Sushi For Breakfast

So for Tim Peake's landing yesterday, there was no Stargazing Live special as so many of us had hoped. Instead, there was live coverage (mostly the NASA TV feed) on the BBC News channel, which had the usual experts (Libby Jackson from UKSA, Professor Lucie Green from UCL) along with BBC science correspondents who knew what they were talking about, and general studio presenters who didn't. So glad all went so well, there was a BBC guy who was practically interviewing Tim Peake on the Kazakh steppe. Yuri Malenchenko was sitting bolt upright early on like the seasoned space traveller he is, but Tim Kopra looked a bit wobbly for a while but he seemed to be getting his bearings OK eventually.

Having this on the news rather than a dedicated programme meant the news headlines ticker was on screen almost the whole time, so all the stuff about the man who murdered the MP Jo Cox was there. I can't believe what a nightmare that was. I've met a few people through work, my age and younger, and you know immediately they're a future MP for a left-leaning party, and they'll be a very good one, just like Jo Cox.

My friend and I took a little break from the usual work routine on Thursday morning to watch the Aviva Women's Tour go past along the main road near our business park. I had read about this early in the year, and my friend wanted a photo to illustrate a staff newsletter article she was writing about the Cycle To Work scheme. I took my flag and was cheering and yelling as they went past - it was still quite early in the race so they were all in a big bunch. Sadly we didn't get on the TV highlights, they went straight from the start in Atherstone to the part just after us when they went through the University of Warwick campus. But it was so exciting seeing all the build-up, the police motorbikes, the race marshal motorbikes, and the support cars going past, all waving at us, and us waving back. There wasn't many of us along that stretch of road, but there was lots of TV coverage of other stretches of road where there were lots of schoolkids cheering and waving flags. I was only going to watch the highlights once but I'm going to keep them now, as there are lots of sights I recognise, and I'll always remember being out there, even if it was only for a short time.

More medals, and we're just managing to stay ahead of Russia overall. Unfortunately the much-heralded Shanaze Reade crashed out of the BMX race, leaving the Games not with a gold medal but a badly damaged hand. But we have had some successes:

Gold - Canoeing - Tim Brabants, men's K1 1000m

Silver - Modern Pentathlon - Heather Fell

Bronze - Boxing - David Price, super-heavyweight

Bronze - Boxing - Tony Jeffries, light-heavyweight

James DeGale has made the finals of the middleweight boxing, so that's at least another silver to come. And I'm wondering if anything will come of the controversy over some of the Chinese women gymnasts - if it does come to medals being stripped, that could see Beth Tweddle being moved up from 4th place on the bars. We shall see.

Another gold (Cycling, men's team pursuit) and another silver (Sailing, men's 470 class) today. Narrowly missed out on a bronze in the gymnastics as Beth Tweddle came fourth on the uneven bars - with a score higher than when she won gold at the World championshops a couple of years ago.

This means that Team GB are in third place overall in the medals again, after falling to fourth behind Australia for a little while earlier today. And we've beaten our gold medal haul from Sydney 2000, which is regarded as our flagship achievement in the modern Olympics. We've still got some excellent chances to medal further - in athletics, plus more in cycling and sailing, and we're guaranteed a medal of some colour in boxing.

All the newspaper front pages today were covered with athletes in red, white & blue with gold medals. And inside, lots of articles about how awesome Team GB are, particularly when compared to the solitary gold medal won at Atlanta in 1996. Plenty of "Where did it all go right?" speculation, and talk about how it bodes well for hosting the Olympics in 2012. And it's not over yet ♥

Now, let's see if I can remember them all....

Gold - Swimming - Rebecca Adlington, 800m freestyle

Gold - Rowing - Men's coxless four

Gold - Cycling - Bradley Wiggins, individual pursuit

Gold - Cycling - Chris Hoy, keirin

Silver - Cycling - Ross Edgar, keirin

Bronze - Cycling - Steven Burke, individual pursuit

Bronze - Rowing - Men's double sculls

Bronze - Rowing - Women's double sculls

Yep, that's it for today. Sailing has been postponed until tomorrow due to an absence of wind, but we're guaranteed medals in the Finn and the Yngling. Also, tomorrow's women's pursuit in the cycling is an all-British affair, so another gold and silver to come. One of the riders is Rebecca Romero, who won silver in Athens as part of the rowing quad sculls.