting wifi and more leg-room, at least we eventually got onto a bus. We began our journey to New York City about 45 minutes later than scheduled. We became more delayed when the bus was pulled over by the police, for reasons not explained, near Niagara. Of course shortly after Niagara comes.... the border!
As I have stated multiple times, I really dislike border crossing. Crossing in the UK and Canada is usually alright. I've got a British passport and a Canadian Permanent Residence card that has seen more action than the average Tesco Clubcard. The only time I've had trouble entering Canada is when I forgot to declare that I had a litre of wine and then I told the border agent that it was in my case. I got shouted at. Crossing into the USA is a slightly different story where I'm usually faced with sarcasm, belittlement, downright rudeness and, invariably, to enter The Land of the Free, it costs me $6. The $6 is for the enjoyment of giving my fingerprints and having my photograph taken. Say cheese.
It took two full hours to get through Homeland Security, including the two buses that were there before us. I had to write down the address we would be staying at in New York for my visa-waiver form. I wasn't sure what the name of the hotel was, let alone exactly where in New York it was. Once arrived, we would call my mother-in-law for directions. When neither my wife nor I could remember, the lovely homeland security official told me “We need at least a street, New York's a big place”. In typical esprit d'escalier I wish I had told her that I knew it was a big place because my country had named it for them when we conquered it. Probably best that I didn't.
 We left the border crossing and tried to sleep during the rest of the journey. It was incredibly uncomfortable and cramped. The bus was further delayed when the stops at Buffalo and Syracuse were longer than scheduled due to drivers pissing around. Just as I was beginning to think I would rather have my balls checked at an airport, I woke to see a pretty sun rising over the hills somewhere south of Albany. I remained awake for the rest of the journey as we arrived through the stop-start sea of yellow taxi-cab traffic of New York City.
Most of our time in New York was spent exploring around mid-town and we must have walked over 20 miles on our first day, mostly traversing various parts of Central Park looking out for anything we might recognise from Home Alone 2. The American History Museum and The Guggenheim Museum both had ludicrous queues, so we just walked. And walked. And walked. And went back to the hotel and slept.
Much discussion was held prior to arriving in New York regarding what we would do on New Year's Eve. There are a lot of people insane enough to arrive in the afternoon, find their spot, and spend the next 8-10 hours aggressively guarding it. I'm not one of those people, especially when you consider that there are no toilets. The first of the psychopaths started arriving around lunchtime, covered in home-made plastic rain coats fashioned from transparent bin liners that served to protect them from the sleet and soaked pavement.
Rather than spend the evening surrounded by 1 million people urinating into their adult nappies, my mother-in-law, wife and I walked around the fashion district and took our time looking into shop windows – something more difficult during the daytime because of the mass of people. The police had closed off access to Times Square from two blocks away in all directions. It got a bit frustrating trying to get near enough to see fireworks, or hear cheering. On one particular corner, the police were annoyingly telling people to keep moving because people were blocking the street. Perhaps we were, but by no means as effectively as they were.
Despite Time s Square being oversubscribed, we still had a good time. At about 11.40pm, we were stood at the corner. I tried to remain inconspicuous, all the better to hide my nationality from the residents of New York. While the police were yelling at everyone, my mother-in-law kindly pointed out to some 'youths' that I was British. I mimed to walk away in embarrassment, but it was too late. They asked me to “say something British”. One of the girls asked me if I like New York City. I told her that I do.. except the police. That got a laugh, especially the guys. One of them, while he wasn't telling everyone how drunk he was, then repeatedly yelled “Yeah! Fuck the cops, man!”.
The police began yelling directly at us at around 11.45pm, so we ducked into a bank for a few minutes and joined other New Year's revellers seeking asylum from New York's finest. About 2 minutes before midnight, we snuck back out to our corner. There was no way of telling the exact time. People were looking at phones and watches. We saw fireworks fire upwards in the distance, which we knew would go off seconds before midnight. Midnight seemed to pass by without anyone being brave enough to be the first to shout “woo!”. Maybe at 10 seconds past midnight, a few muted celebratory “whoops” went out, and then everyone went home. Everyone flooded into the streets, people cheered, cars hooted (although cars blowing their horns is the usual soundtrack to NYC) and police car sirens filled the air (see previous brackets). The atmosphere was good, people were singing and dancing and I think that if I would have spent the entire evening fighting for a spot in Times Square, I would have gone home as a miserable masochist.
The rest of our time in New York was spent visiting various flagship stores (M&M's store, Hershey's store, clothing stores and, of course, Macy's), The American Natural History Museum and its amusing “Pay what you can” entry fee and Ground Zero (a very cold building site – still).
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Monday, 22 February 2010 11:22 | 
Author: Stu Hall | 
I do appreciate that nearly everyone needs to get their hair cut at various times in their lives, but I swear that there are more people trying to make a living out of hair removal than there are both charity shops on a typical British highstreet and unfathomable, underground, snow avoiding secret passageways in Downtown Toronto combined. As if to illustrate my point, just off the high street, there are two of the fuckers right next door to one another (and a barbers around the corner... and then there's a hairdressers on the opposite side of the high street). One of the two neighbours call themselves a "beauty salon", which essentially just means that once they've cut your hair for you, they'll trim your nails, too. And charge more. Probably.