{"id":6749,"date":"2016-09-06T07:20:01","date_gmt":"2016-09-06T07:20:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/?p=6749"},"modified":"2016-09-06T07:20:01","modified_gmt":"2016-09-06T07:20:01","slug":"so-how-did-it-feel","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/2016\/09\/06\/so-how-did-it-feel\/","title":{"rendered":"So, how did it feel?"},"content":{"rendered":"

I made my usual Olympics resolution not to get drawn\u00a0in to it all, and the 5 hour time difference ensured that I didn't watch too much. \u00a0But I did follow the track cycling drama which, if you listen to\u00a0whinging foreigners, the British completely ruined by winning because they \"practised beforehand\". \u00a0This, those of you who are devotees of Flanders and Swann<\/a>, will recall, \"ruins the fun\" (and the Olympic spirit) for everyone.<\/p>\n

I appreciated\u00a0the expert contribution of Chris Hoy (and others) to the TV experience, as their insights as to\u00a0what was happening (and why), and their interpretation of activity added significantly\u00a0to understanding and enjoyment. \u00a0All this was in response to probing questions from an equally (but differently) expert Claire Balding.<\/p>\n

Much of the other commentary was wrecked by an obsession with how it feels. \u00a0Of course, if you've got no tactical insight, it's about the only\u00a0question you can\u00a0ask; the low point was when one pointless\u00a0interviewer asked a hapless athlete\u00a0to compare the emotion felt at getting the 2016 gold medal with what he\u00a0felt when he got\u00a0his\u00a02012 one. \u00a0Perhaps the BBC thinks the public wants this drivel and instructs its staff to oblige. \u00a0Perhaps they just can't get the staff to do anything else.<\/p>\n

Thanks, then, to Simon Barnes in the Spectator\u00a0Olympic Notebook<\/em><\/a> for some searing sense around all this. \u00a0Barnes writes:<\/p>\n

\"How does it feel? \u00a0What does it mean to you? \u00a0The overwhelming questions of the television reporter. \u00a0I\u2019ve often talked to contestants in the Mixed Zone, that area of razor-elbowed scuffling from which that curious thing, a quote, can be found. \u00a0But it\u2019s generally only the telly people who ask how it feels. \u00a0Why ask the contestants? \u00a0When we want to know how something feels \u2014 something both universal and elusive, like love or grief or victory or defeat \u2014 we ask a poet. That\u2019s their job. \u00a0Or we can just ask ourselves. \u00a0We are human and have empathy with other humans: we see triumph, we see disaster, and we know how it feels. That\u2019s part of what sport itself means. \u00a0The finish-line is hardly the best place for finding the killer phrase that nails the experience for all time. \u00a0The Romantic poets said that such feelings must be \u2018recollected in tranquillity\u2019 before becoming poetry. \u00a0So how did Kubla Khan feel when he finished Xanadu? \u00a0He was over the moon. \u00a0How did the Ancient Mariner feel when he killed the albatross? \u00a0He was gutted. \u00a0And how did he fell when the ship went down? \u00a0It hasn\u2019t sunk in yet.\"<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I made my usual Olympics resolution not to get drawn\u00a0in to it all, and the 5 hour time difference ensured that I didn't watch too much. \u00a0But I did follow the track cycling drama which, if you listen to\u00a0whinging foreigners,...<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":237,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[2,4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6749","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-comment","category-news-and-updates"],"acf":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6749","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/237"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6749"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6749\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6749"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6749"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6749"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}