The Olympics and Tom’s teleporting

I was going to write about the last Replica sample I got but that will wait a week because my brain got stuck on Tom’s idea of teleporting to corporate Posse meetups.

And then I was watching the opening ceremony for the Paris 2024 games so a mishmash is where we are today.

First off, people sometimes complain about the commentators for these sorts of events. However, we here in Britain got seriously lucky this time. The truly wonderful Andrew Cotter was on air.

If you don’t know who Andrew Cotter is, well, he’s a BBC sports commentator. But he is also a celebrity for a different reason. During Covid, when he was clearly off-air, he started doing commentated videos of his two labradors, Olive and Mabel, doing stuff: competitive breakfast eating, being loopy on walks, hill walking in Scotland with him, wearing Go-Pros while running on the beach, being influencers. If you’ve never watched one you really really should. Get off to YouTube as soon as you can. Just search Olive and Mabel. You will thank me.

Anyway, Andrew Cotter in Paris. Beyond providing very good information on who was doing what for which country, he came up with side titbits from his experience over the years. He has a wonderful Scottish accent, is very good off the cuff, has a very dry sense of humour, and speaks French, so was able to translate some of the speeches – very amusingly, with asides.

Beyond the torrential rain, I really enjoyed the ceremonies. But, I want to know what the character was which carried the torch through most of the four hours. Oh, and I love the former footballer, Zenedine Zedane.

Tom and teleporting. After the spectacle I thought I’d hang teleporting off Paris: even in pouring rain, the centre of Paris is unfathomably beautiful.

And we could make a day of it, given we can, of course, all teleport.

So, to my mind we would start by meeting up for brunch in one of the grand five star hotels, linger over things and then do some group sampling. Maybe Guerlain, a place in the Marais called the Nose, which I’ve never been too, I’m sure the fancy department stores have wonderful fragrance departments.

That would take till late afternoon, at which point we could decamp to a fancy bar for cocktails. I’ve read that the Hemingway bar at the Ritz is too touristy. So, something still fancy but less on the beaten path. I don’t drink alcohol but mocktails apparently have become a thing in Paris – and some places even have specialty drinks. We could do whatever serious discussion if any was required over drinks.

Once we were all restored, dinner.

Because the opening ceremonies ended up at the Eiffel Tower (well, not really – things then really finished in the Tuileries), my mind turned to the Jules Verne restaurant, which is housed in the tower itself. I’ve always wanted to go there – it’s the upmarket option for food (ie, there’s a café as well). Reviews are somewhat mixed but I’m sure we could find decent things to eat and we’d make sure we reserved a table by the windows.

With that over, we’d all stumble out and teleport wherever (I can imagine this being Paris, some would want to stay a bit longer – I’d just go home and recover in semi-rural Southwest England with the rabbits and the cows and the fairly constant construction work in my village).

So, did you watch the opening ceremony? Thoughts? Where would you go and what would you do if you could teleport anywhere?

Pics: Pexels