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Sign out MobileThis is it – tonight Danny Boyle's £27m opening ceremony officially launches the London 2012 Olympic Games. Live coverage here throughout the day
• Blind archer smashes London Olympics' first world record
• Contact me: paul.owen@guardian.co.uk or @paultowen
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12:37 BSTThe Gloriana is moving off back down the Thames now.
12:35 BSTSouth Korea took the top three seedings this morning in the archery ranking rounds. Great Britain's Larry Godfrey, who recorded a personal best of 680, was seeded fifth.
12:33 BSTNick Clegg has given 14 people - a "small but very impressive group" including community activists and military personnel - tickets for tonight's Olympic opening ceremony, Hilary Aked reports.
Shabaz Ferozdin, a 35-year-old youth manager from Reading, who met the deputy prime minister at a youth centre in Peckham, south London, is one of the small group being offered what Clegg called a "once in a lifetime opportunity to enjoy the greatest show on earth".
Kate Allatt, 42, a charity campaigner and locked-in syndrome sufferer from Dore in Sheffield, David Johnston, 30, CEO of the Social Mobility Foundation, three men involved in military action in Libya with RAF Waddington, and Derek and Gill Towler, 65 and 61, who set up a community centre in Croydon to support displaced residents during last summer's riots, are also on the list.
Clegg said: "Every day I meet inspirational people who give their all to good causes and for the benefit of others. I rarely get a chance to show them how grateful I am, how grateful we all are, for their dedication and selflessness."
12:31 BSTAn Olympic ceremony drinking game is doing the rounds on Facebook – that's the Olympic spirit in a nutshell. You have to drink five fingers when "a country's uniform is so bad they look embarrassed", and five when "an innuendo about the bell is made". An innuendo about the bell? Not on the BBC, I hope.
12:29 BSTGreat David Brent moment just now on BBC News.
Andy Hunt, Team GB's chef de mission, was told the athletes would take over tomorrow after today's day of pageantry and fun. He replied:
12:24 BSTThe rubber, excuse the pun, the rubber hits the road tomorrow ... you know, with the road cycling race ...
Here's the barge that brought the Olympic flame down the Thames to City Hall today. You can see the torch-bearer with the flame standing in front of the Olympic rings.
12:21 BST The Olympic flame is now being transferred from the cauldron on the boat to one of the torches, and has now been carried on to the pontoon displaying the Olympic rings.
12:17 BSTCarl Lewis has given his view on Mitt Romney's controversial London Olympic comments. It's a great quote:
12:14 BSTI swear, sometimes I think some Americans shouldn't leave the country. Are you kidding me, stay home if you don't know what to say.
Usain Bolt was interviewed by Colin Jackson yesterday in a Google Hangout, writes Paul Campbell.
If the pressure of being the poster boy for London 2012 is playing on the sprinter's mind, he hides it well. Bolt chatted openly with Jackson and fans from across the world about developing a love of sport by watching cricket with his dad.
His sprinting talent was noticed by his cricket coach, who encouraged him to run by offering to buy Bolt's lunch.
Although he is now more of a football fan, Bolt would like to see Twenty20 introduced for future Olympics.
Bolt was keen to talk about his early career, especially winning the 2002 World Junior Championships in Jamaica, which he rates as his most memorable achievement: "That's one of the greatest moments for me. People say Beijing, but it's not. It was being at home and I've never been so nervous in my entire life. I won and that was a moment that defined my whole life. I cannot forget that moment. It was so much fun - so much awesome."
Turning to the present day, Bolt gives an insight to his rivalry with Yohan Blake, his training partner. After Blake won the 200m in the Olympic trials, Bolt warned him: "This is never going to happen again."
"I said that to him as I work so hard on my 200m and, when I watched the replay of that race, I was so disgusted I could not watch it again. My technique and years of practice went out the window in that race. It was really bad for me and really sad. But I got past that, I'm back on full form, I'm all right and ready to go."
See Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-qU3kwef-yo
12:10 BSTLast-minute rescheduling will see world silver medallists Imogen Bankier and Chris Adcock open Team GB's badminton campaign early tomorrow morning as they take on Russians Alexandr Nikolaenko and Valeri Sorokina at 9.40am, writes Hilary Aked.
Later on their British teammate Susan Egelstaff will start her medal bid playing Slovenia's Maja Tvrdy at 12.30pm at Wembley Arena while another GB hopeful, Rajiv Ouseph, will face Henri Hurskainen of Sweden in his opening game at 8.15pm on Sunday evening.
12:07 BSTGloriana is pulling alongside a special pontoon displaying the Olympic rings.
12:05 BSTThere's a large crowd outside City Hall as the torch approaches on the boat Gloriana.
12:05 BSTHere's a video of Jeremy Hunt almost hitting somebody with a bell.
12:04 BSTThe Olympic torch is reaching the end of its journey down the Thames. It's just passing HMS Belfast near Tower Bridge and City Hall.
12:01 BSTJeremy Hunt, the culture secretary, tried to ring a bell earlier on the banks of the Thames. Unfortunately the bell flew off the handle and into some passers-by.
11:59 BSTThe South Korean Sailing Federation has apologised on behalf of the coach Lee Jae-cheol after he was sent home from London 2012 for drink driving.
The Federation said Lee was pulled over by police after attending a banquet hosted by the mayor of Weymouth which is staging the sailing regatta:
11:54 BSTCoach Lee Jae-cheol attended a banquet and drank wine and beer on 25 July. It is true that Lee, who can't drink well, was caught drunk driving by the police when he was returning alone to the athletes' village at 5am for training after sleeping for some time to get sober at the federation's own place outside the village.
There is a police incident at the Sainsbury's on Townmead Road by Wandsworth Bridge, which the Olympic torch has just passed beneath. The Metropolitan police confirmed that officers were currently on the scene investigating but would not give further details at this point.
11:52 BSTMark Cavendish has described the British cycling squad as "the dream team", but said he feels no additional pressure despite potentially being the first home champion of London 2012 in tomorrow's road race.
Cavendish said:
An Olympic medal, regardless if it's the first or last on offer, it's an Olympic medal for your team. It's easy to get emotional about it. I've been nervous this week. We've trained to be able to deal with those nerves and we've got to put it to bed. We've got a process which we have to adhere to. It's a process we know if we commit 100% we've got the best chance of winning.
Cavendish is joined in the five-man squad by Tour de France winner Bradley Wiggins, Chris Froome, who was second in le Tour, David Millar and Ian Stannard. Cavendish said:
We were motoring along in training and I just looked round and it's the dream team. We've got first and second on GC [general classification] of the Tour de France, four guys who won stages of the Tour de France [Wiggins, Froome, Millar and himself] and a British champion [Stannard], all guys incredibly motivated, incredibly patriotic and incredibly loyal to each other. If we wanted to win this bike race we couldn't be in a better situation team-wise.
His post-Olympics plans illustrate the packed schedules of top cyclists: "I'm racing on Sunday in Belgium, Monday in Pau, Tuesday in Holland. It's my day job. That's what professional cycling is. It's entertainment."
11:35 BST British gymnast Louis Smith, who will compete in a qualification event tomorrow in the North Greenwich Arena, has said his team will play it safe at this early stage to ensure they finish in the top eight in order to qualify, reports Hilary Aked. The pommel horse specialist said:
11:33 BSTThe things that will be running through my head when I step up to compete are: 'I'm ready, I've got my nan looking over me, I've got the support of my friends and family in the crowd. I've been waiting 19 years for this,' so it is just going to be all positive thoughts running through my head.
Here's the Olympic torch on the start of its journey down the Thames today.
11:27 BSTBoris Johnson has apologised for his tube travel chaos warning adverts, according to the New York Times. The mayor told the foreign media:
I apologise to everybody who has been irritated by my Tannoy announcements. They are, I have to admit, very irritating but the reason for doing them is that they attract attention.
He also hit back at critics of the Olympic organisers for allowing McDonald's to be a sponsor.
This is all just bourgeois snobbery about McDonald's. It's classic liberal hysteria about very nutritious, delicious food — extremely good for you, I'm told — not that I eat a lot of it myself. Apparently this stuff is absolutely bursting with nutrients.
A shame Boris is missing out on all those nutrients, really.
11:17 BSTSorry, I forgot to add that Im Dong-hyun, who just broke that archery record, is legally blind. I know.
11:12 BSTYou can't watch today's archery in person or on TV, but apparently South Korea have claimed the first two world records of London 2012 in the men's ranking round.
Im Dong-hyun broke his own individual record for 72 arrows and joined Kim Bubmin and Oh Jin-hyek to set a new team mark for 216 arrows.
11:09 BSTMy colleague Hilary Aked sends a travel update. Things are looking pretty good.
Pudding Mill Lane station next to the Olympic park is closed but there are no major underground problems at present except minor delays on the Jubilee line.
On the roads, park and ride sites close to the M25 either side of the Dartford Crossing are said to be "a major pinch point" with clockwise traffic moving at 10mph and tailbacks of up to ten miles. Expect 30 minute delays in the other direction. TfL are advising of congestion on the following routes: A3, A40, A12, A13 and A2.
Taxi drivers will also be protesting today about being excluded from Olympic traffic lanes - which came into effect Wednesday but will be more heavily employed from today - at Hyde Park Corner. Previous demonstrations brought traffic to a standstill. The Blackwall tunnel northbound has just been reopened following a cement spillage.
On Twitter, Jon Morgan reports that rebellion is building against mayor of London Boris Johnson's cheery tube warnings:
10:57 BSTTube platform announcer just cut off Boris recording with a "Yeah, thanks Boris." Huge cheer all along the platform.
— Jon Morgan (@Morganised) July 27, 2012
I know I'm falling into their trap. But this unofficial Olympic advert for Specsavers is very good.
good work Specsavers twitter.com/chariscroft/st… (via @chariscroft)
— James Herring (@TaylorHerringPR) July 27, 2012
Updated at 11:47 BST
10:53 BSTHere's Charlotte Higgins's audio of Martin Creed's All the Bells this morning.
10:49 BSTDavid Cameron says he wants the Olympics to demonstrate both sides of Britain: beefeaters and Blur.
Here are the top 10 most appropriate Blur songs for the Olympics:
1. Advert
2. Best Days
3. Coffee and TV
4. Entertain Me
5. London Loves
6. Avoid the Traffic
7. On your Own
8. She's so High
9. The Great Escape
10. To the End
And here are the top 5 least appropriate:
1. Slow Down
2. This is a Low
3. No Distance Left to Run
4. Out of Time
5. It Could be You
Let's have a listen to London Loves.
See Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JsDY1Ha83M8
10:33 BSTWhile the UK and US collapse into fratricidal feuding, the country that will probably walk away with the biggest haul of gold medals this year has advised its athletes to behave in a "modest and unassuming" way in London. What instruction could more effectively bespeak China's top-dog status?
In 2008, the Beijing hosts won 51 golds to the US's 36, Russia's 23 and Britain's 19. The US won 110 medals in total, to China's 100.
Dai Binggou, China's top diplomat, said:
10:25 BSTWe are still a developing country and should keep a modest and prudent attitude even though China is becoming more and more globally influential. We are considered a big sporting country but we are still not a sporting giant. There are still gaps between China and global sports giants in many aspects. We must be modest and unassuming in learning from other countries and continue to raise our athletic abilities.
A number of people have emailed me to ask what time the opening ceremony is starting tonight. The answer is 9pm. BBC1's coverage begins at 7pm.
10:22 BSTLike Boris Johnson, Jeremy Hunt, the culture secretary, got in a dig at Mitt Romney over the US presidential contender's comments that there were "disconcerting" signs around the London Games and it was "hard to know just how well it will turn out".
But whereas Boris geed up a Hyde Park crowd with some broad-brush rabble-rousing, Hunt chose to creep to the president of the IOC a little bit, following that up with some slightly unstatesmanlike jingoism:
The person I care about more is Jacques Rogge, the president of the International Olympic Committee, who said London was the best prepared city he had ever seen. When we have the opening ceremony tonight and we tell the world that eight of the world's top 10 sports were either invented or codified in Britain - and only two in America - I hope Mr Romney is watching.
Hunt also said worries about queues at Heathrow were "the dog that didn't bark" – "Heathrow's gone incredibly smoothly."
Updated at 10:22 BST
10:13 BSTDan Clark and Mike Lenzly have been passed fit to play for Great Britain in the Olympics after recovering from injuries suffered last week.
Lenzly tore a calf muscle in last Thursday's friendly against the United States, while Clark suffered an ankle sprain playing against Tunisia at the weekend. Today was the deadline for Britain to make a change if one or both of the players were ruled out.
10:10 BSTPost your last-minute questions and answer each other's Olympic worries in our London 2012 Olympics helpline open thread.
10:09 BSTThe BBC is reporting anger and confusion outside Lord's, where the archery ranking rounds are going on – contests to decide athletes' placings for the initial rounds.
The event has been advertised as "unticketed"; what the London organising committee meant by that was that the event was closed to spectators.
But a lot of hopeful archery fans – and ticketing websites – thought it meant "free" and have turned up. They are not pleased.
Locog says it has not advertised tickets for today's archery events.
09:53 BSTHere's a very, very brief collection of snippets from rehearsals for the opening and closing ceremonies.
09:50 BSTMy colleague Charlotte Higgins has just been to the leafy streets of Kentish Town to ring in the Olympics – or, rather, participate in Martin Creed's Work No. 1197, All The Bells In A Country Rung As Quickly And Loudly As Possible For Three Minutes.
At five to eight, it looked like it was going to be just me, a Games Maker volunteer from Devon and Chinese state TV (the journalist was called Tingting Ai) but then a motley and quite respectably large crowd of children, grown-ups, folk on bikes, some blokes who looked like they were decorators and several dogs turned up, with sleigh bells, ships' bells, the local primary school bell, temple bells, bike bells, and, in the case of the local organiser, Sandy Nairne, director of the National Portrait Gallery, what he referred to as "the spare cat bell".
The result was deafening - my ears are still ringing - and extremely good-natured, aside from the woman staring furiously from an upper window who I suspect had received rather a rude awakening.
We'll have an audio recording of all that up soon.
09:30 BSTA top Olympic official has said lawyers worried about ambush marketing undermining Games sponsors will not instigate checks on players' underwear prior to games, the Press Association reports.
It would be impractical, said Denis Oswald, a senior member of the International Olympic Committee.
And people say the Olympic organisers are power-crazed control freaks with no sense of proportion. They're not – they're completely reasonable. They know as well as you do that it would be impractical to check every athlete's underwear, no matter how much they might want to.
09:24 BSTHere are some Olympic volunteers arriving at the stadium this morning.
09:22 BST Britain is ready to welcome "the greatest show on earth", David Cameron said this morning. The prime minister told reporters in Downing Street the country must show the world "the best of Britain" over the next two weeks.
It's very exciting ... I think it's a great opportunity to show the world the best of Britain, a country that's got an incredibly rich past but actually a very exciting and vibrant future. Somebody asked me yesterday what face of Britain I wanted to put forward, Blur or the beefeaters, and frankly it's both. We have got a great past, a very exciting future and this is a great moment for our country, so we must seize it.
09:11 BST Here's Boris Johnson using Mitt Romney's negative comments about the Games to rev up the crowd at Hyde Park yesterday.
It's not unthinkable that Boris could be PM and Mitt US president by the time of the next Olympics, so they might have to learn to get on a bit better. This is what Boris told the crowd:
There are some people who are coming from around the world who don't yet know about all the preparations we've done to get London ready in the last seven years. I hear there's a guy called Mitt Romney who wants to know whether we're ready. He wants to know whether we're ready. Are we ready? Are we ready? Yes, we are!
The venues are ready, the stadium is ready, the aquatics centre is ready, the velodrome is ready, the security is ready, the police are ready, the transport system is ready [don't push it, Boris]. And our Team GB athletes are ready, aren't they! Team GB is ready! They're going to win more gold, silver, and bronze medals than you'd need to bail out Greece and Spain together!
Always good to counter one diplomatic row by casually kicking off another ...
08:53 BSTJohn Major was just interviewed on BBC Radio 4's Today programme. He said that if people see Usain Bolt run an astonishing time in the 100m at this Olympics, that will be something they put in their "memory box" forever.
08:49 BSTHere's a quick London weather forecast for today, courtesy of the Met Office. It's a greyer, cooler morning than we've been enjoying over the last few days. It is due to start raining at around 10am, until about 4pm, after which we'll see a slightly cloudy afternoon and a high of 23 – leaving the skies above the opening ceremony free of rain this evening. Fingers crossed.
Tomorrow will be sunny with a high of 21, Sunday will be rainy with a high of 18, Monday will be cloudy with a high of 19, and Tuesday will be rainy with a high of 19.
08:43 BSTI just spoke to the BBC about where you can watch today's archery ranking rounds. Bad news. You can't watch it anywhere. The Olympic Broadcasting Services aren't screening it, the BBC said. Roger Mosey, the BBC's director of London 2012, said earlier this week: "The most exciting thing for us this time is that you will have every single venue live from first thing in the morning to last thing at night." The BBC press office told me today's archery would be the only exception to this.
08:35 BST The US Olympic swim team were the only people in the world not to have produced a lip-sync version of Carly Rae Jepson's Call Me Maybe. Until now.
Updated at 08:53 BST
08:31 BSTEveryone involved with the opening ceremony has maintained throughout that they are not attempting to compete with Beijing's in 2008, a stunning display of synchronisation complete with a fake child singer and CGI-enhanced fireworks. The moment where the final torch-bearer flies into the sky and runs around the top of the stadium is still jaw-dropping. And look out for 14-year-old Tom Daley with the British delegation, introduced by the American commentator as "a young diver".
Probably the most upsetting opening ceremony in recent memory was Seoul 1988, when many of the doves of peace released before the lighting of the Olympic flame were instantly incinerated when it was lit.
08:18 BSTJohnson has seen the rushes of the opening ceremony. It was a brilliant. People are going to cry hot tears when they see it, he says.
Asked about Mitt Romney's negative comments yesterday, Johnson says the US presidential candidate has now been fulsome (sic) in his praise of the Olympics. It's good to have his support, the mayor says.
08:16 BSTThis is our chance to show the world what we're about and throw a real party, Boris says. He wants to see a great economic benefit from the Games.
"If you talk to these tycoons," Boris says, they don't need any persuading that the UK is a great city to invest in.
08:15 BSTBoris Johnson, the mayor of London, is being interviewed on Radio 4's Today programme.
Anthropologists are going to look back and ask why people were so enthusiastic about the torch relay. "Hard-bitten members of my family" loved it, Johnson says.
08:14 BSTMartin Creed's All the Bells is now taking place across the country. Starting with Big Ben, people are ringing bells around the country.
08:05 BSTThe Guardian is full to the brim with Olympic stories this morning. Here are some of the highlights:
• These Olympic weeks will offer answers to a clutch of questions that have nagged at us since the last time London hosted the Games in 1948, writes Jonathan Freedland. What exactly is our place in the world? How do we compare to other countries and to the country we used to be? What kind of nation are we anyway?
• Usain Bolt has admitted for the first time that he has been suffered from a slight injury, but claims he is now fully recovered and ready to "become a legend", Owen Gibson reports. Bolt was greeted with whoops and yelps from his fellow athletes, who seemed to recognise him as first among equals, when he turned up for a leisurely lunch at the athletes' village yesterday, writes Robert Booth.
• The Games may actually be David Cameron's economic strategy, muses Marina Hyde.
• Kings, queens and presidents will get the chance to experience a bit of British queuing tonight, reports Julian Borger, as they line up outside Buckingham Palace to travel from the Queen's reception to the Olympic Stadium. "It will be first come, first served, and if you do not recognise – or are officially at war with – the country whose potentate you end up alongside, that will be too bad."
• No 10 was stunned by what my American colleagues are calling the "Romneyshambles" yesterday, when the US presidential candidate Mitt Romney, visiting London, made some negative and cautious comments about how the Games might turn out. Boris Johnson responded at last night's Olympic concert at Hyde Park: "I hear there's a guy called Mitt Romney who wants to know whether we're ready," the mayor yelled from the stage to a cheering crowd. "He wants to know whether we're ready. Are we ready? Are we ready? Yes, we are."
• Barney Ronay marvels at the creation of the Team GB men's football team.
British amateur teams competed regularly at the Olympics until the Munich Games, but these are the first real, actual professional players to appear under the union flag. They will also probably be the last, so great are the assorted tensions in the wings of Team GB, chiefly the fear of loss of influence within football's governing body Fifa. Which is a shame as in the hours before kick-off Manchester seemed surprisingly hospitable to this footballing flag of convenience, the streets of the Piccadilly area thronging with newbie fans and the procession towards Old Trafford producing an eclectic pageant of mingled union flag-ishness, reminiscent of a high-Britpop music video or an extended Benny Hill credits sequence.
• And here is Andy Hunter's match GB v Senegal report. Brazil v Egypt is here. Spain v Japan is here.
• Steve Rose profiles Danny Boyle, the director of tonight's opening ceremony.
• Kevin Mitchell looks at Andy Murray's possible route to the Olympic tennis final (if that isn't jinxing things too much), where he might face his Wimbledon nemesis Roger Federer.
• Anna Meares cuts a contrasting figure to her great rival Victoria Pendleton but acknowledges their battles have been good for cycling, writes William Fotheringham.
• "Confidence feels like it's a weapon. You're in control," British middle-distance runner Mo Farah tells Anna Kessel.
• Charismatic American swimmer Ryan Lochte may win the popularity contest at London 2012, but will he be crowned greatest all-round swimmer, asks Andy Bull.
• The 2014 Winter Olympics torch relay will include a trip into space, the Russians say. That's cool.
• And here's Steve Bell's take on the Games. I didn't think Wenlock and Mandeville could look any more terrifying than they already do. But I was wrong.
07:14 BSTThis is it.
Tonight at 9pm Danny Boyle's eagerly-awaited £27m Olympic opening ceremony will officially kick off the 2012 London Games at the Olympic Stadium in Stratford.
Seven years of preparation end tonight – and tomorrow the Olympic Games begin.
Almost unbelievably in this era of Twitter and Facebook, the tens of thousands of people who watched rehearsals for the opening ceremony this week have largely kept the details secret, although some aspects of the show have been announced already – including the choice of Sir Paul McCartney to bring the curtain down – and photos have shown the stadium transformed into a giant mock-up of the English countryside, complete with live farm animals, cricket players and actors in Victorian dress, with the curve of the Thames sweeping through the arena. Daniel Craig's James Bond is also said to feature.
Short video footage of rehearsals for the opening ceremony was shown on the BBC yesterday. Scenes showing what appeared to be people with illuminated wings riding bicycles were broadcast under an agreement that allowed a 30-second clip to be shown by rights holders including the BBC 24 hours before the ceremony started.
Today's events started off at around 6.55am when the Olympic torch began to make its stately way down the Thames on Gloriana, the Queen's rowbarge that featured in her jubilee flotilla, from Hampton Court Palace in south-west London to City Hall beside Tower Bridge, where it is due to arrive at around 12.55pm. The torch will then set off from City Hall to Stratford at 9pm and is due to appear at the Olympic Stadium at 11pm. It is still not known who will light the flame in the stadium, signalling the start of the Games, although bookmaker William Hill suspended betting yesterday on Roger Bannister, the first man to run a four-minute mile, after a run of big bets. Guardian readers have made their suggestions here.
And at 8.12am, open a window and see if you can hear Martin Creed's national artwork All the Bells, which involves as many people as possible around the country ringing bells as loud as they can at the same time.
The Olympic football tournament has already begun – with Great Britain's women starting in style with a 1-0 victory and the men's team drawing 1-1 in a bruising game against Senegal last night – and the archery gets going today, with men's and women's individual ranking rounds at Lord's at 9am and the team ranking rounds at 1pm.
We'll have live coverage of all today's Olympic events here throughout the day, and tonight my colleague Xan Brooks will be on hand to guide you through the opening ceremony. And after tonight it's all over to the athletes ...
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Sign out MobileThis is it – tonight Danny Boyle's £27m opening ceremony officially launches the London 2012 Olympic Games. Live coverage here throughout the day
• Blind archer smashes London Olympics' first world record
• Contact me: paul.owen@guardian.co.uk or @paultowen
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12:37 BSTThe Gloriana is moving off back down the Thames now.
12:35 BSTSouth Korea took the top three seedings this morning in the archery ranking rounds. Great Britain's Larry Godfrey, who recorded a personal best of 680, was seeded fifth.
12:33 BSTNick Clegg has given 14 people - a "small but very impressive group" including community activists and military personnel - tickets for tonight's Olympic opening ceremony, Hilary Aked reports.
Shabaz Ferozdin, a 35-year-old youth manager from Reading, who met the deputy prime minister at a youth centre in Peckham, south London, is one of the small group being offered what Clegg called a "once in a lifetime opportunity to enjoy the greatest show on earth".
Kate Allatt, 42, a charity campaigner and locked-in syndrome sufferer from Dore in Sheffield, David Johnston, 30, CEO of the Social Mobility Foundation, three men involved in military action in Libya with RAF Waddington, and Derek and Gill Towler, 65 and 61, who set up a community centre in Croydon to support displaced residents during last summer's riots, are also on the list.
Clegg said: "Every day I meet inspirational people who give their all to good causes and for the benefit of others. I rarely get a chance to show them how grateful I am, how grateful we all are, for their dedication and selflessness."
12:31 BSTAn Olympic ceremony drinking game is doing the rounds on Facebook – that's the Olympic spirit in a nutshell. You have to drink five fingers when "a country's uniform is so bad they look embarrassed", and five when "an innuendo about the bell is made". An innuendo about the bell? Not on the BBC, I hope.
12:29 BSTGreat David Brent moment just now on BBC News.
Andy Hunt, Team GB's chef de mission, was told the athletes would take over tomorrow after today's day of pageantry and fun. He replied:
12:24 BSTThe rubber, excuse the pun, the rubber hits the road tomorrow ... you know, with the road cycling race ...
Here's the barge that brought the Olympic flame down the Thames to City Hall today. You can see the torch-bearer with the flame standing in front of the Olympic rings.
12:21 BST The Olympic flame is now being transferred from the cauldron on the boat to one of the torches, and has now been carried on to the pontoon displaying the Olympic rings.
12:17 BSTCarl Lewis has given his view on Mitt Romney's controversial London Olympic comments. It's a great quote:
12:14 BSTI swear, sometimes I think some Americans shouldn't leave the country. Are you kidding me, stay home if you don't know what to say.
Usain Bolt was interviewed by Colin Jackson yesterday in a Google Hangout, writes Paul Campbell.
If the pressure of being the poster boy for London 2012 is playing on the sprinter's mind, he hides it well. Bolt chatted openly with Jackson and fans from across the world about developing a love of sport by watching cricket with his dad.
His sprinting talent was noticed by his cricket coach, who encouraged him to run by offering to buy Bolt's lunch.
Although he is now more of a football fan, Bolt would like to see Twenty20 introduced for future Olympics.
Bolt was keen to talk about his early career, especially winning the 2002 World Junior Championships in Jamaica, which he rates as his most memorable achievement: "That's one of the greatest moments for me. People say Beijing, but it's not. It was being at home and I've never been so nervous in my entire life. I won and that was a moment that defined my whole life. I cannot forget that moment. It was so much fun - so much awesome."
Turning to the present day, Bolt gives an insight to his rivalry with Yohan Blake, his training partner. After Blake won the 200m in the Olympic trials, Bolt warned him: "This is never going to happen again."
"I said that to him as I work so hard on my 200m and, when I watched the replay of that race, I was so disgusted I could not watch it again. My technique and years of practice went out the window in that race. It was really bad for me and really sad. But I got past that, I'm back on full form, I'm all right and ready to go."
See Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-qU3kwef-yo
12:10 BSTLast-minute rescheduling will see world silver medallists Imogen Bankier and Chris Adcock open Team GB's badminton campaign early tomorrow morning as they take on Russians Alexandr Nikolaenko and Valeri Sorokina at 9.40am, writes Hilary Aked.
Later on their British teammate Susan Egelstaff will start her medal bid playing Slovenia's Maja Tvrdy at 12.30pm at Wembley Arena while another GB hopeful, Rajiv Ouseph, will face Henri Hurskainen of Sweden in his opening game at 8.15pm on Sunday evening.
12:07 BSTGloriana is pulling alongside a special pontoon displaying the Olympic rings.
12:05 BSTThere's a large crowd outside City Hall as the torch approaches on the boat Gloriana.
12:05 BSTHere's a video of Jeremy Hunt almost hitting somebody with a bell.
12:04 BSTThe Olympic torch is reaching the end of its journey down the Thames. It's just passing HMS Belfast near Tower Bridge and City Hall.
12:01 BSTJeremy Hunt, the culture secretary, tried to ring a bell earlier on the banks of the Thames. Unfortunately the bell flew off the handle and into some passers-by.
11:59 BSTThe South Korean Sailing Federation has apologised on behalf of the coach Lee Jae-cheol after he was sent home from London 2012 for drink driving.
The Federation said Lee was pulled over by police after attending a banquet hosted by the mayor of Weymouth which is staging the sailing regatta:
11:54 BSTCoach Lee Jae-cheol attended a banquet and drank wine and beer on 25 July. It is true that Lee, who can't drink well, was caught drunk driving by the police when he was returning alone to the athletes' village at 5am for training after sleeping for some time to get sober at the federation's own place outside the village.
There is a police incident at the Sainsbury's on Townmead Road by Wandsworth Bridge, which the Olympic torch has just passed beneath. The Metropolitan police confirmed that officers were currently on the scene investigating but would not give further details at this point.
11:52 BSTMark Cavendish has described the British cycling squad as "the dream team", but said he feels no additional pressure despite potentially being the first home champion of London 2012 in tomorrow's road race.
Cavendish said:
An Olympic medal, regardless if it's the first or last on offer, it's an Olympic medal for your team. It's easy to get emotional about it. I've been nervous this week. We've trained to be able to deal with those nerves and we've got to put it to bed. We've got a process which we have to adhere to. It's a process we know if we commit 100% we've got the best chance of winning.
Cavendish is joined in the five-man squad by Tour de France winner Bradley Wiggins, Chris Froome, who was second in le Tour, David Millar and Ian Stannard. Cavendish said:
We were motoring along in training and I just looked round and it's the dream team. We've got first and second on GC [general classification] of the Tour de France, four guys who won stages of the Tour de France [Wiggins, Froome, Millar and himself] and a British champion [Stannard], all guys incredibly motivated, incredibly patriotic and incredibly loyal to each other. If we wanted to win this bike race we couldn't be in a better situation team-wise.
His post-Olympics plans illustrate the packed schedules of top cyclists: "I'm racing on Sunday in Belgium, Monday in Pau, Tuesday in Holland. It's my day job. That's what professional cycling is. It's entertainment."
11:35 BST British gymnast Louis Smith, who will compete in a qualification event tomorrow in the North Greenwich Arena, has said his team will play it safe at this early stage to ensure they finish in the top eight in order to qualify, reports Hilary Aked. The pommel horse specialist said:
11:33 BSTThe things that will be running through my head when I step up to compete are: 'I'm ready, I've got my nan looking over me, I've got the support of my friends and family in the crowd. I've been waiting 19 years for this,' so it is just going to be all positive thoughts running through my head.
Here's the Olympic torch on the start of its journey down the Thames today.
11:27 BSTBoris Johnson has apologised for his tube travel chaos warning adverts, according to the New York Times. The mayor told the foreign media:
I apologise to everybody who has been irritated by my Tannoy announcements. They are, I have to admit, very irritating but the reason for doing them is that they attract attention.
He also hit back at critics of the Olympic organisers for allowing McDonald's to be a sponsor.
This is all just bourgeois snobbery about McDonald's. It's classic liberal hysteria about very nutritious, delicious food — extremely good for you, I'm told — not that I eat a lot of it myself. Apparently this stuff is absolutely bursting with nutrients.
A shame Boris is missing out on all those nutrients, really.
11:17 BSTSorry, I forgot to add that Im Dong-hyun, who just broke that archery record, is legally blind. I know.
11:12 BSTYou can't watch today's archery in person or on TV, but apparently South Korea have claimed the first two world records of London 2012 in the men's ranking round.
Im Dong-hyun broke his own individual record for 72 arrows and joined Kim Bubmin and Oh Jin-hyek to set a new team mark for 216 arrows.
11:09 BSTMy colleague Hilary Aked sends a travel update. Things are looking pretty good.
Pudding Mill Lane station next to the Olympic park is closed but there are no major underground problems at present except minor delays on the Jubilee line.
On the roads, park and ride sites close to the M25 either side of the Dartford Crossing are said to be "a major pinch point" with clockwise traffic moving at 10mph and tailbacks of up to ten miles. Expect 30 minute delays in the other direction. TfL are advising of congestion on the following routes: A3, A40, A12, A13 and A2.
Taxi drivers will also be protesting today about being excluded from Olympic traffic lanes - which came into effect Wednesday but will be more heavily employed from today - at Hyde Park Corner. Previous demonstrations brought traffic to a standstill. The Blackwall tunnel northbound has just been reopened following a cement spillage.
On Twitter, Jon Morgan reports that rebellion is building against mayor of London Boris Johnson's cheery tube warnings:
10:57 BSTTube platform announcer just cut off Boris recording with a "Yeah, thanks Boris." Huge cheer all along the platform.
— Jon Morgan (@Morganised) July 27, 2012
I know I'm falling into their trap. But this unofficial Olympic advert for Specsavers is very good.
good work Specsavers twitter.com/chariscroft/st… (via @chariscroft)
— James Herring (@TaylorHerringPR) July 27, 2012
Updated at 11:47 BST
10:53 BSTHere's Charlotte Higgins's audio of Martin Creed's All the Bells this morning.
10:49 BSTDavid Cameron says he wants the Olympics to demonstrate both sides of Britain: beefeaters and Blur.
Here are the top 10 most appropriate Blur songs for the Olympics:
1. Advert
2. Best Days
3. Coffee and TV
4. Entertain Me
5. London Loves
6. Avoid the Traffic
7. On your Own
8. She's so High
9. The Great Escape
10. To the End
And here are the top 5 least appropriate:
1. Slow Down
2. This is a Low
3. No Distance Left to Run
4. Out of Time
5. It Could be You
Let's have a listen to London Loves.
See Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JsDY1Ha83M8
10:33 BSTWhile the UK and US collapse into fratricidal feuding, the country that will probably walk away with the biggest haul of gold medals this year has advised its athletes to behave in a "modest and unassuming" way in London. What instruction could more effectively bespeak China's top-dog status?
In 2008, the Beijing hosts won 51 golds to the US's 36, Russia's 23 and Britain's 19. The US won 110 medals in total, to China's 100.
Dai Binggou, China's top diplomat, said:
10:25 BSTWe are still a developing country and should keep a modest and prudent attitude even though China is becoming more and more globally influential. We are considered a big sporting country but we are still not a sporting giant. There are still gaps between China and global sports giants in many aspects. We must be modest and unassuming in learning from other countries and continue to raise our athletic abilities.
A number of people have emailed me to ask what time the opening ceremony is starting tonight. The answer is 9pm. BBC1's coverage begins at 7pm.
10:22 BSTLike Boris Johnson, Jeremy Hunt, the culture secretary, got in a dig at Mitt Romney over the US presidential contender's comments that there were "disconcerting" signs around the London Games and it was "hard to know just how well it will turn out".
But whereas Boris geed up a Hyde Park crowd with some broad-brush rabble-rousing, Hunt chose to creep to the president of the IOC a little bit, following that up with some slightly unstatesmanlike jingoism:
The person I care about more is Jacques Rogge, the president of the International Olympic Committee, who said London was the best prepared city he had ever seen. When we have the opening ceremony tonight and we tell the world that eight of the world's top 10 sports were either invented or codified in Britain - and only two in America - I hope Mr Romney is watching.
Hunt also said worries about queues at Heathrow were "the dog that didn't bark" – "Heathrow's gone incredibly smoothly."
Updated at 10:22 BST
10:13 BSTDan Clark and Mike Lenzly have been passed fit to play for Great Britain in the Olympics after recovering from injuries suffered last week.
Lenzly tore a calf muscle in last Thursday's friendly against the United States, while Clark suffered an ankle sprain playing against Tunisia at the weekend. Today was the deadline for Britain to make a change if one or both of the players were ruled out.
10:10 BSTPost your last-minute questions and answer each other's Olympic worries in our London 2012 Olympics helpline open thread.
10:09 BSTThe BBC is reporting anger and confusion outside Lord's, where the archery ranking rounds are going on – contests to decide athletes' placings for the initial rounds.
The event has been advertised as "unticketed"; what the London organising committee meant by that was that the event was closed to spectators.
But a lot of hopeful archery fans – and ticketing websites – thought it meant "free" and have turned up. They are not pleased.
Locog says it has not advertised tickets for today's archery events.
09:53 BSTHere's a very, very brief collection of snippets from rehearsals for the opening and closing ceremonies.
09:50 BSTMy colleague Charlotte Higgins has just been to the leafy streets of Kentish Town to ring in the Olympics – or, rather, participate in Martin Creed's Work No. 1197, All The Bells In A Country Rung As Quickly And Loudly As Possible For Three Minutes.
At five to eight, it looked like it was going to be just me, a Games Maker volunteer from Devon and Chinese state TV (the journalist was called Tingting Ai) but then a motley and quite respectably large crowd of children, grown-ups, folk on bikes, some blokes who looked like they were decorators and several dogs turned up, with sleigh bells, ships' bells, the local primary school bell, temple bells, bike bells, and, in the case of the local organiser, Sandy Nairne, director of the National Portrait Gallery, what he referred to as "the spare cat bell".
The result was deafening - my ears are still ringing - and extremely good-natured, aside from the woman staring furiously from an upper window who I suspect had received rather a rude awakening.
We'll have an audio recording of all that up soon.
09:30 BSTA top Olympic official has said lawyers worried about ambush marketing undermining Games sponsors will not instigate checks on players' underwear prior to games, the Press Association reports.
It would be impractical, said Denis Oswald, a senior member of the International Olympic Committee.
And people say the Olympic organisers are power-crazed control freaks with no sense of proportion. They're not – they're completely reasonable. They know as well as you do that it would be impractical to check every athlete's underwear, no matter how much they might want to.
09:24 BSTHere are some Olympic volunteers arriving at the stadium this morning.
09:22 BST Britain is ready to welcome "the greatest show on earth", David Cameron said this morning. The prime minister told reporters in Downing Street the country must show the world "the best of Britain" over the next two weeks.
It's very exciting ... I think it's a great opportunity to show the world the best of Britain, a country that's got an incredibly rich past but actually a very exciting and vibrant future. Somebody asked me yesterday what face of Britain I wanted to put forward, Blur or the beefeaters, and frankly it's both. We have got a great past, a very exciting future and this is a great moment for our country, so we must seize it.
09:11 BST Here's Boris Johnson using Mitt Romney's negative comments about the Games to rev up the crowd at Hyde Park yesterday.
It's not unthinkable that Boris could be PM and Mitt US president by the time of the next Olympics, so they might have to learn to get on a bit better. This is what Boris told the crowd:
There are some people who are coming from around the world who don't yet know about all the preparations we've done to get London ready in the last seven years. I hear there's a guy called Mitt Romney who wants to know whether we're ready. He wants to know whether we're ready. Are we ready? Are we ready? Yes, we are!
The venues are ready, the stadium is ready, the aquatics centre is ready, the velodrome is ready, the security is ready, the police are ready, the transport system is ready [don't push it, Boris]. And our Team GB athletes are ready, aren't they! Team GB is ready! They're going to win more gold, silver, and bronze medals than you'd need to bail out Greece and Spain together!
Always good to counter one diplomatic row by casually kicking off another ...
08:53 BSTJohn Major was just interviewed on BBC Radio 4's Today programme. He said that if people see Usain Bolt run an astonishing time in the 100m at this Olympics, that will be something they put in their "memory box" forever.
08:49 BSTHere's a quick London weather forecast for today, courtesy of the Met Office. It's a greyer, cooler morning than we've been enjoying over the last few days. It is due to start raining at around 10am, until about 4pm, after which we'll see a slightly cloudy afternoon and a high of 23 – leaving the skies above the opening ceremony free of rain this evening. Fingers crossed.
Tomorrow will be sunny with a high of 21, Sunday will be rainy with a high of 18, Monday will be cloudy with a high of 19, and Tuesday will be rainy with a high of 19.
08:43 BSTI just spoke to the BBC about where you can watch today's archery ranking rounds. Bad news. You can't watch it anywhere. The Olympic Broadcasting Services aren't screening it, the BBC said. Roger Mosey, the BBC's director of London 2012, said earlier this week: "The most exciting thing for us this time is that you will have every single venue live from first thing in the morning to last thing at night." The BBC press office told me today's archery would be the only exception to this.
08:35 BST The US Olympic swim team were the only people in the world not to have produced a lip-sync version of Carly Rae Jepson's Call Me Maybe. Until now.
Updated at 08:53 BST
08:31 BSTEveryone involved with the opening ceremony has maintained throughout that they are not attempting to compete with Beijing's in 2008, a stunning display of synchronisation complete with a fake child singer and CGI-enhanced fireworks. The moment where the final torch-bearer flies into the sky and runs around the top of the stadium is still jaw-dropping. And look out for 14-year-old Tom Daley with the British delegation, introduced by the American commentator as "a young diver".
Probably the most upsetting opening ceremony in recent memory was Seoul 1988, when many of the doves of peace released before the lighting of the Olympic flame were instantly incinerated when it was lit.
08:18 BSTJohnson has seen the rushes of the opening ceremony. It was a brilliant. People are going to cry hot tears when they see it, he says.
Asked about Mitt Romney's negative comments yesterday, Johnson says the US presidential candidate has now been fulsome (sic) in his praise of the Olympics. It's good to have his support, the mayor says.
08:16 BSTThis is our chance to show the world what we're about and throw a real party, Boris says. He wants to see a great economic benefit from the Games.
"If you talk to these tycoons," Boris says, they don't need any persuading that the UK is a great city to invest in.
08:15 BSTBoris Johnson, the mayor of London, is being interviewed on Radio 4's Today programme.
Anthropologists are going to look back and ask why people were so enthusiastic about the torch relay. "Hard-bitten members of my family" loved it, Johnson says.
08:14 BSTMartin Creed's All the Bells is now taking place across the country. Starting with Big Ben, people are ringing bells around the country.
08:05 BSTThe Guardian is full to the brim with Olympic stories this morning. Here are some of the highlights:
• These Olympic weeks will offer answers to a clutch of questions that have nagged at us since the last time London hosted the Games in 1948, writes Jonathan Freedland. What exactly is our place in the world? How do we compare to other countries and to the country we used to be? What kind of nation are we anyway?
• Usain Bolt has admitted for the first time that he has been suffered from a slight injury, but claims he is now fully recovered and ready to "become a legend", Owen Gibson reports. Bolt was greeted with whoops and yelps from his fellow athletes, who seemed to recognise him as first among equals, when he turned up for a leisurely lunch at the athletes' village yesterday, writes Robert Booth.
• The Games may actually be David Cameron's economic strategy, muses Marina Hyde.
• Kings, queens and presidents will get the chance to experience a bit of British queuing tonight, reports Julian Borger, as they line up outside Buckingham Palace to travel from the Queen's reception to the Olympic Stadium. "It will be first come, first served, and if you do not recognise – or are officially at war with – the country whose potentate you end up alongside, that will be too bad."
• No 10 was stunned by what my American colleagues are calling the "Romneyshambles" yesterday, when the US presidential candidate Mitt Romney, visiting London, made some negative and cautious comments about how the Games might turn out. Boris Johnson responded at last night's Olympic concert at Hyde Park: "I hear there's a guy called Mitt Romney who wants to know whether we're ready," the mayor yelled from the stage to a cheering crowd. "He wants to know whether we're ready. Are we ready? Are we ready? Yes, we are."
• Barney Ronay marvels at the creation of the Team GB men's football team.
British amateur teams competed regularly at the Olympics until the Munich Games, but these are the first real, actual professional players to appear under the union flag. They will also probably be the last, so great are the assorted tensions in the wings of Team GB, chiefly the fear of loss of influence within football's governing body Fifa. Which is a shame as in the hours before kick-off Manchester seemed surprisingly hospitable to this footballing flag of convenience, the streets of the Piccadilly area thronging with newbie fans and the procession towards Old Trafford producing an eclectic pageant of mingled union flag-ishness, reminiscent of a high-Britpop music video or an extended Benny Hill credits sequence.
• And here is Andy Hunter's match GB v Senegal report. Brazil v Egypt is here. Spain v Japan is here.
• Steve Rose profiles Danny Boyle, the director of tonight's opening ceremony.
• Kevin Mitchell looks at Andy Murray's possible route to the Olympic tennis final (if that isn't jinxing things too much), where he might face his Wimbledon nemesis Roger Federer.
• Anna Meares cuts a contrasting figure to her great rival Victoria Pendleton but acknowledges their battles have been good for cycling, writes William Fotheringham.
• "Confidence feels like it's a weapon. You're in control," British middle-distance runner Mo Farah tells Anna Kessel.
• Charismatic American swimmer Ryan Lochte may win the popularity contest at London 2012, but will he be crowned greatest all-round swimmer, asks Andy Bull.
• The 2014 Winter Olympics torch relay will include a trip into space, the Russians say. That's cool.
• And here's Steve Bell's take on the Games. I didn't think Wenlock and Mandeville could look any more terrifying than they already do. But I was wrong.
07:14 BSTThis is it.
Tonight at 9pm Danny Boyle's eagerly-awaited £27m Olympic opening ceremony will officially kick off the 2012 London Games at the Olympic Stadium in Stratford.
Seven years of preparation end tonight – and tomorrow the Olympic Games begin.
Almost unbelievably in this era of Twitter and Facebook, the tens of thousands of people who watched rehearsals for the opening ceremony this week have largely kept the details secret, although some aspects of the show have been announced already – including the choice of Sir Paul McCartney to bring the curtain down – and photos have shown the stadium transformed into a giant mock-up of the English countryside, complete with live farm animals, cricket players and actors in Victorian dress, with the curve of the Thames sweeping through the arena. Daniel Craig's James Bond is also said to feature.
Short video footage of rehearsals for the opening ceremony was shown on the BBC yesterday. Scenes showing what appeared to be people with illuminated wings riding bicycles were broadcast under an agreement that allowed a 30-second clip to be shown by rights holders including the BBC 24 hours before the ceremony started.
Today's events started off at around 6.55am when the Olympic torch began to make its stately way down the Thames on Gloriana, the Queen's rowbarge that featured in her jubilee flotilla, from Hampton Court Palace in south-west London to City Hall beside Tower Bridge, where it is due to arrive at around 12.55pm. The torch will then set off from City Hall to Stratford at 9pm and is due to appear at the Olympic Stadium at 11pm. It is still not known who will light the flame in the stadium, signalling the start of the Games, although bookmaker William Hill suspended betting yesterday on Roger Bannister, the first man to run a four-minute mile, after a run of big bets. Guardian readers have made their suggestions here.
And at 8.12am, open a window and see if you can hear Martin Creed's national artwork All the Bells, which involves as many people as possible around the country ringing bells as loud as they can at the same time.
The Olympic football tournament has already begun – with Great Britain's women starting in style with a 1-0 victory and the men's team drawing 1-1 in a bruising game against Senegal last night – and the archery gets going today, with men's and women's individual ranking rounds at Lord's at 9am and the team ranking rounds at 1pm.
We'll have live coverage of all today's Olympic events here throughout the day, and tonight my colleague Xan Brooks will be on hand to guide you through the opening ceremony. And after tonight it's all over to the athletes ...
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TheTopoftheD: Love that @StanCollymore is supporting one of Cannock's other most famous sons, super @jfair25! #London2012
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 FreedomWorks (@FreedomWorks)"Government is not responsible for my success, thank you very much" @deneenborelli #FreePAC |
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The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
The Georgia Bureau of Investigation agent's tape recorder wasn't working.
So she quietly pressed record on her cell phone and proceeded with an interview of Terance Shipman, an Atlanta Public Schools teacher who has been accused of cheating on the 2009 Criterion-Referenced Competency Test.
That cell phone recording was at the heart of Tuesday's tribunal, where Shipman was fighting for his job and APS was fighting just as hard to fire him.
The district alleges that Shipman admitted to GBI agents that he prompted his students at Parkside Elementary School to change their answers on the CRCT. Shipman, questioned for 30 minutes by lawyers representing the district, said he was intimidated by the agents, who pressured and badgered him into saying things he didn't get a chance to fully explain.
But on the cell phone recording, played to riveted silence in the tribunal hearing room, Shipman was heard laughing with the agents — Eve Rodgers and Anita Ivy — who seemed less like hard-driving investigators and more like flattering, probing confession-seekers.
"I'm simply asking that you be candid," Rodgers is heard on the recording saying.
"What she's trying to do is get you to take ownership," Ivy said.
Shipman said several times that he did not cheat on the CRCT, but he acknowledged offering guidance. "You never give them the answers," Shipman said. "You never tell them the answer. During the test, you might say: 'Go back and look at that one. I know you know this one.'"
Early in his interview with GBI agents, who questioned Shipman as part of a broad investigation into alleged cheating on the 2009 CRCT, Shipman insisted that he did nothing wrong.
Later on the recording, however, he told investigators training would be useful in reminding veteran teachers not to offer guidance to students.
"You know you're not supposed to do it," he said.
One of the agents then said: "Thank you for taking ownership of that."
Questioned by his own attorney, Shipman said he deviated from the test procedure script — but only to encourage students who seemed unfocused or panicked by the test, not to give them answers.
Tuesday's tribunal ended without its members ruling on whether Shipman will keep his job. They plan to re-convene on Monday morning to rule on Shipman's fate.
Original Page: http://www.ajc.com/news/atlanta/cell-phone-recording-at-1484034.html
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Sherman Hemsley, the man who brought George Jefferson to vivid life, has died at age 74. The accomplished stage actor achieved his widest fame in a role he raised to comic greatness: George Jefferson, the egotistical, strutting centerpiece of The Jeffersons.
Hemsley took a part that could have been clownish and exaggerated — George Jefferson, the braying entrepeneur striving to, as the show's theme song said, "move on up" — and made George a vivid, three-dimensional character, and an important advance in the depiction of black characters in sitcoms. George's ego and selfishness were often brought into line by his wife, Isabel Sanford's Louise Jefferson (George's beloved "Weezy"), but the force of the character derived from the tremendous ambition, frustration, and anger George felt toward the world.
You can credit producer Norman Lear for helping to conceive the character, first in All in the Family and then as a spin-off in The Jeffersons, but it was clearly Hemsley's performance that fueled its power. Hemsley had come up through the theater, in straight dramas as well as musicals (he came to George Jefferson initially fresh from a run in the raucous, Ossie Davis-derived Broadway musical Purlie), and Jefferson brought a rhythmic musicality in the way George moved onscreen. His erect posture conveyed George's pride, his perpetually affronted expression was a mask against the injustices, correctly perceived or imagined, by George; his harsh voice was the sound of a man who would not be denied his place in the world. Watching George Jefferson was to witness a man comfortable in his own skin — and that that skin was black was significant. From Hemsley's performance, you could build an entire philosophy of the man he played. As a black man of his generation, George was as likely to have taken his civil rights cues from Malcolm X as from Martin Luther King, Jr. And while his business acumen placed him squarely in the capitalist tradition, George was a Black Panther-inspired figure of action, emboldened to make his opinions heard, his actions felt in the world around him.
See Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XS93dkz8qx8
The Jeffersons aired for a decade, 1975-85, and Hemsley's performance embodied George's move from the working-class to the middle-class as the owner of a chain of dry-cleaning businesses. George's pride, his radar for any trace of racial exploitation, his ease at dismissing someone who'd offended or condescended to him as "honky" — these were all elements that could easily have put off mass America. Instead, because of Hemsley's skill, charm, and energy, they became the elements that endeared the character to the country.
Hemsley went on to other roles. He was a rascal church deacon in the sitcom Amen; he provided the voice for an imperious character in the puppet sitcom Dinosaurs. These were, in a sense, variations on George Jefferson, who will live and rant and remain lovable and admirable forever.
Original Page: http://watching-tv.ew.com/2012/07/24/sherman-hemsley-dead-died-george-jefferson/
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What is the RNC trying to do — put the OOTD feature out of business? Well, yes, but only by ending Barack Obama's tenure in the White House at one term. Working from the "You didn't build that" quote, the RNC has a new television ad out today that rebuts the media portrayal of Obama's remark as a gaffe — or at least, if it is a gaffe, it's a Kinsleyan gaffe that accidentally revealed a truth Obama wants to remain hidden. The truth is that even in the context Obama claims, this remark shows his hostility to small businesses, and the lack of interest Obama has taken in boosting the job-creation engine within that community:
See Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NaUXlvaZONo
Meanwhile, Power Line points to this helpful mash-up of Obama and Elizabeth Warren that explains where Obama got his "context":
See Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GKfnLOZ9Fcg
Give Obama credit for delivering this better than Warren. Where Warren's delivery demonstrates anger and contempt for those who claim credit for their own success, Obama tries a somewhat softer approach of humor and disdain. Both, however, perfectly communicate the same idea: small businesses are parasites that only succeed through the beneficence of government, and therefore government has the right to seize whatever capital it wants from that success.
How do small business owners see Obama and his policies? Longtime syndicated editorial cartoonist Mike Shelton — whose work I used to enjoy daily at the Orange County Register back in the day — has joined the Franklin Center's Watchdog.org website. Mike is an avid Hot Air reader and occasional commenter (as "Cartooner," natch). In this week's entry, Shelton accurately demonstrates the contribution of Obama's policies to the success of small businesses over the last three-plus years:
We'll see plenty more from Mike in the weeks and months ahead, so be sure to keep checking in at Watchdog.org.
Original Page: http://hotair.com/archives/2012/07/24/new-rnc-ad-these-arent-gaffes/
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