Victoria Pendleton

Green Britain Day is hardly "greenwash bollocks". With an approaching energy gap and little facility to expand energy consumption to meet the current level of demand. In addition to that the need to improve our national climate position is a pretty important goal. Admittedly EDF, the driving force between Green Britain Day, has some serious problems on the environmental front, but that doesn't need to undermine the potential that such an event could have.

To promote a greener national identity (using factors of our national identity through sportspersons) is a pretty damn good idea. It certainly outweighs many of the ideas that have come before it. A pity that my own organisation, EST, couldn't be arsed to find a way to get behind it.

A little disappointed that Dale Vince espoused this opinion in the Guardian without a better focus on the potential that exists to take this into something greater and more engaging. But then, he is part of the opposition to the big 6.

Good on VP for getting involved though. The lack of awareness of energy efficiency and the current future situation is absolutely shocking. Hopefully her participation will encourage some people to look that bit further.

In motorcycle racing winners celebrate with a wheelie, why don’t track cyclists?
If you had a go on a single gear bike at the velodrome you’d soon realise why they don’t! It is possible but it would be very, very hard.

Fixie-tricksters, take note.

Fixie-tricksters, take note.

Awang does

Green Britain Day is hardly "greenwash bollocks". With an approaching energy gap and little facility to expand energy consumption to meet the current level of demand. In addition to that the need to improve our national climate position is a pretty important goal. Admittedly EDF, the driving force between Green Britain Day, has some serious problems on the environmental front, but that doesn't need to undermine the potential that such an event could have.

To promote a greener national identity (using factors of our national identity through sportspersons) is a pretty damn good idea. It certainly outweighs many of the ideas that have come before it. A pity that my own organisation, EST, couldn't be arsed to find a way to get behind it.

A little disappointed that Dale Vince espoused this opinion in the Guardian without a better focus on the potential that exists to take this into something greater and more engaging. But then, he is part of the opposition to the big 6.

Good on VP for getting involved though. The lack of awareness of energy efficiency and the current future situation is absolutely shocking. Hopefully her participation will encourage some people to look that bit further.

or it could just be ££££££ spent on more advertising, p.r, and promotion of power generation from open coal mines and other filthy short term solutions,

yes, the intentions might be good but dont kid yourself, the winners are the shareholders, we need better integrated policies on energy, not greenwash bollocks from large companies that have the ultimate aim of profit written in to their very legal constitution.

what is a greener national identity? sounds like greenwash bollocks........

dosent being green constitute what you actually do, act, live?

Fixie-tricksters, take note.

Pulling a wheelie on a 100+GI bike... Pull that one off and I'll be impressed.

Let's see Darren Obree try it on his training/run-about bike (138GI fixed, I think).

Shareholders are the very reason we are a nation in economic decline

Pulling a wheelie on a 100+GI bike... Pull that one off and I'll be impressed.

Let's see Darren Obree try it on his training/run-about bike (138GI fixed, I think).

Like I mentioned, Awang quite often lifts the nose when crossing the line on the track.. Not exactly a wheelie but as close as you're going to get.

I assume you mean Graeme Obree?

I assume you mean Graeme Obree?

Graeme, even?

cough

or it could just be ££££££ spent on more advertising, p.r, and promotion of power generation from open coal mines and other filthy short term solutions,

It coudl be but I suspect it isn't. Yes EDF have a bad reputation and yes some of this is PR, but if you take a look objectively at the whole Green Britain Day campaign, very little of it is about how great EDF is and the vast proportion of it is about encouraging and empowering the public to make behavioural change towards and more energy efficient and energy economic future. Certainly not one mention of how great it is to mine coal and produce CO2. It just isn't in there at all.

yes, the intentions might be good but dont kid yourself, the winners are the shareholders, we need better integrated policies on energy, not greenwash bollocks from large companies that have the ultimate aim of profit written in to their very legal constitution.

An energy company encouraging people to use less energy benefits the shareholders. Yeah, I can see where you're going with this. OK, sarcasm aside, it's true, EDF may end up looking better than they do now, but will that really attract customers? Credible opinion suggests it won't. The market is still largely driven by prices and the big six don't attract customers without keeping their prices very close to each other. Frankly I don't care about the profits, but then I think that there is a place for responsible capitalism. If people make some behavioural change off the back of this, I don't care if EDF make a bazillion pounds out of it, although I rather doubt they will. You're making a rather sweeping use of the term greenwash, perhaps you're suffering from cynicalwash?

what is a greener national identity? sounds like greenwash bollocks........

Thanks, I coined the term myself. A greener national identity is one where we, as a nation, identify with the pursuit of a more energy efficient and energy economic lifestyle. Certainly something that we don't do at the moment. Sure there are a lot of campaigns around at the moment, but none of them really have the full national impact that is truly desirable for a sustainable future. Wrapping this up in a green pass of the Union Jack and with a bunch of respected and recognisable celebrities taps into a key part of social function, the desire to be part of something greater than ourselves and generally not be different.

dosent being green constitute what you actually do, act, live?

Absolutely, and I'm guessing that is why so much of Green Britain Day is about that all important behavioural change.

This isn't a defence of EDF as a whole, just this one campaign, that generally won't benefit them a great deal other to fix them a bit more as a brand in that national conciousness. Yes, I think they should be doing more in their practices and yes, I think we need better integrated energy policies. Although policies are the reserve of politicians who use the environment as a political weapon so I don't think you can fairly slap EDF with that particular brickbat.

Yes, I wish someone else with more environmental credibility had come up with this idea and had the funding to back it and promote it on this scale, but they didn't. That doesn't really leave me frowning at EDF, but wondering why everyone else was so fucking useless in the first place. Maybe I'll have to concede on the greenwash part, but I'm more interested in the end result. More people aware of energy issues and more people making an effort to use less energy? If so, that is absolutely brilliant. From there it isn't such a great leap to them wondering where their energy comes, something that they probably aren't doing right now. That in itself will have an impact on EDF's business.

Shareholders are the very reason we are a nation in economic decline

And of course the very reason we were in an economic upswing just prior to that.

Actually the shareholders aren't the very reason. Poor regulatory control plays a part, as does mismanagement, maladministration and panic practice.

So nothing to do with FHM then?

No, the presence of FHM is something of socio-economic constant and as such can be discounted.

Fixie-tricksters, take note.

Fuck yeah, although it could get a bit sketchy if you were on a steep bit of banking, plus if you came off the back I can't see you getting your feet out of those pedals too easily, don't some of them use clipless and straps?

Fixie-tricksters, take note.

Pulling a wheelie on a 100+GI bike... Pull that one off and I'll be impressed.

Fuck yeah, although it could get a bit sketchy if you were on a steep bit of banking, plus if you came off the back I can't see you getting your feet out of those pedals too easily, don't some of them use clipless and straps?

I knew who I was thinking of. ;)

I read the article and it was ok.

Fuck yeah, although it could get a bit sketchy if you were on a steep bit of banking, plus if you came off the back I can't see you getting your feet out of those pedals too easily, don't some of them use clipless and straps?

pah! HTFU Pendleton!

This whole page has been the only worthwhile one in this entire thread, I can't believe there were 6 pages of arguing about a personal choice made by Victoria Pendleton to get paid to do some stuff for FHM, which then deteriorated into a discussion about how people are offended by the sexualization of advertising and depressed at how it makes them feel about their bodies, those guys need to HTFU and get over it, learn to love yourself, or if you can't then work to change your body to how you want it to be, not being funny but do you think people like Victoria Pendleton develop bodies like that by sitting on their arses and whinging on an internet forum? No she probably had to work really hard for years to get into that kinda shape, and if she wants to show off her body and dress up in clothes and shoes that she likes AND GET PAID FOR IT, then good for her, I don't buy FHM and I agree with the sentiments that its a load of bollocks, but really..... does it take 6 pages to reach that conclusion?
I think its a shame they airbrushed her to shit, she is incredibly attractive, with an amazingly beautiful body, as well as being an awesome cyclist, and I would have loved to have seen her photographed and left "au natural" (obviously there is always a degree of retouching) rather than yet another totally fake and boring studio photo that just happens to have her head stuck on top.

you've just summed up all sides of the debate in one opinion. well done!! ;)

you've just summed up all sides of the debate in one opinion. well done!! ;)

Yayyy, do I get a gold star now?

you need to ask wiganwill. he controls that market.

Or possibly missed the point entirely...

The truth is, if you don't get it, you probably never will. That's not arrogance, just a matter of mindsets...

Or possibly missed the point entirely...

The truth is, if you don't get it, you probably never will. That's not arrogance, just a matter of mindsets...

How true it that last line, could be applied well to life.

I assume you mean Graeme Obree?

No. I was talking about his brother.

coffs

Interesting article in today's Observer.

They won glory and were promised that riches, too, would follow. Just 12 months ago British athletes produced the country's best performance in 100 years at an Olympic Games, leaving Beijing with a total of 47 medals.
*The lives of the 27 Olympic heroes of 2008 would change for ever, or so it was widely predicted. Steve Martin, chief executive of sponsorship at advertising firm Saatchi & Saatchi, said they all had a golden opportunity to be millionaires. "People don't understand how much these guys could actually make," he said in August last year. The potential was huge, he said, because of their high profile in a country that was "going to be obsessed with the Olympics for four years". *
But the Observer has discovered that far from the goldrush to fame and fortune, last year's British Olympic medal winners came home, in the majority of cases, to an anti-climax.
*The reality is that just a year after their glorious moments on the winners' podium, no one is rich, most are still struggling against anonymity and a lack of sponsorship and funding, and 23 of them are back in the daily grind of training, preparing to try and do it all over again at the London Olympics in 2012. *
*For athletes who dedicate much of their lives to punishing daily training routines towards just one goal, it is hard to move on into any other future especially when the public is so quickly prepared to forget its one-time Olympic heroes. In the opinion of at least two of them, Tim Brabants and Chris Boardman, it seems the British public only has the capacity to remember one or two Olympic celebrities in any given year. For 2008, they claim, it was Chris Hoy and Rebecca Adlington. For the rest, they are all left to fight over the very few sponsorship deals, speaking or media punditry gigs that might be available to sportsmen or women who are not footballers. *
Cyclist Paul Manning was the first of the gold medalists from Beijing to retire. He is now an assistant construction manager helping to build London's velodrome for 2012, and he admits he was daunted at the prospect of entering a job market after years of cycling training that left him with a fairly empty CV. A paper round and an Olympic gold impress no one, he said.
Canoeist Brabants went back to eight-hour shifts as a doctor in a Nottingham accident and emergency department. Brabants - who tells Observer Sport Monthly that he only ever gets an invite to anything when it has already been turned down by fellow Nottingham Olympian Adlington - certainly has not been scooped up by some great sponsorship or advertising deal despite his two medals and, indeed, says his life was in part set back by his sporting success.
*"Its difficult to progress when you're only working part-time," he says of his stalled medical career. *
Another Olympian complained: "People say that I must be making loads of money, but how? Everybody wants you for free."
One success story all the athletes point to and envy is Hoy, who won three individual golds in cycling events at Beijing - the first Briton to win three golds at one Games since 1908. He went on to scoop Sports Personality of the Year, Jaguar ambassador and face of Kellogg's, he had a passenger plane named after him and even caught a knighthood in the New Year honours among the MBEs given out to other Olympians.
*After Beijing, Hoy had said that a gold wouldn't change his life. *
"I have eaten my words there a bit," he says now.
But even he, the exception to the rule, says that despite his rise in earnings he still is nowhere near attaining the wealth of most comparable professional sportsmen. "Olympic athletes are very much amateur athletes. When you finish you're going to have to start at the bottom rung of a different career somewhere else."
***Track cyclist Victoria Pendleton says she is frustrated by the system and its inequalities that saw her teammates find a fame that slipped past her grasp; even a photoshoot for men's mag FHM was unpaid she says. ***
"I've pretty much done everything I can and I'm still an unknown," she says. "You come away with two gold medals and you think your life is made," she said. "But I'm not sure anything is different at all."
It seems that the lesson for Martin is that it was only Saatchi & Saatchi itself - the New York office of which won an estimated $62m advertising contract to promote the games ahead of Beijing - that actually profited out of its Olympic work.

wow she's cheap ;-)