Carlos123 comments

I think that if u can do the same thing - ie swim in 4 different ways and add almost the same number of relay team events then swimming has more than twice as many opportunities for medals as say athletics . Wouldnt a better measure of success be the athlete that has set the most world records that stand for a significant period. He has won 8 relay medals - so that gives us some perspective. Still probably the greatest swimmer - 11 individual olympic medals - nothing to be sniffed at. My picks for what its worth are phelps, carl lewis, dawn fraser, jesse owens and that awsome norwegian cross country skier - cant remember his name

Yes this is tragic - as a visitor to Japan on a number of occassions I was fascinated by many aspects of japanesse life that we were able to observe. I do remember noticing a distinct lack of smiling faces - perhaps just serious or was i just only noticing commuters on their way to work? Suicide is also a noticible theme in some of Haruki Murakimi's brilliant work which is understandable. Well perhaps not a theme but its there if you know what I mean. That 31,000 figure sounds disturbing

Why do models in Japan tend to go for curly hair - straight natural hair is much hotter!!