Ice magic

It would be rude not to mention the Winter Olympics, wouldn't it? Apart from anything else, it has raised the serious issue that I don't know what the term is to describe someone or something from Vancouver: Vancouvian? Vancouverian? Vancouverite? Canadian? I looked up "Vancouver" and "adjective" online and was simply informed that Adjective are a post-punk musical combo from Vancouver. I pursued this line of investigation no further.

Whatever. We're here to talk about figure skating. Figure skating is a secret love of mine, if only one that shows up every four years when the Winter Olympics are in town. You can't deny the glamour of it: all those sparkly skintight rigouts (the men), the blood red talons and American tan tights (the women), the baited breath, the adoration, the furs, the flowers, the fabulous Clare Balding.

So there was I, watching the "free" skating (just like the Clipart image above), when I began to notice how intriguing the crazy names are for all the figure-skating techniques the artistes stack their performance points up with. Triple toe loop, twin triple twist, double axel, salad bowl (well, I may have misheard that last one)... The list goes on, and everything in the list, it turns out, is classified into sub-lists. I am going to be swotting up here, where I may have also inadvertently stumbled across a new true love: synchronized skating. Awesome.