Olympic madness - Bangkok Facebook marathon ends.

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"I'll be watching more hours of Justin Bieber videos than Olympic events"..  I wrote!!

Who would have believed that this old cynic would have been caught up in the recent spectacle that was the Olympic games 2012 in London.   An event I had ignored totally and then only acknowledged with the above comment,  has now finished and left a gaping hole in my lives....  Thats the real life, my character the Pie Mans life (pieman?) and the recent life I seem to have acquired on facebook.

Biker, Career Local Government Officer and then my two travelling lives in France and Thailand have provided me with lots of good friends and chattereres.   I am lucky that I have been able to keep in touch more with these friends through the power of Facebook. A few participants from each life chat and cajole with me on a daily basis and it does ensure a broad subject base.

So, the Olympics started for me on facebook as I was not interested in any of the events.  I initially gravitated to negative comments about it, then once it was on, I swung entirely the other way and became it's biggest fan.  Friends from "The lak" helped it along, as they were in the UK (and Ireland!) for the event and one of them went armed with the latest I-Pad type device.  From humble beginnings we grew to an almost frantic series of "like", "share" and "follow" with the facebook globe button constantly flashing red with numbers well into double figures most mornings.   Mouse malfunctions and new equipment resulting in stray posts attached to wrong threads only added to the fun.  Some of these stray posts even picking up "Like"s in the frenzy.

I even had a spare oven timer next to my PC (the one with the working mouse) in the office upstairs.  I managed a bit of exercise running up and down the stairs to turn pies in the oven every 12 minutes.   Singed a sausage roll or two during hectic events like the arrival of Phyls Ploughmans lunch, but by and large... we got the posts and likes in with little serious collateral damage.

I experienced the Olympics rather than watched it and enjoyed the event as it gave me the opportunity to do what I enjoy most... talking and having a laugh with friends.  It did remind me a bit of Euro 96 and the world cup in 1998 where it was enjoyed far more in the fanzines and pubs than on the pitch.  The BBC later brought out "My Summer with Des" (Desmond Lynam) and it is now on top of my watch list.  It's on youtube in 10 minute segments.... best I can find so far.

The Olympics was pure fun, happened soley on facebook for me as I was in Bangkok alone for most of it and despite having a television, it was only ever on in the background. What I saw of it was also mostly mirror image as my lap top is on the dressing table and the television is behind me. I watched the Thai guys fight and it's only my first law of this blog "No negativity or knocking" that stops me commenting more on that.

We had great fun and most of it was spontaneous "had to be there" humour and in jokes, but none-the-less it was fantastic fun and I was sad to see it pass into history last night.  There were quite a few reminders there amongst the icons of the music world that we are not getting any younger.  Nice to see them all though and whilst a lot of it was not to my musical taste, I do tend to use music to evoke memories and to re-live happy times.  Sometimes this may mean resorting to to Abba, Saturday Night Fever and Percy Sledge.... Songs you do not hum outloud at Custom Motorbike Shows when you're a biker.

But... It's over now, the red globe has barely winked at me all morning.   The Olympic Facebook Marathon is past and today just a few stragglers catching up last night Facebook action and some of us trying to keep it going for a bit longer.   Like the real Marathon, it passed a lot of interesting places and beautiful areas and was as great to watch as to participate in....  Might need to change that last bit to reflect my current shape size and activity level!

I think a few of us will continue with this and will be honing our skills for any future events that crop up.  What I learned it that we can enjoy any event if we approach it from a positive and fun angle.  I'll really breath life into the blog, even if I have to make less pork pies every week.  Writing is becoming more and more important to me these days and a big all round thanks to everybody that participated.  It really was a Team GB (and Ireland) effort. Golds all round.

Justin Beiber.... who's he!