The Olympic Flag, which consists of five interlocking coloured rings, was created by Frenchman Pierre de Coubertin, the founder of the modern Olympic games, and unveiled in 1914.

Coubertin said that the five rings represent the five parts of the world embracing "Olympism" and competing against each other: Africa, The Americas, Asia, Europe and Oceania. The interlacing of the rings represents the unity and coming together of athletes from all parts of the world. Coubertin did not associate individual rings with individual continents.

The six colours of blue, dark yellow, black, green, red and white—the field on which the rings are set—"reproduce the colours of every country", and at least one is found on every national flag (I believe that’s still true).

I was thinking of including a sketch of each of the Olympic sports, but depending on how you count them, there are 32 sports and over 300 events.

You can learn more than you ever wanted to know about the history of the Olympic Flag in The Story of the Rings by Karl Lennartz (pdf). 

The Olympic flag and various other Olympic Properties (like the rings, torch and motto) are © IOC.

Great Britain, the British Isles, the United Kingdom - eh?

The Olympic Flag

The classic game theory dilemma where two prisoners are individually offered a deal if they’ll betray the other prisoner. But if they both betray each other then it’s bad news for both of them. What they choose depends on what they think the other will choose.

The prisoner’s dilemma

I'm not advocating it. It just seems to always be the case.

Rule 1 of indoor games: Play until something gets broken

Beaches are amazing for play. Every time we go to a beach, I think, if you were to try and design the perfect toy, it would have many of the remarkable attributes of a beach - particularly the self-tidying feature. At some point, I should stop thinking that and just enjoy the beach.

If you like beaches too, you might enjoy the podcast episode fun at the beach where we talked about just what makes beaches amazing.

Beaches: amazing for play

In other news, I think the offside rule should be changed in football so that the goalkeeper doesn’t count when evaluating offside. Always seems stupid to me when the standard definition involves ‘the last defender’ but the technical definition is the 'second-to-last defender’ because the goalkeeper is usually one of those. Let’s just not count the goalkeeper and make the thing simpler.

The offside rule

Tactics drawn from How to Use Math to Dominate at Monopoly.

Win at Monopoly

A worthy ball juggling challenge next time you’re messing around with a football.

The magnificent seven

These are the two things I always look out for when setting up for pool, the line and the C. The rest falls into place.

Set up for pool

The real spoil sports are those who remind you that you’re in a game at all.

How to be a spoil sport

Control a cue ball

Build a play tent

Requires little equipment and is generally more fun and involving than the real thing.

Play your own Scattergories

Strategies honed over the years for winning at Boggle.

Games sketches