Beijing Is Ready for the Olympics

By Ullrich Fichtner in Beijing

Ten months before the official kickoff of the Summer Olympics, China has already prepared the stage for the world's top sporting event. Twenty new sports facilities have been built and 11 others renovated. The message from Beijing is clear: Nothing about the 2008 Olympics has been left to chance...

...Many of the new Olympic buildings are reminiscent of space ships, of flying saucers, of UFOs and of science fiction generally. The centers outside of the Olympic Green, often hidden away on rambling university campuses, are clad with various light alloys or are finished as though they were sealed, often windowless, smooth and closed. The buildings, which are often round and often have no angles, are to the new Chinese National Theater in the center of Beijing (the controversial "Egg" designed by French architect Paul Andreu) like satellites to a mother ship. They offer little resistance and they show little face.

This also applies to the two gymnasiums in the Tongzhou district, southeast of the center, on the Peking University of Technology campus. These buildings are reminiscent of melting golf balls, in which badminton and rhythmic gymnastics will be the order of the day. A UFO has also landed northwest of the center, on the Beihang University campus, where a cheerful aluminum building has been provided for the weightlifters.

But the good news, and that's what it's all about, is that Beijing is ready. The games could essentially start the day after tomorrow, because the sports halls and the stadiums are built and the stage is set....

Complete article and photos:

http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,517577,00.html

Interesting information about design of the swimming centre with more superb photos:

http://www.arcspace.com/architects/ptw/

George stands to win a million, but don't bet on it

http://www.ilfordrecorder.co.uk/quirky/default.aspx?brand=NorthLondon24&category=quirky&tBrand=northlondon24&tCategory=quirky&itemid=WeED01%20May%202008%2016%3A02%3A13%3A880

01 May 2008

YOU may think there's more chance of aliens from Mars than Britain winning gold at the Olympics, but there's only one man around here loopy enough to bet on it.

Step forward Rainbow George Weiss, who is up to his usual numerical nonsense, betting £333 on a UFO appearing during the opening ceremony of the Beijing Olympics on August 8, or 8/8/8.

Staff at the William Hill bookmaker on Hampstead High Street humoured the self-acknowledged 'village idiot' by asking if he expected the UFO to land or not.

George stands to gain £999,000 if a spaceship miraculously appears but its presence must be verified by the International Olympic Committee.

This isn't the first time the old codger has been caught with his head in the clouds. He made a similar bet about several UFOs appearing above the Live Earth festival on 7/7/7 but says this bet is 'much simpler'.

He said: "If I win, I'd use the money to help establish the bank of a zillion wonders, like a cosmic gift to humanity. Money talks; it says goodbye."

Out of the Blocks

Beijing’s Olympic architecture is spectacular, but what message does it send?

by Paul Goldberger

June 2, 2008

To understand just how important the Beijing Olympics are to China, you have only to look at where the Olympic Green has been built. During Beijing’s first building boom—six hundred years before the current one—the city was laid out symmetrically on either side of a north-south axis. As in Paris—where the Louvre lines up with the Tuileries, the Arc de Triomphe, and the Champs-Élysées—Beijing’s most symbolically important structures have fallen along the main axis. In the center is the former imperial residence of the Forbidden City. North of this is the Jingshan, a park surrounding an artificial hill where the last Ming emperor is said to have hanged himself, and, beyond that, the Drum Tower and the Bell Tower, which for centuries helped Beijing’s inhabitants tell the time. In 1958, when the Communists expanded Tiananmen Square, at the southern gate of the Forbidden City, they placed the Monument to the People’s Heroes on the same axis, in the center of the square. Mao Zedong’s mausoleum, also in the square, is on the axis, too. And now, spread over twenty-eight hundred acres at the opposite end of the axis, is Beijing’s Olympic Green. If Tiananmen Square is a monument to the Maoist policy of self-sufficiency, the Olympic Green, ten miles and fifty years away, is an architectural statement of intent every bit as clear—a testament to the global ambitions of the world’s fastest-growing major economy.......

Three page article here:

http://www.newyorker.com/arts/critics/skyline/2008/06/02/080602crsk_skyline_goldberger

28 June 2008

Punters Bet That First Contact Is Imminent

http://www.casinobeacon.co.uk/news-articles/news/2008-06/contact-280608.htm

Following a further rash of UFO sightings, bookies William Hill have slashed their price about proof of the current existence of intelligent extra terrestrial life being confirmed by the serving Prime Minister from 500/1 to 100/1.

"There has been a huge increase in the number of UFO sighting and a number of our punters are taking them as a sign that 'First Contact' is imminent." said William Hill's spokesman Rupert Adams.

William Hill have also opened the betting on where the first landing will be and make No.10 Downing Street and the Millennium Stadium their 5/1 joint favourites with the Angel of the North offered at 10/1, Arthur's Seat 20/1 and the Giants Causeway the 22/1 outsider.

£1 Million Bet On Beijing Aliens

"We recently took a bet from George Weiss that UFO's would appear at either the opening or closing ceremony of the Beijing Olympics, which if proved correct will cost us a £1 million pounds. We can only hope that the UFO's spotted in Wales are not doing their dress rehearsal." said William Hill's spokesman.