Turtledoves and gray partridges are on the decline in Britain

By Eliza Mackintosh, Published: December 21

(Andrew Darrington/Alamy) – Turtledoves have virtually disappeared from areas of the U.K.

LONDON — Good luck trying to find a partridge in a pear tree in Britain this Christmas, or even less likely — the true love’s token of two turtledoves.

More than 200 years since the popular carol “The Twelve Days of Christmas” was first printed in London, many of its holiday icons are on the decline.

Recent statistics on wild birdlife in the U.K., published in a report by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, have raised concerns about the survival of such classic Christmas symbols as the partridge and turtledove.

While the number of gray partridges in Britain is dwindling, turtledoves have virtually disappeared from Wales and northern areas of England, decreasing by 60 percent between 2005 and 2010. The remaining 14,000 turtledove pairs are confined to southeast England, down from 140,000 breeding pairs in 1970. The grey partridge population, estimated at 43,000 pairs, is faring slightly better with a drop of 30 percent over the same period.

If the decline continues at the same rate, scientists from the Royal Society for Protection of Birds estimate that there could be as few as 1,000 pairs of turtledoves a decade from now.

“We could lose this bird,” Mark Eaton, an RSPB scientist, said. “Many people might not know what one looks like or see one very often, but it’s in the Christmas song, it’s a symbol of love, Shakespeare wrote a poem about turtledoves, it has a great cultural significance here.”

In the spring, Operation Turtle Dove was launched as an emergency response to the bird’s decline. The group’s mission is to get support for research and to help “find ways of restoring the population to get turtledoves back in the countryside, where they belong,” RSPB spokesman Grahame Madge said. The RSPB says that cuts in the British government and European budgets could jeopardize agricultural subsidies, which help farmers care for birdlife on their lands .

“If they become extinct, all that will be left is a line in a song and nothing more,” Eaton added.

Turtledoves and partridges are not the only stars of the song taking a hit in Britain. Maids-a-milking, lords-a-leaping, pipers piping and drummers drumming also have been affected.

Since milkmaids were replaced by modern milking machines in the 1900s, the dairy industry in the United Kingdom has gradually decreased in size. According to statistics from DairyCo, the number of dairy farms in the U.K. has nearly halved over the past 10 years. In June 2011, there were 14,793 dairy farms, compared with 26,556 in 2001.

The House of Lords, which dates to the 14th century, suffered a brief scare this summer when Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg put forward a bill to reform the government body. The House of Lords Reform Bill, which aimed to make the chamber more democratic, was voted down in its second reading. Conservative Members of Parliament argued that reform was not a priority in such a difficult economic climate.

Financial woes could also affect British regiments, which have pipers and drummers in their ranks. Ministry of Defense cuts, announced in July, will result in 23 military units being disbanded or combined, with 17 fewer units overall. The restructuring of the British army will reduce a force of 102,000 soldiers to 82,000 by 2020, although it is not clear what will become of the military bands.

Despite PNC Wealth Management’s claim that the economy is improving, prices continue to rise on almost all items featured in “The Twelve Days of Christmas.” The PNC’s yearly Christmas Price Index reports a 6.1 percent jump in the price tag for all of the song’s 364 gifts, which now rack up to a total of $107,300.

But, in the future, PNC may have to account for the utter lack of some of the carol’s Christmas staples.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/turtledoves-and-gray-partridges-are-on-the-decline-in-britain/2012/12/20/895fd816-4923-11e2-820e-17eefac2f939_story.html

Cash-strapped British cities and towns sell art masterworks, prompting a national debate

Christopher Furlong/Getty Images - Henry Moore’s sculpture, Draped Seated Woman, sits in its present location at Yorkshire Scultpure Park on Nov. 12, 2012 in Wakefield, England.

By Eliza Mackintosh, Published: December 9

London — Seeking to enrich the lives of their citizens, British cities and towns once embraced art for art’s sake, scooping up masterworks for display in squares, train stations, schools and museums. But as Europe scrimps and saves amid a historic push to slash public debt, the motto here now is art for cash’s sake.A fire sale of landmark works owned by British municipalities is generating a national debate over the true value of public art. Though the parade of sales is echoing a trend across Europe that has seen cash-strapped Greece move to sell off islands and Italy peddle a 17th-century palazzo, the outcry here is from those who worry that a push for short-term gains is outweighing the blow to cultural life.

But at a time when the national government’s austerity crusade is slashing local spending, a host of mayors say they have no choice. In an effort to combat $160 million in cuts, for instance, the downtrodden East London borough of Tower Hamlets is selling “Draped Seated Woman,” a 1957 bronze by British abstract sculptor Henry Moore. Moore sold the sculpture to the London County Council in 1962 at the generous price of $11,800, under the stipulation that it remain in a visible public space for everyone to enjoy. “Old Flo,” as the work has been nicknamed, is expected to bring in anywhere from $8 million to $32 million when it goes up for auction at Christie’s in February.

“Henry Moore said he wanted his sculpture to benefit the residents of the borough and through the sale the council can achieve this in a tangible and practical way,” council member Rania Khan, cabinet member for culture and regeneration in Tower Hamlets, said in a statement. “We are not the first council to do this in order to benefit our residents and I am sure we will not be the last.”

Moore’s sculpture is one of many public artworks that have recently been slapped with a price tag. The council of Northampton, a large town north of London, plans to sell an Egyptian statue dating to 2400 B.C. and estimated to be worth $3 million. Last year, Bolton Council in Greater Manchester, which faces budget cuts of more than $95 million, cashed in on 36 pieces of art from its collection, including works by Picasso and the 19th-century English painter John Everett Millais. Meanwhile, Leicestershire County Council in the Midlands raised more than $270,000 last year by selling off art originally purchased for display in schools, and Newcastle City Council offered portions of a public sculpture worth $430,000 on eBay.

The sales have caused an uproar. Filmmaker Danny Boyle, who staged the opening ceremony at the London Olympics, and Nicholas Serota, director of the Tate galleries, joined others from the British art world to denounce the sale in Tower Hamlets. In an open letter published in Britain’s Observer newspaper last month they wrote, “while we understand the financial pressures that Tower Hamlets faces, we feel that the mayor’s proposal goes against the spirit of Henry Moore’s original sale to London County Council.”

“The value of public art is diminished by being monetarized,” Boyle said in a statement last month. “The Moore sculpture defies all prejudice in people’s minds about one of London’s poorest boroughs. That alone makes it priceless to every resident.”

Yet, in several cases, supporters of the sales note that many of the works being offered had been in storage or were not on local display. For instance, the Moore statue in Tower Hamlets — once adorning the Stifford Estate, a low-income housing association in East London — was moved 15 years ago after the compound was demolished and the sculpture was vandalized. It now rests 200 miles north of East London, in the rural rolling hills of 500-acre Yorkshire Sculpture Park in West Yorkshire.

In 2010, conservative council member Tim Archer started a campaign to bring Old Flo back to the borough, but the Tower Hamlets Council shot down the effort because of the exorbitant cost of insuring the sculpture.

Andrew Shoben, professor of public art at Goldsmiths, University of London, sympathizes with Tower Hamlets. He said the sale could offer an opportunity for commissioning new works by up-and-coming artists.

Members of the Tower Hamlets Council say most of the revenue will be used to fund public housing. Although they say a portion will also go toward a local art fund, Rushanara Ali, a member of Parliament for Bethnal Green and Bow, a ward in Tower Hamlets, calls that “wishful thinking.”

“The rationale that has been given by the mayor of Tower Hamlets is that the sale is to delay a gap in terms of costs that the council faces on services,” said Ali, who opposes the decision to sell the sculpture. “The issue is that there has been poor management of public finance.

“There’s a wider question that this whole affair raises, which is, where does it stop? Where do you draw the line in terms of selling off public art?” Ali said.

Ian Leith, founder and deputy chairman of the Public Monuments and Sculpture Association, said he worries that selling national treasures such as “Draped Seated Woman” is becoming a trend.

“We are worried about the precedents for further public removals in order to realize assets,” Leith said. “A whole host of further pieces are potentially at risk.”

http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/europe/cash-strapped-british-cities-and-towns-sell-art-masterworks-prompting-a-national-debate-over-their-true-value/2012/12/09/3500d8ca-3400-11e2-bfd5-e202b6d7b501_story_1.html

 

British report calls for new press watchdog

View Photo Gallery — Lord Justice Brian Leveson unveils his report following an inquiry into media practices on Nov. 29, 2012. Click here for a look back at the British cellphone-hacking scandal, in which News of the World employees allegedly hacked into the cellphones of a slain schoolgirl and the families of London terror victims. But the scandal has continued to build.

By Anthony Faiola and Eliza Mackintosh, Published: November 29

LONDON — After nine months of hearings sparked by phone hacking at Rupert Murdoch’s News of the World tabloid, a landmark report released Thursday recommended new, independent oversight of newspapers in what was seen as a day of reckoning for the British press.The nearly 2,000-page report sets up a politically explosive battle over how to eradicate a “subculture” of illicit news gathering in dark corners of old Fleet Street without treading on freedom of the press. It calls for a new press law — the first since the 17th century — that would safeguard media freedoms in Britain while also creating an independent body to act as a watchdog on an industry that has, thus far, largely regulated itself.

The release of the report, “An Inquiry Into the Culture, Practices and Ethics of the Press,” immediately divided the British political establishment, with Prime Minister David Cameron saying he has “serious concerns and misgivings” about a media watchdog underpinned by law.

“For the first time we would have crossed the Rubicon of writing elements of press regulation into the law of the land,” Cameron said on the floor of Parliament. “We should, I believe, be wary of any legislation that has the potential to infringe free speech and a free press.”

Britain’s famously aggressive print media — and particularly its salacious tabloids — came under fire last year following revelations of widespread phone hacking at News of the World, targeting celebrities and crime victims, including a 13-year-old girl who was murdered. While singling out the now-defunct paper for particular wrongdoing, the report, issued by a panel headed by Lord Justice Brian Leveson, amounted to a far broader indictment of criminal behavior and ethical lapses in the press.

News media and free-speech groups in Britain have bitterly opposed any legislation smacking of government regulation of the press. The report appeared to sidestep their biggest fear — some form of government oversight. But skeptics remained cautious about the part of the Leveson proposal that would undergird the independent oversight body through a new press law.

In presenting his report Thursday, Leveson said part of the proposed law would be designed to protect press freedoms, serving almost like the U.S. Constitution’s First Amendment. He insisted that he was not suggesting government oversight, and he lauded the domestic press as a pillar of British democracy and a treasured haven for the “irreverent, unruly and opinionated.”

But he said it was clear that the current Press Complaints Commission, peppered with newspaper editors and limited in its powers, was not working. Instead, he called for an independent body — free of influence from both the government and news media groups — to be enshrined in law. The powerful new body could investigate and arbitrate claims made by victims of media wrongdoing and issue fines of as much as $1.6 million.

The panel’s nonbinding recommendations put immediate pressure on Cameron. Although he expressed caution about establishing an independent oversight body based on law, he is facing demands from the opposition Labor Party and his own coalition partners, the Liberal Democrats, to fully adopt Leveson’s proposal.

“The ball moves back into the politicians’ court,” Leveson said at a news conference Thursday. “They must now decide who guards the guardians.”

The Press Complaints Commission that now regulates the press here is made up of editors and other notable figures and was criticized last year in the wake of the phone-hacking scandal as a “toothless” organization.

David Hunt, the commission’s chairman, has put forward his own plan for a rehabilitated independent commission with a new “compliance” arm that would be able to impose fines and enforce standards, powers the current body lacks. Guy Black, chairman of the current commission’s funding arm, has also recommended retaining a system of self-regulation but expanding the commission’s authority so it could launch investigations and levy larger fines.

But Leveson dismissed those options for beefed-up self-regulation as not going far enough. “A free press in a democracy holds power to account but, with a few honorable exceptions, the U.K. press has not performed that vital role in the case of its own power,” he said.

Many of the practices documented by the Leveson report are already illegal under British law, suggesting that the problem is as much one of tolerance or inept law enforcement as of journalistic ethics. The report, however, found no evidence of widespread wrongdoing by law enforcement officials, although it cited specific examples of gray areas, including cozy relationships that led to unofficial tip-offs and informal briefings.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/europe/british-report-calls-for-new-press-watchdog/2012/11/29/02cd0194-3a36-11e2-9258-ac7c78d5c680_story.html 

The British celebrate with Obama

Karla Adam & Eliza Mackintosh

November 7, 2012 at 9:22 am

LONDON — The British  don’t need much of an excuse to saunter into their local pub, but the U.S. presidential election was a reason for many to settle in for the entire night.

At the airy Redhook bar in central London, a stone’s throw from the city’s centuries-old meat market, about 200 people, mostly British, packed in to watch around-the-clock coverage and sip on drinks assigned according to political allegiances (for Democrats, a New York sour cocktail; for Republicans, a glass of Chardonnay).

The British were overwhelmingly rooting for President Obama — one Mitt Romney supporter at the bar said he was “as rare as Bigfoot” — but praise for the president among many here was qualified.

“I’m satisfied, but intrigued by the outcome,” said Sam Meiklejohn, a 22-year-old Londoner who stayed up all night with two friends from law school to watch the results trickle in. “What will he now achieve?” he mused, adding that the president could no longer blame his predecessor for America’s economic woes.

While the British aren’t as enthralled with Obama as they were in 2008 when he received rock-star treatment during a week-long foreign tour through Europe, many said they preferred his policies to Romney’s, especially those on social issues.

“The things that fire up the Republican base are regarded as wrong or irrelevant” in Britain, said Peter Kellner, president of the British polling agency YouGov, citing issues such as abortion, gay rights and climate change.

The overwhelming number of the British who were pulling for Obama woke up — or went to sleep — with the news they wanted to hear.

“I’m over the moon and relieved,” said Christopher Benjamin, a 22-year-old law school student sipping champagne at an all-night election party in central London. “Obama can now enact his eight-year-plan, and I can now go to bed.”

In its editorial, the Guardian newspaper said the win, which “wasn’t big” and “wasn’t pretty,” was “good for Americans, good for America, and good for the world.”

British Prime Minister David Cameron tweeted “warm congratulations” to his “friend” and said he looked forward to working together. He also told reporters on a tour of the Middle East that one of the “first things” he wanted to talk to Obama about was how to solve the crisis in Syria.

But if an Obama victory was the preferred one in Britain, enthusiasm was tempered from that in 2008.

Michael Cox, professor of international relations at London School of Economics, said most British people were “relieved or happy, or quietly satisfied, but I don’t think there’s the sense of elation here from 2008 — Europe has moved on.”

Polls show that if the British could vote, the large majority would choose Obama over Romney, who did himself no favors when he questioned London’s ability to host a successful Olympic Games during his visit to Britain in July.

Derek Knight, a BBC producer, tweeted: “hey, Mitt, turns out our Olympics worked out fine. How was your election campaign?”

Eliza Mackintosh contributed to this report

Olympic Rings, minus one

Olympic street art in East London #wpolympics

Here is my Socialcam of the site: http://socialcam.com/v/dPVxj1Dx

Is it a Banksy?

After some research T.J. Ortenzi reported:

It looks like that bit of street art is not Banksy’s. It’s by a street artist named “Criminal Chalkist” per IsThisTheFuture.Co.Uk. They in turn link to Criminal Chalkist’s Facebook Page. And a Reddit commenter points out that this design is actually based on an image that first appeared in 2011.

Is London the most social Olympics ever?

From President Obama congratulating Team USA members like Michael Phelps on Twitter, to athletes being thrown out of competition for posting offensive messages, London 2012 has undoubtedly been the most social Olympics yet.

On July 26, Chloe Sladden, VP of Media for Twitter, wrote in a blog post that there were more Olympic-related tweets posted in one day leading up to the Opening Ceremonies than during the whole of the 2008 Beijing Games. Since then, record numbers of tweets were sent when Gabby Douglas won the women’s all-around gymnastics gold medal with 38,000 tweets pouring in per minute and during Phelps and Lochte’s showdown in the 200-meter individual medley with 25,000 per minute.

To harness the overwhelming response to the games, the iconic London landmark the London Eye has even been programmed to reflect overall moods of Olympic-related tweets in Britain through a light show.

Whether athletes celebrating their victories post pictures of their gold medals, or tweet about hanging out with rap stars, the world is getting a peek into the lives of those inside the rings at the Olympic Games and people are loving it.

The hype has generated hundreds of stories, not on what records Olympians are breaking, but what tweets they are posting. News media have taken to reporting on the top athletes to follow, not in their events, but online.

Whether Olympians use Twitter for promotional purposes or just to share experiences with friends, family and fans, the ability to see what our favorite athletes are up to is simply addictive.

For those who have missed out on some untelevised Olympic moments, here are some highlights:

Team USA’s “Fab Five” gymnasts have been the media darlings of London 2012. Here they are, minus Aly Raisman, clowning around on top of a double-decker bus in London.

Party on the busssss!!!!(; instagr.am/p/OENVC6KiRa/

—
McKayla Maroney (@McKaylaMaroney) August 08, 2012

Only one day after Andy Murray beat Roger Federer in the men’s tennis final and went on to score a silver in mixed doubles, the Scotsman decided to loan out his medals to some of his furry friends. Murray’s girlfriend, Kim Sears, reportedly runs the Twitter feed for their dogs Rusty and Maggie, who are pictured here wearing silver and gold, respectively.

Here we go folks... Just checking to make sure Rusty definitely has the silver, obviously. http://t.co/Gk48XWBI

—
Maggie May (@maggiemay_hem) August 06, 2012

Although Ryan Lochte’s love life may have received a lot of attention during this Olympic games, Michael Phelps’s appearance with model girlfriend Megan Rossee at a Speedo event in London on Monday made a big splash in the media. On August 5, Rossee posted pictures with Phelps, who was posing with a handful of medals.

Yay Michael :) instagr.am/p/N8x6cpv7T1/

—
megan rossee (@meganrossee) August 05, 2012

Since his Olympic stint concluded, Ryan Lochte attended the US men’s basketball game against Argentina earlier this week where he hung out with rapper Ludacris.

Chillin at the basketball game with @Ludacris and @conorjdwyer #Jeah http://t.co/F7vLrIOj

—
Ryan Lochte (@ryanlochte) August 06, 2012

Usain Bolt celebrated his 100-meter win with three members of the Swedish women’s handball team back in the Olympic village.

A gaza we say hmmm mmm instagr.am/p/N-FLPDIcc6/

—
Usain St. Leo Bolt (@usainbolt) August 06, 2012

U.S. hurdler Lolo Jones is known for her outspoken antics on Twitter. She snapped this picture with a London police officer on her way into the Opening Ceremonies.

This is not Halloween... It's me heading to the Olympic ceremonies with a London policeman instagr.am/p/NmMUrrnJzI/

—
Lolo Jones (@lolojones) July 27, 2012

Socialcam: Houses of Parliament

London 2012 screening of iconic Olympic moments at the Houses of Parliament via @elizamack #wpsummer

Check out the full Socialcam video here of the tribute to fantastic Olympic moments:

4J5Jh897?autostart=true

Fans turn to Twitter to search for Olympic tickets

Olympic Stadium, site of the track and field events (AFP PHOTO / JEWEL SAMAD)

By Eliza Mackintosh

After outrage erupted over swaths of empty seats at Olympic events earlier this week organizers scrambled to put more tickets on sale.

Meanwhile, a flurry of activity began on Twitter, when an account unaffiliated with the Olympic organizing body LOCOG began posting updates on ticket availability.

In an effort to help people searching for tickets, Adam Naisbitt, a technology entrepreneur from the UK, wrote a computer program to monitor the Olympic ticket site for offerings. The project began in hopes of finding his fiancé tickets to gymnastics events, but developed into a Twitter feed called @2012TicketAlert, which has been followed by thousands.

Naisbitt’s Twitter account gained the attention of LOCOG itself, who have now limited access to their server. A London 2012 spokesman said that it blocked all computerized polling of its ticketing site, according to the BBC.

Naisbitt says he feels “shocked” by LOCOG’s reaction, given the apparent issues with ticket purchasing.

Many members of the public still hopeful to get their hands on some of the few remaining tickets greeted the Twitter feed with praise. After having little luck on LOCOG’s website, Twitter users like Ashley Hope posted messages thanking @2012TicketAlert: “If it wasn’t for @2012TicketAlert I wouldn’t be going to the Olympic Stadium next week. #OnceInALifetime #OlympicFever @London2012″

Naisbitt reported hundreds of messages like these from Twitter users who were able to get tickets by using his alert system: “Wow – thank you all for your kind words, that was an amazing experience. Let’s hope LOCOG take note – you guys are all medal worthy!” he wrote on Twitter.

Those who had tried to use the official ticketing site reported hours of searching through events resulted in finding that sessions that appeared available in fact were not. The process has been satirized by BuzzFeed as a “soul-destroying experience.”

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/london-2012-olympics/wp/2012/08/03/fans-turn-to-twitter-to-search-for-olympic-tickets/ 

Olympic Games host city London struggles to strike economic gold

View Photo Gallery — London 2012 Olympic Games: Opening Ceremonies: Britain greeted the world with an extravagant celebration that included Bond, the Bard and a Beatle — and the country’s jubilee queen.

By Anthony Faiola and Eliza Mackintosh, Published: August 1

LONDON — Like so many proprietors across this host city, restaurateur Albert Siu could almost hear the cha-ching of Olympic gold. But almost a week into the Games of the XXX Olympiad , he stood amid empty tables at his eatery in the normally bustling West End theater district this week and asked the same question being posed by so many Londoners: Where have all the tourists gone?

Britain gambled $15 billion on hosting the Olympics, an investment being watched closely across crisis-battered Europe, where the debate over stimulus vs. austerity has reached a fevered pitch. But early evidence is suggesting just how hard it can be for modern host cities to cash in on the Games.

The 2000 Summer Games brought an influx of international tourists who packed hotels across Sydney. But, like Athens and Beijing, which saw net declines in summer visitors in 2004 and 2008, respectively, the London Games have turned into a tale of two economies.

“We employed more staff because we were told millions of people were coming to London,” said Siu, 54, the manager of the Melanie Italian Restaurant, around the corner from the Palace Theater, which is staging the musical “Singin’ in the Rain.” “Now we’ve realized it’s not getting busy, and we’ll have to give them notice.”

On one hand, a thriving events-related market is chugging along near stadium sites in East London, Wimbledon and Greenwich, where businesses with captive audiences of ticket holders are reporting bang-up sales. But with non-Olympic visitors apparently scared away from one of the world’s largest tourist destinations by the talk of crowds and chaos — and with large numbers of Londoners opting to go on vacation or work from home during the Games — other parts of this typically thriving city of 8.1 million people have suddenly turned into ghost towns.

Traffic on roads in Central London is down 20 percent. London tour operators are reporting drops of 30 percent or more. At some of London’s hottest museums, the normally long entrance lines have disappeared. London’s famous Black Cab drivers are griping about a rare shortage of fares.

Luxury hotels tapped by Olympic organizers to provide rooms for the Games, as well as many of those near event sites, appear to be doing quite well. But some other one-to-four-star London hotels, many of which had tried to jack up prices by 50 to 80 percent, are half-empty. The West End show “Sweeney Todd” is taking a partial hiatus during the Olympics. Excess seats to hits such as “Singin’ in the Rain,” for which tickets can run upward of $130, were being offered by online discounters this week for as little as $23 ($39.50 with dinner).

Things were eerily quiet this week at the Victoria and Albert Museum, home to the world’s largest collection of decorative arts and usually packed this time of year. During the Olympics, the museum even pushed closing time back from 5:45 p.m. to 10 p.m. to accommodate crowds. But evenings have been surprisingly slow — so slow that on Monday after 8 p.m., only two people attended a fashionable exhibit on British glamour.

Echoing Londoners who are scratching their heads over the early forecasts of Olympic mobs, Sophie-Anne Caie, a 24-year-old gallery assistant at the museum, said, “London seems deserted.”

The tourists who do come are likely to spend less on attractions outside the Olympics venues. During the 1984 Summer Games in Los Angeles, for instance, theme parks saw a decline in revenue.

U.S. men’s eights, led by James twins, storm into finals

By Eliza Mackintosh, Tuesday, July 31, 9:09 PM

LONDON — On Aug 2., the U.S. men’s eight will row on the majestic Eton Dorney Lake for the Olympic final. Among their roster of oarsmen are 6-feet-5 twin brothers with winning smiles.

Grant and Ross James, 24, grew up in a small town in Illinois, where their single mom raised them on a first-grade teacher’s salary. The boys weren’t involved in competitive sports growing up, despite relentless recruitment from basketball coaches. They played baseball for fun, but invested most of their time in becoming Eagle Scouts and model citizens.

Their mother, Cindy Warren-James or “Mama James,” as the boys lovingly refer to her, will be watching them race in the men’s final Wednesday. The boys nominated her for Procter & Gamble’s “Thank You Mom” campaign, which helped sponsor her to see her sons compete in the Olympic games.

The brothers’ Olympic journey started just seven years ago. While attending their freshman orientation at the University of Wisconsin, Badgers rowing coach Chris Clark ushered them aside.

“They hit the profile, and they were twins,” Clark said of his first encounter with the boys. “Double whammy.”

Wisconsin’s rowing program is built largely from a pool of beginners like the James brothers, who have never touched an oar in their life.

“They pull in mostly walk-ons, and they’re able to shape them into elite oarsmen and catch them up to speed,” Grant James said of Wisconsin’s program. “I attribute them with a lot of our success and preparing us for this level.”

“They’re enablers,” Clark said of the twins. “They make the boat go. They’re flow guys; they’re glue guys. They’re 100 percent reliable.”

Which may have been the reason the twins were the only two rowers kept on board from the 2011 team. Among the six new oarsmen are two Washington area high school graduates: Giuseppe Lanzone of Annandale, a McLean alum; and Potomac’s David Banks, who went to Churchill.

“Not one of these boys is an Ivy Leaguer,” Clark said. “It’s another interesting thing that busts stereotypes about the sport. . . .

“Six out of the eight of us are engineers, and we have a male model. He’s kind of like our opposite end of the spectrum. He keeps us level, and we keep him a little bit nerdy. We all get along really well.”

The new team is under the guidance of Mike Teti, who coached the U.S. boat to victory in 2004, and to bronze in Beijing. Labeled a “screamer” in a recent profile by the New Yorker, Teti has been an exceptional coach, the James brothers said.

“He likes to put you in the most stressful position possible while training,” Grant James said. “I think it’s just because if you can handle that you should be able to handle race day when everything’s on the line and the nerves start showing up. He yells and coaches do that. He does it when it’s due, but we take it.”

Added Ross: “We’ve been doing really well under his leadership.”

That was certainly apparent in their qualifying race Saturday, when they made a powerful statement by winning their heat and advancing straight to the final.

“We have one race for all the marbles,” Ross said. “So that’s what we’re focusing on right now.”

Although they’re up against some stiff competition, namely Germany with a three-year winning streak, they have a solid shot at a medal.

“Their lack of a race record isn’t an impediment for a team like this, a little boat magic and things can fly,” Clark said.