Lucy Hyslop writer, editor, communicator

Switching things up in the downturn

The recession has really made editors focus on the best things in life. I've had the chance to interview other ski and snowboard instructors as to why they do this (poorly) paid job, to write a father's day story about the gift of good health (not a sock or tie in sight!), the seven most amazing westcoast workouts, chapters on the Olympics and why Vancouverites fastidiously follow the faster, stronger, higher ethos in their fitness regimen...and on the fashion front I've explored the real story behind clothing sizes. Having paid my dues training as a yoga and ski instructor myself, I've noticed a few people using this time to take courses in ways that may not bring you huge wealth but do keep you happy and healthy - no matter what the economic climate.

Remembering my ICE MAIDEN column in the Telegraph - copyright Telegraph

FEBRUARY 5TH, 2010 10:25

Pamela Anderson to light the Olympic flame?

It’s crunch time: after travelling nearly 28,000 miles across Canada and carried by 12,000 torch bearers (some on surfboards, some in kayaks), the Olympic flame finally reached Games central yesterday. Now the dinner-party question is, who will light the cauldron at the opening ceremony of the Games next Friday?

Sir Matthew Pinsent hits Whistler

Four-time Olympian Matthew Pinsent runs with the flame in Whistler today (one of only two Britons invited; former ski jumper Eddie “The Eagle” Edwards had his go in Winnipeg last month, many miles from the temptation of a ski hill). Heralded as a “knight in shining armour” (because of his knighthood) by the local tourist board, Sir Matthew is here as one of the BBC’s roving reporters: during its coverage he’ll be kayaking, taking a floatplane and ziptrekking across 10,000-year-old forests on a 2,000ft-long cable that drops 20 storeys, which he filmed yesterday. But guessing who will follow him has become a new game: name your most famous Canadian (much like that of citing world-famous Belgians). Top of the list? Pamela Anderson. Others in the running include national treasures – but less known out of North America – such as former Vancouver Canucks captain Trevor Linden (it’s hockey – never ice hockey – here), fellow player, Wayne Gretzky, and former Canadian ski champion Nancy Greene Raine. There is also another strong campaign that could see the chords of Britain’s John Parr’s Man In Motion echoing around BC Place, the 60,000-strong Vancouver stadium hosting the event. The theme song for cult Eighties movie St Elmo’s Fire was also used by Rick Hansen, the Canadian wheelchair campaigner who journeyed more than 24,000 miles across Britain and 33 other countries to raise funds for spinal cord research. So the theme from Baywatch or Man in Motion? No one’s revealing until the day

FEBRUARY 8TH, 2010 8:42

The Da Vinci coup

Searchlights whiz around the night sky at whiplash speed and downtown Vancouver streets buzz with the kind of excitement you normally find just before Christmas. Forget all those potential sporting highs, however. Forget all that achievement on the white stuff (or lack of it) on the city’s mountains.

The muscles of the shoulder, 1510-11. Pen and ink with wash, over traces of black chalk. 29.2 x 19.8 cm. The Royal Collection © 2009 Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth

This weekend was all about the cultural circus that rolls into town at the same time as the Olympics – with a unique Leonardo da Vinci show from London at its epicentre. With the Queen’s permission, the Vancouver Art Gallery (or “the Vag” – as in wag) has scored a world first: an exhibition of the entire set of the Royal Collection’s 240 anatomical drawings by the artist.

More than 2,400 people turned up for opening night of The Mechanics of Man, forcing cordons to be set up to control the crowds. The collection’s curator, Martin Clayton, who was over from London for the show (which will be free during the Olympics), commented that the request from the Vag was first made five years ago shortly after it had set up another exhibition in New Zealand. “We had really seen how much more appreciative New Zealand was than people in London, so we knew that taking it out to the Commonwealth worked well,” Clayton says. “This is a great coup to have all of them in one spot. Normally, at Windsor Castle, you might get to see one or two of these drawings, but not all of them. They really are the high point of his anatomical career.” Clayton adds that although he did not know the schedule of the Princess Royal, who will be at the Games as president of the British Olympic Association later this week, he would not be surprised if she popped in to the show. “She may be 6,000 miles away from England where she could see them any time,” he quips. “But that is so often how these things work.”

FEBRUARY 9TH, 2010 13:48

Tripping the light: fantastic

I’m being told to empty my mind as I sit with a headset on with four electrodes – three on my ear and one on my forehead – in front of a giant screen. On a small monitor attached to my seat, I see lines that represent my laidback alpha brainwaves drop steadily down to the bottom of the screen (ah, so all that yogic downward-dogging does actually calm you).

Let there be light - InteraXon's thought-controlled experiment Photo credit - Hiran Perera

Now I have to ramp my brain up again: I’m directed to start concentrating hard as I stare at a live screen of the CN Tower in Toronto (I could have chosen Niagara Falls or Ottawa’s parliament buildings). As my beta brainwaves go to work I make the 1,300 LED lights around the structure spin – and, not to show off, but I mean Whirling-Dervish spin. The world’s largest thought-controlled experience is part of the business and tourist opportunities being showcased in Ontario House  – one of many provincial and country pavilions set up for the Vancouver Olympics that morph into party tents during the Games. “Thought control is just like voice activation which was once a thing of science fiction and is now a reality,” says Ariel Garton, CEO of the Ontario-based company, InteraXon. Future brainwave-controlled devices could include cars that know when drivers are drowsy and computers that sense when their users are frustrated. Of course it reads your thoughts but it does not reveal or write them down. “I won’t be asking you to think about your PIN,” she quips. Perhaps, in 2012, people will be illuminating Big Ben or the House of Commons during the Summer Olympics? It’s just a thought… but did you see a light go on?

FEBRUARY 12TH, 2010 16:10

Shot of the Games?

It’s show time…  A Canadian television network has brought in a crew of 1,400 to cover the Games, NBC starts televising its Today morning show at the peak of one of Vancouver’s city mountains, Grouse, and the BBC has scoured the city to secure what it’s calling “the shot of the Games”. “We haven’t been quite as ambitious as to take over our own mountain,” quips Jonathan Bramley, executive producer at BBC Sport  who is in charge of the corporation’s 76-strong team in Canada and working at his 10th Olympics. “But we have been inventive and brought in a good old garden tent – literally – and put it up on a perfect pool deck at the Pan Pacific hotel for those sunny days.” He scoured countless venues and hotels on previous recces to find a spot overlooking the giant Stanley Park, Coal Harbour, the Coast mountains and the 2.4-hectare green (currently brownish) roof of the International Broadcasting Centre  – and virtually out of shot of an industrial pile of sulphur on the opposite shore. If they can’t shoot around it, however, it will still make for a great talking point: Vancouver author Douglas Coupland, who wrote Generation X, used to ski down it while growing up here.

Executive producer Jonathan Bramley shows off the BBC's spot from the Pan Pacific pool deck

“While it is reality and part of the Vancouver scene, the bright yellow mountain is not the most aesthetically pleasing shot across the pond,” says Gord Cutler, the executive producer for the host broadcaster, Canada’s Olympic Broadcast Media Consortium. Taking the hint, the Vancouver Olympic organising committee recently floated oversized neon Olympic rings out on a barge into the ocean in an attempt to obscure it.

FEBRUARY 17TH, 2010 13:50

The ticketless route to the Games

It might not have been the best day for some actual Olympic spectators yesterday with all the cancellations and the foggy start on Cypress mountain, but life was buzzing for those ticketless in the city. Generally Vancouverites have learnt to acquire an Etch-a-Sketch memory to instantly erase the slightest memory of rain, and whip on sandals and shorts in any sliver of sunshine. During these spring Olympics, however, the Games have brought a permanent carnival-like atmosphere to the city no matter what the weather. There are street performers, from girls jumping and doing tricks with giant skipping ropes to men dressed in a makeshift bobsleigh making a point about carbon emissions in the birthplace of Greenpeace, in the newly pedestrianised streets in trendy Yaletown. Public art work has sprung up everywhere and there are massive screens showing all the events attracting crowds (especially the hockey games) in some locations. Thousands are milling around the street, some waiting up to six hours to zipline across Robson, the major shopping street, while others are taking to the outdoor ice rink with the Olympic mascots.

The Olympic mascot Quatchi gets his skates on at Robson Square rink in Vancouver.

Now all the revellers are waiting for the promise – scheduled to be announced today – that they will get a better view of the Olympic cauldron, currently placed behind an un-photogenic chain-link fence.

FEBRUARY 20TH, 2010 17:12

British apathy shows in Vancouver

In an excellent PR move, the Irish House – one of many similar temporary venues in which countries promote their culture through drink, food and music during the Olympics – received enough complaints about its rowdiness to secure a reputation as the party spot in Vancouver. Germany Saxony House – and its imported sturdy-armed servers and access to German athletes – is working overtime, as are Holland Heineken House and Russia’s Sochi House or Russky Dom, which was following the normal protocol as the next host to ensure it had a presence in the current one’s city. Not so for London 2012. Apart from an extensive Visit London advertising campaign at the Seabus (the ferry service between downtown and the North Shore) and the Canadian reaction to criticism from the UK press, Britain’s absence has been acute. The closest expats and British visitors have to anything like a British House is The Three Lions Cafe (one of the nominated pubs for the Telegraph’s popular Best of British competition), where watching sequinned figure skating and Amy Williams’s gold in skeleton on Friday night with a proper pint of Fullers’ London Pride and bangers and mash has never felt so normal. There is also the Candaharon Granville Island, a makeshift pub modelled on the Blackthorn Bar in Belfast, and the British Ex Servicemen’s Association. “It’s been pretty surprising not to see a specific British House here,” remarked Mark Hodge, visiting from Glasgow to report on the culture at Olympics. “I guess the British are pretty apathetic about the Winter Olympics.”

FEBRUARY 18TH, 2010 12:59

Canadians predict karmic comeuppance for British negativity

Vancouver is known as Lotusland, so laidback it is almost horizontal. I’ve even heard “Think fast, hippie” said jokingly by business people on the east coast to their counterparts in British Columbia. But Britain’s negative coverage of these Gameshas even the most chilled west coaster fired up. The death of the luge athlete Nodar Kumaritashvili was a tragedy, but for the rest of the mishaps of these Games there’s been a call for the UK to lighten up. “How is it that Britain, which is hardly a Winter Olympics power and largely irrelevant in Vancouver athletically,” wrote one local columnist, “is creating such a negative stir?” Bloggers write about karmic comeuppance for the city about to host the next Olympics and how Canada’s opinion of Britain as a nation of whingers  is still on solid ground. Local support for the Games, which was a pretty low 53 per cent in an Ipsos-Reid survey taken the week before they started, has increased to 78 per cent. And it looks like Lord Coe is enjoying them too, according to the video on his website at least. Lighten up Britain.