2012 London Olympics Panini Stickers

 The second Olympic collection is stickers from Panini. Not exclusively UK athletes, but I still cannot bring myself to collect the whole set.
From the official Panini site.

"Panini are proud to announce the launch of their official Sticker Collection for the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games! Packed full of fun facts, stats and imagery, it’s the perfect souvenir guide to the UK’s biggest sporting event this century. Get stuck into this awesome collection and discover info on all the highest profile Team GB and International athletes. The Official London 2012 Sticker Collection will serve as your ultimate guide to the tournament with all of the key dates for each event, venue information, Did You Know flashes and Fun Fact flashes.

There are 444 stickers to collect with 24 kiss-cut stickers and 24 rainbow foil stickers to look out for. So what are you waiting for? Start collecting now"

Not for me thanks. A quick glimpse of some of the stickers available.

At this present time, the most famous athlete on the planet. Completely mobbed at the opening ceremony by other athletes.

Also featured are some of the Paralympic events. Have you ever tried this? We did blind football, with a preference for the sport being called five-a-side football at school with the children. We also played blind cricket. The ball contains a number of small bells or ball bearings and its is bloody difficult to kick or hit. The children loved playing the game though and it really made them trust each other. I was always tempted to have a quick peek.

This set contains a number of international sports stars. I have been watching the Tour de France recently and both the men's and women's road races. Amazing how interesting it can be.

These are the two very strange and slightly scary mascots from the 2012 Olympics called Wenlock and Mandeville.  

2012 London Olympics

A few cards in honour of the 2012 Olympics, which has just started. We are watching the Olympians arriving in the stadium. There is great speculation about who will light the Olympic flame. The favourite is Sir Steve Redgrave, but other possible contenders are David Beckham, Muhammad Ali, Roger Bannister , even HRH The Queen has had a mention.
There are two sets celebrating the 2012 Olympics available here. This first set is of cards from the Adrenlyn XL series.
There are 350 cards to collect. 250 in the base set. All the cards featured are of UK athletes, I didn't know there was that many.

 Sir Chris, the cyclist, is actually Scottish but represents the Great Britain team. He won three gold medals at the Beijing games. The first Briton to do so for 100 years. He has been chosen as the flag bearer for the 2012 Olympics.

 One of the 'shiny' cards available.The Bronze medal. Apparently only located in 1in 50 packs.

All the sports are covered in this set, even the more obscure ones. I don't think I will be staying up to watch the dressage.Out of the four packets I bought I recognised about 10 names.
Panini also produced a set of stickers, which I will show later.
Enjoy the games.

Phillies in London

No this hasn't become a blog about my holiday snaps. This is a baseball related post!

The Christmas holidays have started~hooray. As a teacher, I enjoy the break. Every year we try to do something with our children for the start of the holidays. On Friday my family (extended-my wife outlaws came too) went up to London for two days. We use to live in London about 4 years ago and moved closer to the coast and a beach.



We did most of the tourist things, Trafalgar Square, Buck Palace, Piccadilly Circus, Big Ben, etc. We were lucky as we walked up The Mall to see the changing of the horse guards , which my girls loved. By the time we had reached Buckingham Palace they were fed up and didn't want to see anymore guards! All they really wanted to do was go to Hamleys, a overpriced, over crowded toy shop that isn't a patch on Toys'R'Us but they love it!

All my boys wanted to do was go to the playground that has a really impressive wooden pirate ship that is as big as a real ship only better. It is great fun and I think there are more dads on it than actual children. It is a further walk through St James Park and the complete opposite end of Hyde Park, so that wasn't going to happen! We went to Hamley's and came back to the hotel.

While we were waiting for the lift a man wearing a Phillies cap and World Series Champions 2008 T-shirt got out of the lift. I asked the obvious question 'Are you a Phillies fan?'
'Well yes I come from Philly.'
'You must be pleased winning the World Series, the last time was 1980.'
'Do you know baseball?' he inquired.
'I'm a big fan of baseball.'
My wife and four children stood in the lift waiting. I asked if I could just chat for a little longer realising that I would be leaving her with four hungry, tired and grumpy children. She saw that this was too big an opportunity for me to pass up, she answered positively.

Don and I chatted for a while about various things baseball ~ Phillies specific Chase Utley, Mike Schmidt, Pete Rose and the recent World Series, the upcoming World Classic, Red Sox, Manny Ramirez. I told him about collecting baseball cards, but he suggested that only children did that! I told him about blogging and mentioned a couple of names, who knows when he is back in Philly he may just look a few up.
He had to go and meet a colleague for dinner and hoped that I might meet him tomorrow. I didn't. Which was disappointing because it was enjoyable listening to an American accent, talking baseball face to face and being able to hold my own in the conversation.

Thanks Don, the Phillies fan.