Olympic Torch Relay – the Olympic torch has started its 70 day journey across the country towards the Olympic Stadium in London.
The UK relay was started today by 3-time Olympic Champion Ben Ainsley who described it as an honour almost as special as winning a gold medal. Ainsley is still at the top of his game as he won his 6th World sailing title in his Finn sailing boat in Falmouth this Friday.
Ainsley decided to walk his stage although being in supreme condition he could easily have run it. His reasoning was that he wanted everyone to get a chance to touch the torch. It was a big day for Ben who also has the honour of being the first athlete to be selected for the British Olympic team. He will be trying to win a 4th consecutive gold medal in the sailing events which are being held at Weymouth and Portland this year.
Ben started the Olympic torch on its journey this morning at 7.08 beneath the Lands End sign. He is the first of 8,000 torchbearers who carry the Olympic Flame 8,000 miles through 1019 cities, towns and villages over the next 70 days where it will be used to light the cauldron as the highlight of the Opening Ceremony.
The Olympic Flame arrived in Cornwall at RNAS Culdrose on Friday night accompanied by David Beckham, Princess Anne, Lord Coe and London Mayor Boris Johnson.
Whilst travelling on its 8000 mile journey through the UK the Olympic Torch will travel within 10 miles of 95% of the population. Today’s journey took the Olympic Flame from Lands End to Plymouth with 139 torchbearers carrying it over its 136 mile route to Plymouth Hoe.
Steven Moffat – the Doctor Who and Sherlock writer will be presented with a special award at this year’s BAFTAs.
The 50-year old Scottish writer and producer started working in television in 1989 although his first well-known tv series was not until 2000 when he wrote Coupling. This series was described by many critics at the time as the British “Friends”, It concerned the relationships between six friends, three male and three female, who often talked to the camera about the same events from completely different perspectives.
In 2004 Moffat was asked to write some episodes for the newly relaunched series of Doctor Who. he soon became known for writing the “cleverer, darker episodes” as The Guardian put it. In 2008 it was announced that Moffat was taking over as head writer and executive producer from Russell T Davies.
While he and Mark Gatiss were travelling by train from London to Cardiff to film Doctor Who they conceived the idea of Sherlock, to be a contemporary update on the Sherlock Holmes stories. This series has been a huge success, starring Benedict Cumberbatch as Sherlock and Martin Freeman as his faithful sidekick Watson.
Both Benedict Cumberbatch and Martin Freeman are up for awards at the BAFTAs this year with Cumberbatch up for the Best Actor award and Martin Freeman and Andrew Scott (Jim Moriarty) going for Best Supporting Actor.
Moffatt has previously won awards at the BAFTAs for Doctor Who in 2008 and Sherlock last year. He said of this year’s award: “it’s a bit like being shown your mausoleum! No, it’s great, it’s really exciting, of course. It fends off the insecurity for 10 or 15 minutes more a day, I suppose! It’s absolutely lovely, absolutely thrilling.”
The BAFTA tv awards will take place at the Royal Festival Hall on 27 May. They will be hosted by Dara O’Briain and will be shown on BBC1.
