Terrific write-up of yesterday's events, RTB.

What a fantastic day for all of your family to treasure forever.

So, the memsahib and I are having a little light supper (quail served on a bed of unicorn horn, since you ask) and one of the staff mentions that an interview is being shown on the C4 news that might interest the master.

Naturally, my wife's instinct was to disembowel the presumptuous guttersnipe with one of our silver Regency dodo carvers, but he managed to remind me that I was interested to see Pamela Relph compete, just before the memsahib reached him.

What a fine young woman, RTB. You must be immensely proud of her, and she seems to combine being a supreme athlete with no little charm and intelligence. Please pass on the heartiest congratulations of all of us at the Towers.

....

http://shop.royalmail.com/paralympicsgb-gold-medal-winner-miniature-sheets/paralympicsgb-gold-medal-winner-miniature-sheet-rowing-mixed-coxed-four-ltamix4+/invt/sku00008028/

3 nice chicks, which is Roger's?

Thanks looks a lovely girl. Does she like cats?

I must say that we should compliment the rest of the crew too!

Particularly the big guy in the middle, who looks quite outstanding!

Brilliant stuff, worth all the hours and hours of practice, worry, travel, work and enjoyment.
It will, and should, be party time in the 'thebutler' household for ages.

Here's to all the wins to come!!

roger, I share your frustration!

It is beyond diabolical imo!

I think most of their cameras etc, were dug in for the day at the equestrian events!

Nice bit of coverage on BBC South Today just now, interview with Pam & team.

is that Pam on the One Show now?

With my ultra pragmatic (some might say 'cynical') head on, I'm trying to see this from Channel Fours point and still come up with a frustrating vacuum.

They need to sell advertising space. No problem with that and that's what you expect when you watch anything on a commercial channel.

So what better way of pulling in punters than with an event that, beforehand at least, might have been expected to deliver British medals. Throw in the 'feelgood' factor of actually covering the national anthem live and a bit of Royalty stardust (Prince Edward, Kate Middleton and Sophie Wessex were all at Dorney on Sunday) and you have a nice little viewer-friendly package that would have delivered (IMO) viewers in spades.

If they'd done their homework properly they would have realised that after the heats, Tom Aggar was far from the shoe-in they blithely promoted him as. Tom is a thoroughly pleasant man as well as a warrior of an athlete and would have been embarrassed abouth them virtually hanging a medal round his neck before he raced. C4 could have made this a real competitive battle if they had approached their coverage professionally. Instead they attempted to re-write their pre-determined script, failing even to do that properly with a lousy camera angle only showing Tombeing pipped for third in the final few seconds of his race when the Russian  appeared as if from nowhere.

Ditto Sam and Nick in the Pair. Nick Beighton's story chokes me up every time I read about it. He is a fine man and whilst that in itself does not confer sainthood and blanket coverage, their efforts did not deserve to be ignored.

I won't comment further on the coverage the Four received, one, because I don't want this to come off as a father's whinge and two, because Pam and her crew deserve their day in the sunshine rather than be potentially broadsided by an issue like the coverage their event received by Channel Four.

roger she wins a gold in the looks department too

I wasn't in,so missed the race,but there are three other channels showing the Paralympics. They are 450-452 on Sky. Also on Virgin and Freesat. Did anyone check if the race was shown live on one of those channels? It would certainly be unforgiveable if none of them showed it.

Anyway,well done to the five of them.

*link at the bottom of page 2 by Jayco.

Just found an interview on YouTube which was nice to see.

Pam is a very pretty, intelligent and articulate girl for sure.

Unlike her very SSilly dad!

You're welcome, RTB.

The coverage by Ch4 was terrible in the extreme and continues to be so. There's still no sign of the full race or the studio interview of the mixed coxed four on their website.

However, I've managed to find a short video released by the Press Association of Pam and crew on their thoughts after the medal ceremony:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LH5PoR8Bsqg

Yes, Ch4 definitely missed out on what would have been a great commercial opportunity for them if they'd have concentrated on the rowing on Sunday instead of (seemingly) being immersed in the pool (pardon the pun).

I felt sure they'd make more of Pam's crew's success when the news reached the studio that they'd won - but far from it.
It was almost like an afterthought.
For them then not to even show the medal celebration was mind-boggling in its ineptitude.

Excellent performance from young Butler bit of a stunner too

Do we know yet whether there will be a golden postbox in her honour?

Alun - Gold postbox story from the local paper...


http://www.bucksherald.co.uk/news/local-news/rower-s-golden-display-results-in-dazzling-new-post-box-in-weston-turville-1-4220928

Well done all involved - a great performance.  As mentioned it is a shame the TV coverage were showing a swimming heat (which did not even involve GB).