London: Mayor & More

At Guardian Comment: An Olympic Walk

I did the walk on Saturday. This piece went live yesterday:

On Saturday I did what all self-respecting London Olympics sceptics do: I walked round the site of the Olympic Park adjoining Stratford and pondered the wild folly of it all.

There was plenty to confirm my view: the glossy billboard adhered to the wooden perimeter fence explaining at great, resource-consuming length the environment-friendliness of its forthcoming electrified wire successor; the insistence of a guard near the security centre that I cease photographing the images of joyful, Olympics-inspired fellow Londoners adorning its surrounds; my calculation that half the 2012 track finals would be easily completed within the space of the few minutes I spent contemplating the fawn moonscape of the site itself, where the stadium will take the best part of four years to build.

Seb Coe & A Hole In The Ground

From yesterday's Observer:

"From his 23rd-floor offices in Canary Wharf, Sebastian Coe is looking out across east London. In the far distance the cranes of the Olympic Park are just visible, and Lord Coe, chairman of the organising committee for the 2012 London Games, gazes toward them with proprietorial interest. Running the Olympics is about the closest you can get these days to fashioning your own private Xanadu and Coe is very much the Great Khan of this project; so far, however, the stately pleasure dome he has decreed is a monumental hole in the ground. He views it, none the less, across Hackney Marshes, with infectious excitement."

Now read on.

Olympics Protest

By the River Lee in Hackney. That small girl didn't do it, by the way.

UPDATE, 12.25: Mr Locker of Stamford Hill directs us here.

Pool Seduction

From the Guardian:

"The jury that selected Zaha Hadid's groundbreaking but now hugely over-budget plan for the London Olympics aquatics centre raised worries about its cost and design before it was chosen as 'the jewel in the crown' of the 2012 site. The panel warned the building would have a timber ceiling prone to maintenance problems, and that details were so sketchy there could be unforeseen costs involved in converting it after the games. Nevertheless, officials picked her 'seductive' design over five other options."

Groan. Now read on.

Olympic Luxury

From a Telegraph leader:

"Oddly...the promoters of the [2012 Olympics] prefer to make their case in financial terms. The London Games, they say, will regenerate the East End and bring much-needed infrastructure to the capital. Like most arguments based on incidental benefits, this one doesn't really work. If London needs a particular railway connection, it should build one, rather than building an Olympic village and tacking a line on to it. And it would be more efficient to hand out wads of notes in Stratford than to spend it on facilities for IOC grandees...the facilities left over from the 2004 Athens games are already shuttered and decrepit. But most Athenians take the view that a dent in the national budget is a price worth paying for their moment of patriotism."

Discuss?

Olympic Accounting

As the IOC arrives to inspect the works...

"The man in charge of construction for the 2012 Olympics has welcomed plans by London's new mayor, Boris Johnson, to appoint a team of city financial experts to examine the Games bill, insisting that there is nothing to hide."

Now read on.