The 2012 Olympics will probably be held in: Paris But: there's still a chance it might be London So: let me dream for the next 75 hours, won't you?
Olympic snapshots: the Olympic Zone Now: This is MarshgateLane, about half a mile west of Stratford and just up the road from my house. I guess a long time ago it was quiet a country lane snaking between the triple braids of the River Lea, surrounded by grass, farm animals and the odd passing bird. Not any more. Marshgate Lane now runs through some of the most dismal scenery East London has to offer. It's a drab polluted wasteland covered by warehouses, small factories and discarded junk. Pylons stalk the grey horizon. Lorries thunder down from the M11 delivering fats and waste cooking oil to tall belching incinerators. Workers in orange dungarees eat their sandwiches surrounded by a sea of litter. A long queue of rusting cars lie trashed along the roadside waiting their turn to be cannibalised for spare parts. And, just to give you a true sense of the place, I took this photograph while standing on top of a giant sewerpipe. Marshgate Lane is a place you'd hate to work, not a place you'd like to live, and it could be so so much better. 2012: If London is awarded the 2012 Olympics, this part of London will be transformed. And about time too. Look down from the sewer pipe in seven years time and you'll see a striking Olympic Stadium rising anew in the centre of the photograph. It takes quite a leap of imagination to picture anything quite so enormous and important here today, but maybe a leap of imagination is exactly what's required around here.
Olympic snapshots: the Olympic Stadium Here's a view from the opposite angle, looking south towards the intended site of London's 2012 Olympic stadium. As you can see there's a lot of water round here. The River Lea passes along the western perimeter of the site, and we're only a stone's throw from the lockkeeper'scottages from which the Big Breakfast used to be broadcast. But there are several other rivers threading through the site, all part of the Bow Back Rivers, each with their own wildlife and ecosystem. Here at Carpenter's Lock two of those braids join, leaving a scrap of land inbetween that's just big enough to hold an Olympic stadium. The water also provides a useful natural barrier that would act as a security cordon around the future arena, should it ever be built. Today you can still walk freely following a series of overgrown footpaths along the riverbanks, taking in the greenery, the desolation and the silence. Very few local people appear to bother to tread these paths, far from the madding crowds, but those of us who frequent the remoter stretches of the Bow Back Rivers prefer it that way.
Olympic snapshots: the Stadium (interior) If you try standing here in seven years time you'll probably be arrested, because this is the very centre of the proposed Olympic stadium. Stand on this spot on the evening of Friday 27th July 2012 and you'll be whisked away in a heaving sea of choreographed flag-waving schoolchildren, all taking part in the extravagant made-for-TV spectacle of the opening ceremony of the XXXth Olympiad. And over the following fortnight the world's best athletes (and the world's most convincing steroid-takers) will stand here on the winners rostrum to receive their Olympic medals. Hence I was very disturbed to discover that there are already three flags fluttering over this very spot, and that they're all German. That's because there's a Mercedes after-sales centre on the site today, the sort of grey shed you bring your car back to when it stops working - I guess it beats turning up early and staking your claim with a beach towel. But a single cross of St George still flutters proudly in the forecourt of Bywaters skip hire service nextdoor, so maybe there's still hope.
Olympic snapshots: the Stadium (interior) I guess few snapshots sum up the huge amount of redevelopment needing to be carried out if London wins the 2012 Olympics better than this picture. Across the road from the Mercedes garage, still well inside the 400m running track, I found a cheap karaoke machine and four smashed fridge-freezers, all lined up side by side on the pavement. They've got to go. In just seven years flat Marshgate Lane needs to be transformed from an industrial dumping ground littered by abandoned white goods into a state-of-the-art arena for world class sport. There are warehouses to dismantle, there are pylons to bring down, there are contours to level and there are polluted bushes to clear away. Admittedly many of the businesses that will be eradicated reallydon't want to go, but their removal will bring about the 'legacy' redevelopment that remains London's trump card over the Paris bid. Vote to bring the Olympics here and there'll be no more fridge freezers, no more karaoke machines and no more waste. Maybe, just maybe, this place has a bright future.
The London Olympics? 2012
Now: This is Marshgate Lane, about half a mile west of Stratford and just up the road from my house. I guess a long time ago it was quiet a country lane snaking between the triple braids of the River Lea, surrounded by grass, farm animals and the odd passing bird. Not any more. Marshgate Lane now runs through some of the most dismal scenery East London has to offer. It's a drab polluted wasteland covered by warehouses, small factories and discarded junk. Pylons stalk the grey horizon. Lorries thunder down from the M11 delivering fats and waste cooking oil to tall belching incinerators. Workers in orange dungarees eat their sandwiches surrounded by a sea of litter. A long queue of rusting cars lie trashed along the roadside waiting their turn to be cannibalised for spare parts. And, just to give you a true sense of the place, I took this photograph while standing on top of a giant sewerpipe. Marshgate Lane is a place you'd hate to work, not a place you'd like to live, and it could be so so much better.
Here's a view from the opposite angle, looking south towards the intended site of London's 2012 Olympic stadium. As you can see there's a lot of water round here. The River Lea passes along the western perimeter of the site, and we're only a stone's throw from the lockkeeper's cottages from which the Big Breakfast used to be broadcast. But there are several other rivers threading through the site, all part of the Bow Back Rivers, each with their own wildlife and ecosystem. Here at Carpenter's Lock two of those braids join, leaving a scrap of land inbetween that's just big enough to hold an Olympic stadium. The water also provides a useful natural barrier that would act as a security cordon around the future arena, should it ever be built. Today you can still walk freely following a series of overgrown footpaths along the riverbanks, taking in the greenery, the desolation and the silence. Very few local people appear to bother to tread these paths, far from the madding crowds, but those of us who frequent the remoter stretches of the Bow Back Rivers prefer it that way.
If you try standing here in seven years time you'll probably be arrested, because this is the very centre of the proposed Olympic stadium. Stand on this spot on the evening of Friday 27th July 2012 and you'll be whisked away in a heaving sea of choreographed flag-waving schoolchildren, all taking part in the extravagant made-for-TV spectacle of the opening ceremony of the XXXth Olympiad. And over the following fortnight the world's best athletes (and the world's most convincing steroid-takers) will stand here on the winners rostrum to receive their Olympic medals. Hence I was very disturbed to discover that there are already three flags fluttering over this very spot, and that they're all German. That's because there's a Mercedes after-sales centre on the site today, the sort of grey shed you bring your car back to when it stops working - I guess it beats turning up early and staking your claim with a beach towel. But a single cross of St George still flutters proudly in the forecourt of Bywaters skip hire service nextdoor, so maybe there's still hope.
I guess few snapshots sum up the huge amount of redevelopment needing to be carried out if London wins the 2012 Olympics better than this picture. Across the road from the Mercedes garage, still well inside the 400m running track, I found a cheap karaoke machine and four smashed fridge-freezers, all lined up side by side on the pavement. They've got to go. In just seven years flat Marshgate Lane needs to be transformed from an industrial dumping ground littered by abandoned white goods into a state-of-the-art arena for world class sport. There are warehouses to dismantle, there are pylons to bring down, there are contours to level and there are polluted bushes to clear away. Admittedly many of the businesses that will be eradicated really don't want to go, but their removal will bring about the 'legacy' redevelopment that remains London's trump card over the Paris bid. Vote to bring the Olympics here and there'll be no more fridge freezers, no more karaoke machines and no more waste. Maybe, just maybe, this place has a bright future.
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If you try standing here in seven years time you'll probably be arrested, because this is 
I guess few snapshots sum up the huge amount of redevelopment needing to be carried out if London wins the 2012 Olympics better than 