The Clog

Our second dispatch from London sees the Lord Mayor comparing athletes to glistening otters, the abuse of corporate perquisites, and universal truth about bums (butts, not homeless people).

Grumblers are going to grumble, but London 2012's Opening Ceremony moved out of the lengthy shadow of Beijing's 2008 spectacle in commendably British fashion. On to the sports, says Classical London correspondent Edwin Smith.

Claressa Shields is 17 years old. She's from Flint; she's moved four times in the last year. She's into Twitter, boys, and music. Come September, she'll be back at Northwestern High School in Flint for her senior year. But between now and then, she'll be the youngest woman ever to box in the Olympics. 

It is the poet's job to provoke us to think, and feel, in new ways. It is the spammer's job to embed hyperlinks to bootleg headphones and running shoes in chunks of garbage prose. Here is where the two meet, on the battlefield of politics and prose. Or whatever.