alison

Thanks, Bruce - sounds as though I didn't miss that much ...

Sounds excellent - and a bargain at the price

Unfortunately, annaliesey, the fact that what you say is 100% true may not be enough to protect you Well, I hope then that they saw tonight's semifinal between GB and NZ, with two facial injuries Sorry, going rather off-topic there.

Hmm, Cojocaru and Vogel in Marguerite and Armand?

And congratulations to the ladies' GB hockey team on reaching the gold medal match. After whoever it was - Kate Richardson? - who played with a broken jaw or something in 2012, it was shocking to see more injuries this time around. You need to be really tough to be a hockey player, obviously.

Not only those countries, Melody: Australia too, I think, and a couple of others which don't occur to me at the moment. Several have underperformed, in my opinion. And GB shouldn't get too cocky: on the radio this afternoon, someone quoted some stats which indicate that countries usually do well at the first "away" Games after a home games, so we should expect a slump in 2020. As for the - for want of a better word - jingoism in coverage, I'm afraid that has been there for a long time. Just like when Wimbledon started focusing on Tim Henman, and now on Andy Murray, as soon as Brits start doing well the focus shifts from a broader view to narrowing in on British success. I don't so much mind that, but sometimes the coverage goes beyond what I'd regard as fair - and there are indeed performances by non-Brits which get overlooked. I guess the coverage is a victim of GB's success: while there are Brits still in contention, they attract the attention. Incidentally, I looked up the rules for Beach Volleyball earlier on, following my previous posting: as far as I can see, the uniform rules appear to have been relaxed, and there no longer appears to be a "minimum side-seam" rule for the bikini bottoms, something which I'm far happier about.

I'm not sure that's under Admin control. Probably best to ask in the "About the forum" part of the forum. I think the subject has been brought up before.

In this internet age, I've become increasingly aware of how important marketing - and in particular your website - has become. Doesn't necessarily matter how good the quality of the product is, or how you produce it, just talk it up and talk it up - and if your website is really swish and smart-looking that will help too. We should always be careful of taking marketing at face value, and that includes claims on websites. As others have noted, it can be easy to use a bit of "linguistic misdirection" to give an impression which isn't actually accurate.

Unfortunately, the crowd's disgusting behaviour at the medal ceremony just now to my mind has tarnished the whole thing: what is the point of booing the runner-up when he's given his medal, especially when your guy beat him fair and square anyway? Do they do that at football matches too?

BTW, UK readers: we may be complaining about the BBC chopping and changing like mad, but make the most of it: I gather that as of 2020 the main coverage is going to transfer to Eurosport, and the BBC will only get very reduced coverage. So much for sport's "Crown Jewels" remaining on free-to-air TV

Which I missed: I nodded off while waiting for the News

Well, congrats to Jason Kenny (and also to Laura Trott) on the 6th gold medal of his career, but I don't see why it was necessary to displace the 10 O'Clock News by what has turned out to be an hour and a quarter as it happens, when everything else has just been shoved onto BBC2 for the duration.

Funny, isn't it, how it's perfectly okay for the men to play beach volleyball in baggy vest T-shirts and even baggier shorts, yet the women are still required to play in skimpy bikinis with a specified (distinctly small) maximum side-seam size for the bottoms (unless, of course, their religion precludes this) .

Quite astonishing, really, isn't it? Congratulations to all of them. Do I take it that's all the gymnastics over now? What happened to Claudia Fragapane?

MuddledMama, welcome to the forum. I'm so sorry at what your daughter's been put through You ask "Is that what will get them a job in the industry?" In my own profession, there is great resistance to it being thought of as an "industry", with the implications of production lines, "sausage machines" churning out identikit product, uniformity and consistency at the expense of individuality, creativity and self-expression, labour-saving (i.e cost- [and hence pay-] cutting) technology and so on. It does rather sound as though the sort of "training" described above is of the "industrial" sort, but I just don't see that it's going to really avail the students in the long run - surely they need to be developing as artists and individuals, and loving their dancing, because otherwise is there any point?

I didn't realise that: that surely must indeed have limited him. And how do you get wrongly given 4 faults? Either you knock a pole down, or you don't - oder ...?

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I must say, though, last night's men's pole vault final was absolutely marvellous - and I loved the bar-height camera they had which really showed their technique vaulting over the bar so beautifully.

Well, they keep telling us how high her difficulty ratings are For me too You really can't expect everyone to repeat what they did 4 years ago. But what's this about Greg's "foul"? Did they later decide that the one they'd marked as a foul wasn't? I seem to have missed that. Quite. I stayed up until it was finished. I was recording it for DVD just in case it turned out to be a really good match, and since they'd already moved it over from BBC4 to BBC1 with very little warning (and my hard-drive recorder had stopped recording) I didn't dare leave it unattended in case they moved it again. After all, we know that tennis isn't really high priority at the Olympics, don't we? It's just the same problem as with Wimbledon, where they switch channels at the drop of a hat. Even recording both BBC1 and BBC2 on the hard drive, I got caught out a few times when matches were switched to the Red Button. I mean, which RB channel do you pick? I'm not overly keen on the "power gymnastics", either, any more than I am about the very technical, but not nearly as artistic, direction in which women's ice skating has gone. I did like Aly Raisman's floor routine better than Simone Biles', although I can appreciate that hers was harder. Both were very good.

They're pivots, plain and simple, unless they go on for more than 360 degrees. I see yesterday's Evening Standard is reporting that Olympic sailor Dylan Fletcher is the son of former RB Principal Graham Fletcher and his wife Jane (maiden name unspecified), who used to be with LFB/ENB.

It's been a matter of concern to me for years as to how many dance teachers there are out there who aren't doing their CPD and keeping up with the latest thinking on what constitutes safe training and what doesn't. After all, there are probably loads of teachers out there who still encourage their students to do grand plie in 4th, or to bounce when stretching ... Practices change so frequently, and not everyone keeps up with them.

Oh dear, I hope that's not your newish local Aldi, MAB I remember being refused a bag of apples at my ex-local Co-Op because it was actually past its sell-by date: the fruit was fine Not to mention a perfectly good bouquet of flowers, but that's another story ...

I only came home partway through the gymnastics, so missed Wevers. How lovely it must be to have a "disaster" on the beam and still manage to grab a bronze medal , but what was even better was to see how delighted and supportive of Fernandez's performance Simone Biles was, even after her own shock at a rare failure. But, Max Whitlock - why don't we have a :not worthy: / :worship: icon on here?!

Lumps can come and go (she says from experience), but make sure he keeps an eye on things, just to be sure. From what you've said, I'm sure he will.