Vauxhall Prince Henry Commemorates Winter Trial Centenary - The Auto Chanel
LUTON, UNITED KINGDOM – June 4, 2012: A 100 year old Vauxhall model has recently celebrated the centenary of the Swedish Winter Reliability Trial by retracing the steps of the original event.
The Prince Henry model, owned by Alisdaire Lockhart of Selkirk, was driven from Gothenburg to Stockholm and back again, closely following the 1912 route, completing 620 miles (nearly 1000kms). Lockhart shared the driving with Andrew Duerden, Vauxhall’s Archivist. Kay Mordza, of the Swedish Vauxhall Owners Club, who arranged the journey, partnered them on the event. The car never missed a beat and averaged over 40mph for the entire event (cruising at 55mph on open roads) and achieving 30mpg.
In 1912, Percy Kidner, Vauxhall’s Managing Director, drove the Prince Henry model. He was the fastest entrant on the event, but incurred penalty points by arriving too early at checkpoints. The 2012 team were able to visit many of the points from the original route during their journey. At Norrkoping they visited the Standard Hotel building where the original photograph was recreated.
Alisdaire Lockhart’s long and painstaking reconstruction of the Prince Henry model paid dividends during the event with a reliable and speedy performance from the vehicle. Lockhart also paid testament to Kidner’s 1912 endeavours:
“We were lucky to have decent, asphalt roads and good weather. Kidner had snow covered surfaces with extremely chilly conditions which make his achievements even more astonishing”
London 2012: Adam Gemili may give Olympics a miss despite fast time - The Guardian
Young sprinter Adam Gemili may skip the Olympics due to a fear that competing at the Games may harm his development.
The 18-year-old ran a time of 10.08sec at the Sparkassen Gala in Regensburg, Germany last weekend, putting him at the top of the British rankings and securing the Olympic A standard. But his coach, Michael Afilaka, said Gemili is still aiming for the World Junior Championships in Barcelona in July rather than London 2012.
Competing in both as it stands presents some difficulty as the trials are less than a week apart.
"If there is leeway to get us to the Olympics we'll consider it, but right now the aim is stick to going to the World Juniors," Afilaka told The Daily Telegraph. "The management of our junior guys is something I've been really concerned about. We don't manage them very well and we do too much too soon."
Gemili, a former footballer who spent time in Chelsea's youth setup, has seen dramatic improvements since choosing to concentrate on athletics earlier this year and the teenager seemed keener than his coach on competing in London. He said: "My focus so far has been the World Juniors, but following this my coach and I will definitely be sitting down to discuss options. It's a great opportunity and a nice dilemma to have."
London teen pregnancies hit record low - BBC News
Free condoms have helped teenage pregnancies in the capital reach a record low, NHS London has said.
The was a total of 960 pregnancies among under 18s in London in the first quarter of 2011, according to latest Office for National Statistics figures.
This is the first time the figure has fallen below 1,000 since records began, NHS London said.
"In the last year more than 50,000 condoms have been handed out across the capital," NHS London said.
The number of pregnancies among under-18s fell from 1,158 in the same period in 2010.
The pregnancy rate per 1,000 girls between the ages of 15 and 17 fell by 16% in the first quarter of 2011, compared with the same period the previous year.
This brought the capital in line with the national average of 32.8 pregnancies per 1,000 girls for the first time, NHS London said.
NHS London director of public health Dr Simon Tanner said: "We have worked with primary care trusts in London to develop better sexual health provision for teenagers, to improve access to contraception and education for young people about safe sex.
"We have improved access to sexual health services at further education colleges, working with young people to understand what they need and how we can provide the best service for teenagers."
Havering, in east London, was the borough that achieved the greatest decline in teenage pregnancies - a fall of 46.9% over a one year period.
London orchestra to mime Games opening - ABC Online
Updated
There is outrage in London about the decision by Olympic Games organisers to have the London Symphony Orchestra mime its performance at the opening ceremony.
It has emerged the world renowned orchestra will pretend to perform while a recording made six weeks ago blasts out of the stadium speakers.
Considered to be one of the best orchestras in the world, it was awarded the contract for the 2012 Games.
But when the athletes walk in to the stadium in front of a worldwide audience of 4 billion people, the orchestra will in fact be pretending.
Twitter has been abuzz with outrage.
"What a bloody joke," one person said, "The London Symphony Orchestra told to mime at games opening."
"You'll see the London Symphony Orchestra at the Olympics, but you won't hear it - how ridiculous, what a farce," another posted.
The decision was made by the London Games organising committee, which is worried about the acoustics and the uncertainties of the British weather.
"Due to the complexity of everything involved in staging the ceremonies, it's not possible for all the music in all the shows to be live," a committee spokesperson said in a statement.
"There will be live musical elements, but many of the songs will be recorded to track in advance of the shows.
"This is standard practice for an event of this scale, and the performers have no issue with it."
The music to blare out of the stadium at the opening games ceremony was recorded at the famous Abbey road studios.
Melbourne Symphony Orchestra operations director Lou Oppenheim says the decision to pre-record the music is not unreasonable.
"Performances such as the opening ceremony of the Olympic Games are incredibly complex from an operational perspective," she said.
"The inter-relationships between a whole lot of different elements, including the musical elements, the pyrotechnics, the announcements, the lighting of the cauldron - everything has to be done to split-second timing."
Ms Oppenheim says a whole lot of different things can influence what can happen with the timing which is calculated to the tenth of a second.
"The wonderful thing obviously, the audiences will be still hearing the sounds of the fabulous London Symphony Orchestra, so it's not as if they're miming to, you know, another orchestra," she said.
"But if that's what's happening I would understand that that's possibly why that might be the case."
What might come as a surprise to many is that the Sydney Symphony Orchestra mimed its performance at the opening of the Sydney Games in 2000, and the backing tape was recorded, in part, by the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra.
Ms Oppenheim says live outdoor performances are difficult to manage and it is important that nothing is left to chance.
"I think it's important that we hear orchestras in the best fantastic light and if they've actually had to make a call that that's the way they've got to do it for this, I think you know, some understanding around that and to make sure that all of the elements of the ceremony can come together as smoothly as possible," she said.
Topics: music, olympics-summer, england
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