London 2012 - final day Postcards from around the Olympic Park (quick, while it still is) (sigh, was)
• Bow: Across the Lea, the Olympic Stadium rises. It's been strange having it as a near neighbour over the last few years, even stranger seeing it brought so vividly to life. White and spiky by day, brightly lit by night, this former patch of industrial estate has hosted umpteen world records over the last fortnight. But it'll be a while before passengers on the upper deck of the number 25 bus catch sight of it. They're queueing at the roundabout, and they could be queueing for some time. All the lights were rephased before the Games to the advantage of the Olympics Lanes beyond, and seven seconds is all that traffic's from Bow's been rationed. The cars and buses and coaches wait patiently, while the police vans sit there with side doors open, the coppers inside tapping away bored on their phones. Three ladies are standing lost by McDonalds, trying to work out how on earth to get to Fish Island. They're clutching the official blue London tourist map, but this gives no clue that the A12 has no footpath and the parallel towpath is closed. I try to offer directions but it's a complicated route which I'm not sure they'll follow. Until the Olympic Park is stitched back into the local community in legacy phase, which may take some time, its 500 acres remain an impenetrable transport vacuum.
• Victoria Gate: It's been the backdoor entrance to the Olympic Park, used by little more than a handful of spectators, but by mid Sunday afternoon it's been closed. The metal gates are locked, the volunteers have fled, and only a small number of G4S guards remain behind the wire. Here it's as if the Games have already finished and The Hiatus has begun, but that's not stopping people turning up. Dozens with Closing Ceremony tickets are here, having not read the instructions that came with their tickets, thinking they'd be able to gain access this way. Mistake. Previously there'd have been an excess of Games Makers standing around doing nothing, but now they're finally needed they're not here. One gloomy family with a Dad in a wheelchair are sat at the top of the Greenway looking very lost. Goodness knows how they got here in the first place, but suddenly they face the unwanted challenge of getting to the other side of the Park unaided. I step in, again, in the absence of official advice, to dissuade them from struggling to a distant station and instead to take the bus. Fingers crossed.
• Fish Island: A young well-heeled crowd are walking through the streets of Fish Island. Smart sportswear, immaculate hair, the occasional whiff of Eastern European money. It looks at first like they might be heading to use the Water Chariots, where a couple of staff wait expectantly beside a small tent hoping for customers. Not so. Instead they turn off into the Fish Island Riviera, the salmon-based hospitality hotspot, for a glass of champagne and an ogle at the beach volleyball. Presumably none of them have read the Telegraph's damning one-star review of Forman's £75 breakfast, or they're so loaded they don't care. It's hard to miss the noise erupting from the Stadium across the water. Waterloo Sunset, then Elbow if I'm not very much mistaken, in what must be a run-through for the Closing Ceremony coming up later this evening. I'm excited when I hear Kate Bush's Running Up That Hill floating across the afternoon air, but will be less so later when it turns out she was only a recording. Still, the whole thing's a big warning to local residents of how loud it's going to be round here when West Ham turn over their new football ground to summer rock concerts.
• Eastway: The world's media are getting ready to leave HQ. The final medals have been awarded, the last stories have been told, so it's time to start packing bags at the International Broadcast Centre. Having said that, all the shuttle buses pouring out of the car park appear to be empty. I have to wait for four to emerge before crossing the roadway, not a single passenger aboard. It's hard to comprehend the scale on which these single and double deckers have streamed round East London over the last three weeks, buses brought in from Brighton, Blaenavon and Dundee, delivering a not insignificant total of exhaust fumes to the local population. It was one of these buses, swinging on to the A12, which killed cyclist Dan Harris on his evening commute last week. A white ghost bike has appeared at the roadside, decorated with flowers and tributes and mementoes. It's heartbreaking to read the letters "To The Greatest Brother In the World" and "To Our Wonderful Special Boy" taped to the top of the tree. Those look like Dan's cycling gloves, and his helmet, and I think that's the same black and white checked neckerchief that he wore in the photo on the "A Bit About Me" page on his blog. A tragic and unnecessary loss, in such sharp contrast to Team GB's cycling's triumph in the Velodrome a brief ride away.
• Stratford International: Westfield is rammed. It shouldn't even be open this late on a Sunday, but the Coalition's temporary relaxation of the Sunday Trading laws have allowed retail mayhem to break out. A lot of this is the fault of the Olympic athletes. They're going home tomorrow, so this is their last chance to pick up UK goods and souvenirs before they leave. Athletes in official tracksuits wander the mall clutching John Lewis carrier bags, or maybe a nice little number from Prada, before returning to the adjacent Olympic Village. Several are propping up the outdoor pop-up bars - there's Cuba, that's France, here's Montenegro. Come 8pm it'll be time to move on, as the shopping centre is flushed out before the Closing Ceremony. There's just time for some last minute pin-trading along the scrappy grass down the back of Mothercare, a final opportunity to swap that 1996 Atlanta Disney for a 2012 Samsung Umbrella. And later all these athletes will be trooping into the stadium to watch the Spice Girls reform, and Boris jive, and Rio samba, and the cauldron extinguish, and a battery of blazing fireworks light up the sky. And then that's it, everyone moves on, returns to their lives, and all that's left of London's third Olympic Games is a memory. But what a memory. Paralympic tickets at the ready, everyone.
I went to the Olympics again yesterday. This time I journeyed to Weymouth for the sailing. London 2012's not all about London, you know. [twelve photos]
Sailing - the venue: Weymouth Bay The Serpentine's not big enough for sailing, so the Dorset town of Weymouth stepped up to host the maritime programme. Its spacious bay has always been popular with sailors, with marina facilities established in Portland Harbour behind the protective bar of Chesil Beach. London 2012 have built a new sailing academy at Osprey Quay, then dropped umpteen buoys across the bay to create five challenging courses. It's a lovely location, a natural arena, surrounded by sandy beaches, low cliffs and Jurassic coast. To get there requires a three hour train journey from the capital, to a station where you'll be glad to hear there is magenta signage, plus a set ofOlympic rings in Portland Stone plonked by the taxi rank outside. It's a very short walk to the Esplanade, where the contemporary deckchairs and Punch and Judy have been augmented by temporary Games-time attractions. A big screen on the sand for watching events, plus a brilliant have-a-go sports area for kids staffed by Dorset volunteers, which was hugely better than the limp equivalent I saw in Hyde Park. Many of the yachts in the town's harbour have Olympic bunting hung from their masts, creating an even more colourful display than usual. The entire panorama can be seen from the top of a temporary observation tower, where a doughnut shaped cage rises from the quayside above the mouth of the river. You want fish and chips, it's a short walk away, both much cheaper and hugely tastier than the portions served up in London's Olympic Park. The town's making the most of its time in the spotlight, with purple-clad ambassadors dishing out tourist maps, and a genuine sense of pride and pleasure at being a key part of it all. Portland's rather quieter, the marina open only to competitors and officials, while a stream of shuttle buses transport non sea-going folk to the other side of the bay. Every manhole cover nearby has been sealed with a plaster of Paris crown, even those along Chesil Beach, for the sake of security. The Australian sailing team have adopted The Cove House Inn in Chiswell as their "official pub", where no doubt they retreated last night to celebrate (and commiserate) their silver medal. A lovely area at the best of times, even better sprinkled with Olympic magic.
Sailing - the event: Women's Elliot 6m medal races It's not the easiest spectator sport, the sailing. Normally Olympic races take place out at sea, but here at Weymouth at least one of the courses is deliberately close to shore. That's been a controversial decision for some of the sailors, who'd rather be further out in more predictable winds. But it's given townspeople and visitors a chance to watch the action, so long as they're situated on the right side of the right headland. LOCOG have taken over The Nothe, in particular the grassy slope below Weymouth's coastal fort, charging entry for an Olympic sailing event for the very first time. What locals will have known, and visitors may have found out, is that neighbouring slopes had almost as good a view and were free. But a better free option was on the rocky foreshore immediately beneath The Nothe, past signs saying "Risk of being cut off by the tide. No Public Access". Hundreds summarily ignored the advice, edging round the narrow unsubmerged strip and sitting on the rocks or stone wall. Beyond a flimsy temporary barrier those with official tickets lounged on the grass and bought ice creams from the official Cadbury vendors. On our side it was suncream on, sandwiches out and binoculars at the ready. But the other lot had one huge advantage - they knew what was going on. On this final day of competition only four yachts were out, competing for medals, and it wasn't entirely clear to us how any of this worked. No obvious start line, no overview of the course, and no idea when another pair of boats set off precisely what they were competing for. The battles looked exciting, zigzagging tactically across the bay, but was this the battle for bronze, or the deciding race in the best of five for gold? I missed the Australian capsize, and I'd given up long before the victorious Spanish trio finally sped home. But another fascinating afternoon of sport to add to my Olympic collection and, for Weymouth, a bit of a triumph.
As the Games have progressed, TfL have become increasingly desperate to divert Olympic Park spectators via West Ham station. On the Jubilee line, for example, the initial plan was that all passengers would continue to the end of the line and alight at Stratford. The line maps aboard Jubilee line trains still specifically earmark Stratford for the Olympic Park, with West Ham entirely unlabelled. But partway through the last fortnight new magenta signs have appeared on every train, one on either side of every doorway, urging spectators to get out early. The given reason is "to avoid delays due to congestion at Stratford", although what's not mentioned is that these delays don't necessarily exist. They do sometimes, so I'm told, although every time I've been to the Olympic Park via Stratford I've walked straight in with no queues whatsoever. What the magenta signs fail to mention is that if you get off early you face a 25 minute walk, whereas if you stay on one more stop it's only five. That lengthy trek comes as a shock after you've exited the station, there's no mention anywhere beforehand that West Ham might perhaps be sub-optimal. It's a particularly cruel trick to play on the elderly, the unfit and the infirm, gullibly heeding official advice then absolutely wishing they hadn't. But it's a trick that's worked, with the Greenway full of spectators nobly (and unwittingly) sacrificing themselves for the greater good.
Leaving the Park, even more extreme measures have recently been added. On exiting the Aquatic Centre a cluster of staff now stand around with big pink placards pointing desperately towards the Greenway Gate. "Quickest route out of the Olympic Park", the placards say, and that's true. Only fractionally true - the Greenway Gate's mere metres closer than the Stratford Gate - but technically correct. What's not mentioned is that the quickest route out of the Olympic Park dumps you nowhere near a station, but by the time you discover that you're out, and the trek to West Ham beckons. There's worse been installed on the lighting poles between the Orbit and the Stratford Gate. Thin magenta signs point invitingly towards West Ham, announcing that this is the "Fastest route to Central London". Like hell it is. It's 5 minutes walk from the Stratford Gate to the Greenway Gate, then 25 minutes to West Ham, then at least 13 minutes to travel to any station that might possibly be described as 'Central London'. Three quarters of an hour in total, and that's to the wrong end of the City, not the West End. In the time it takes to walk to West Ham you could have reached Liverpool Street via the Central line, or indeed St Pancras via the Javelin. I can vouch for the Javelin route on Friday, from inside the Aquatic Centre to St Pancras in 30 minutes flat, no queues. Unless congestion throughout Westfield is bad, which it only occasionally is, these pink signs are telling a blatant lie.
I understand why a certain proportion of Olympic visitors need to use West Ham. Stratford station needs to stay unclogged, and packed trains have had unfortunate queueing repercussions at peak times further down the line. But I have a real problem with ignorant tourists being duped by pessimistic messages which wrongly assume full-time congestion at Stratford. There's a thin pink line between behavioural nudging and unprofessional coercion, and TfL's white lies are sadly the latter.
I went to the Olympics again yesterday. This time I took my niece to the synchronised swimming. It was all over in a splosh.
Synchronised Swimming - the venue: Aquatic Centre The Aquatic Centre would be the standout architectural triumph of these Games if only it didn't have two huge wings attached. But those grandstands are essential, else only a couple of thousand spectators could cram inside to watch the action. They're also very very tall. There were five flights of stairs to climb from ground level security, around the nose of the building, to reach the main concourse. And then, oh, you want us to walk up that temporary staircase into the heart of the stand? That was ten flights of stairs, a feat which certain more overweight spectators found to be an unexpected endurance test. Emerging into the upper echelons, blimey, I was glad not to have much further to climb. But there were still at least two dozen further rows of seats behind where we sat, accessed via a vertiginous staircase, for those perching in the gods. We had excellent seats for the diving, high above the 10m board, looking down directly on the plunge pool. Unfortunately we weren't there for the diving, we were there for the synchronised swimming. That was taking place in the main pool, more precisely a small area in the centre, so far down that the swimmers looked like eight spangly ants. My line of sight was part-blocked by a stair rail, a very important stair rail because it prevented those on the staircase tumbling accidentally to their doom. But the rail blocked a significant strip of the action, so much so that sometimes the crowd whooped with delight at some aquatic feat I'd never noticed. It was noticeable that several of the seats in front of me stayed empty, as if LOCOG had checked the sightlines and decided it wouldn't be fair to position any spectator there. But my seat was fair game, it seems, despite a less than ideal aspect. Don't get me wrong, it could have been a lot worse, for example if I'd been sat behind the girl in the tall Union Jack hat or the group of wildly over-enthusiastic Russians. And I saw plenty, almost as much as I could have expected from such a high elevation, mostly because I'd had the foresight to bring binoculars. But ho hum, the event I paid the most to attend was also the event with the worst view. So it goes.
Synchronised Swimming - the event: Team Free Routine Many laugh at synchronised swimming as a bit of a joke, a lot of splashing around in the water wearing outlandish costumes. But to do it well takes astonishing skill, and dedication, and the ability to listen to the same four minute piece of music over and over and over while practising. The girls had completed a technical routine the previous day, and day two was their chance to shine with a free routine of their own devising. The British eight were on first, emerging from backstage to strike a pose on the poolside, then diving in. They swam, they high-kicked, they disappeared beneath the water to do something fancy, and occasionally one leapt from the pool like a hungry dolphin. Our sequence appeared to be a Peter Pan medley, at one point with legs snapping like crocodiles, at another forming some kind of pirate ship. Taekwondo this is not. They did well, and because they were first leapt immediately into gold medal position. We knew it couldn't last. The remaining seven countries appeared in what looked like reverse-seeded order, so the performances got better and better. Higher leaps, more original set pieces, and more seamlessly polished legwork. Every performance demonstrated such sustained athleticism, and all this while frequently holding their breath underwater. And oh, the costumes. Some glittered, all sparkled, and in shades that made London's magenta signage look dull by comparison. I particularly liked Spain's understated silver, a combination of mirrored swimming cap with what could have been a fishing net wrap. They swam so well even I knew they were in with a medal chance, but were outgunned by the grinning Chinese, and ultimately the faultless Russians. Hence it was the Russian national anthem we got to stand for at the end, at least those of the crowd who hadn't walked out early "to avoid the rush". With eight in a team there are a lot of medals to distribute, so this took a while, the winners suddenly looking much more normal without their bathing caps and fixed grins. Oh and Great Britain came sixth, which I thought was great in a sport where we'd not even been expected to qualify. Should the legacy of the Games be a greater inspiration to take part in sport, synchronised swimming looks a whole lot more fun than football, and probably considerably harder too. [eight photos]
To accumulate you've got to speculate. But these Olympic hopefuls haven't accumulated like they'd hoped...
• Leyton Food Market: They thought there'd be 800 people a minute passing by. They were wrong. The row of food stalls along Marshall Road in Leyton has seen barely any footfall at all, with some outlets failing to sell a single meal. By Thursday all but one stall was closed, and that was only selling cans, while the neighbours piled their cooker and fridge into the back of a van and drove away. But this was always a lunatic location, along the access road to the Leyton Mills Retail Park, entirely reliant on Olympic Park visitors who were never advised to walk from Leyton station anyway. Total investment disaster. • Africa Village: 80000 visitors turned up, but alas, the cultural tents beside the Albert Memorial have had to close due to a six-figure debt. • Peninsula Festival: It was supposed to host three weeks of fun events, with a funfair and a beach, but started splutteringly and barely made a dent on North Greenwich consciousness. Gates should be unlocked for a free festival this Saturday, and a Jamaican celebration on Sunday, but there's little to show here for the council's £50K investment. • Water Chariots: The official waterbus of London 2012 hasn't had a good Games. When Water Chariots launched last summer they planned to charge £40 for a return trip. When they relaunched in May that had risen to £95. Shortly before the Games they added a £45 non-VIP option. And on Wednesday they finally admitted defeat and cut their prices to £20. Too late. Nobody wants to travel to the Olympic Park by water bus because the predicted travel chaos hasn't materialised and they all have a free travelcard anyway. At Tottenham Hale three members of WC staff sit around enjoying the sunshine, if not the passengers. At Limehouse the champagne bar has vanished to be replaced by a coffee cart, and two-thirds of the fleet lies tied up by the jetty going nowhere. There's not even any indication of the newly reduced price, only a single mention of the £95 tariff and instructions to book online. I walked a mile and a half along the Limehouse Cut and saw only one barge go by, with only six passengers aboard, while several moorhens enjoyed the silence. A greedy business has vastly over-estimated its appeal, and I'm pleased they've been caught out. • London Pleasure Gardens: It sounded like a marvellous plan, to open up an urban wasteland in the Royal Docks for a summer of partying. Alas no, The opening weekend had to be postponed, then was a fiasco. The Bloc Music Festival had to close early on its opening night for health and safety reasons. The site ended up as an unwanted shanty town of stalls on the Olympic exit from ExCel, with access to the rest of the public restricted, and died a death through mass indifference. The company went into administration last week, and one can only hope that the incompetent organisers never attempt to open another business.
The Arcelor Mittal Orbit is the most obvious outward sign of the Olympic Park. You can see its red coils from miles away, an instant landmark for London 2012. But when you're actually in the park, strangely enough, it doesn't dominate the way you'd expect. There's so much else to see, also on a larger than life scale, that the tower somehow fades into the background. But more importantly, I suspect, the Orbit is an irrelevance for the great majority of visitors because they can't go up it.
Only people with tickets to an Olympic Park event were given the opportunity to buy a ticket for the Orbit. It was treated like any other Games session, in that tickets had to be bought in advance online, but one year later than everything else. Unless you were watching the London 2012 website back in May you probably missed the sales window, so your chance to buy one of the limited number of £15 tickets was lost. And numbers really were limited, only a few hundred an hour, despite the attraction having been designed to withstand more than that. When I reached the foot ofthe tower on opening weekend I was surprised by the total absence of queue. A number of people approached asking if tickets were available, then looked rather miffed when told not. Only a select few of us were able to pass onward into the queueing slalom beneath the bell-end, where no queueing was required, and I walked straight ahead into the lift.
It's quite a lift. Not huge, but fast, whisking visitors up almost twice the height of Nelson's coumn in 30 seconds. A small porthole allows you to look out on the way up, but the view's more of red steelwork rushing by than any wider panorama. The Games Makers acting as lift attendants have one of the best volunteering roles of all, shuttling up and down umpteen times a day, which has to beat most other crowd direction stuff.
At the top you're directed out onto a metal walkway and woo, there's the view. The entire Olympic Park stretches out ahead of you, through a wide metal mesh, right the way down to the hockey grandstands in the distance. Tiny figures scuttle along the central piazzas, and the scale of the whole redevelopment enterprise is evident. The Copper Box is bigger than it looks from the ground, and the Media Centre behind clearly vast. Hackney Marshes stand out very clearly as a green expanse, with the flatlands of Walthamstow beyond. Bad news if you live in Leyton or Redbridge, that direction's pretty much obscured, here and on the rest of your journey round the observation deck. The immediate foreground is blocked too, hidden behind red bars and the tower's exterior walkway, but never mind, it's the stadium you really want to see.
Ah, the stadium's slightly obscured too. It's really close, so close that you can indeed look down inside, but no matter where you stand there's always one of the Orbit's upper red struts crossing the field of vision. What's most clearly seen is the western grandstand, from the media commentary seats round to the bog standard seating. Time your visit right and you get to see cheering crowds rather than empty plastic, plus any action on the corner of the athletics track nearest the 100m mark. I was up there days before the Athletics began, so I saw a blank grey mess where the Opening Ceremony had been, plus the cauldron before it was shunted into a dark corner. I understand the flame's no longer visible from the top of the Orbit, indeed entirely invisible from anywhere in the Park except inside the Stadium, which is the only thing about the cauldron I don't adore.
The outside curve's brief, and then you're back inside the main upper observation deck. Through the glass you get a view approximately round from northwest to southeast, which includes the skyscraper clusters of the Cityand Docklands. The Dome stands out very clearly, the cablecar and ExCel too if you look carefully, and further beyond to the leafy summit of Shooter's Hill. Because it had been raining the glass on one flank was speckled with water droplets, which wrecked photography somewhat, but the appearance ofa rainbow somewhere in the direction of Woolwich more than made up for it. Closer to, the Olympic warm-up track made an appearance, with little trains and buses passing by. It's a better view than I was expecting, but that's probably because I have a local interest in all the stuff that's nearby. The tallest buildings, from this perspective, are local tower blocks in Stratford and Bow, which suddenly look much lovelier viewed from above. And that's the Bow Flyover, and if I squint, yes absolutely, that's my house!
As well as the exterior delights, Anish Kapoor has added a couple of his trademark mirrors for guests to stare into. Each is long, and doubly curved, for the full "I'm at a fairground" experience. There being so few visitors up here, it was possible to enjoy the experience without the reflections of others getting in the way. That'll never last. And there's a square void in the middle, not for stepping onto but for looking down. That's the food courtat Orbit Circus, with a beautiful geometric pattern of tables and umbrellas laid out below. Before you head down a level there's another exterior walkway, this time with better views in the Stratforddirection. Rest assured it's not scary outside. As someone whose head for heights occasionally deserts him, I never once felt uncomfortable uphere.
A second observation deck shows you all the same sites as above, but from fractionallyfurther down. That seems a slightly wasted opportunity, but I guess what most visitors want to see are Central London and Canary Wharf so here's a second chance to see them again. There was plenty of space at the window, probably no more then twenty of us on this level staring down. I was pleased because by this point the sun had finally come out, so I got to see across Bowand beyond with better illumination. The weather adds an unpredictable random element to your Orbit visit, so get low cloud or fog and that's your £15 mostly wasted. If you're lucky to get sun then now's the time to soak up the panorama for the final time - there's a choice ahead.
Will you go down in the lift, or will you take the stairs? There are 431 steps, if that helps to make up your mind. And be warned, the metal staircase is attached to the exterior of the sculpture rather than being an integral part. I was wondering whether I'd cope, but I was absolutely fine. The stairs are enclosed in a gentle mesh tunnel, which means no chance of photographing anything, but means you'll feel entirely safe all the way down. It is a long way though, with each circuit bringing the roof of the stadium closer, then the Aquatic Centre nearer, and finally the ground rushing up. I sped down mostly unhindered, but you could get caught behind a slow group, possibly a family with children, and then the descent could take some time.
I thought it was ace, but then I'm a local resident and the surrounding area is my community. The fact that the Olympics is going on below also made the whole thing rather special, unlike riding the cablecar with its high sweep over industrial riverside. I'm not sure the ascent is genuinely worth £15 - even the architect himself thinks that's a bit steep. And sorry, but unless you're coming to the Games then your chances of following in my footsteps any time soon are nil.
Because visitor numbers have been heavily restricted, all the Olympic Orbit slots sold out months ago. I understand that LOCOG have very recently agreed to increase the tower's visitor capacity, which means a small number of tickets are available from a box office inside the Park at the foot of the tower each day, but you'll need to be there early in the day to get one. Meanwhile a number of Orbit tickets are available during the Paralympics, if you're coming to that, so check the London 2012 website for availability. Be prepared to pay yet another £6 service charge, and be aware that by the start of September any slot after 8pm will be post-sunset.
Miss the Games and the upper reaches of the Orbit will likely remain out of bounds for 18 months. That's because after the Paralympics the Olympic Park becomes an un-building site, and the area around the Orbit's not due to reopen until Easter 2014. I do wonder whether anyone'll be quite so keen to come back then when the view's merely of East London. After the Orbit emerges from hibernation, will it be a tourist magnet or an irrelevance? A lot of Stratford's legacy potential is riding on the former.
I didn't go to the Olympics yesterday. But I did go and watch the Games on the big screen. Here's what the spectator experience is like in Hyde Park and Victoria Park.
BT London Live - Hyde Park If you've not got tickets to the Olympics proper, there's always the big screen. Several have been set up in Hyde Park, inside the Official Fun Compound along the edge of Park Lane, where a free commercial festival is taking place. When the event was announced, demand was expected to be so high that you'd need pre-booked tickets. It's not quite turned out like that. The website's had to be updated to remind potential visitors that you can turn up on the day, no tickets are required, and the evidence from yesterday afternoon is that there are no queues at the entrance. No queues that is apart from the security check. If you're used to the smoothness of the security at Games sessions, this isn't so good. It's also more severe. BT London Live has a strict No Food Or Drinks policy, which means they'll chuck away all your sandwiches as well as your bottles of drink, because they're determined you buy all your food inside. Sweets and crisps are OK, but my Polo mints set off the handheld body scanner, and I was more than glad when the semi-humiliating security ballet was over.
If you're expecting parkland, think again. The entire area's been covered with woodchips to protect the grass, so bring something comfortable like a beach towel to sit on. Earlybirds get green picnic tables, but they're few and far between (try the very southeast corner for your best chance). I counted five screens round the park, some much bigger than others, offering a broad choice of events to watch. Table tennis in one corner, BMX elsewhere, a bit of handball on the opposite side and equestrian on the main screen... take your pick and plonk down with a beer. The beer's expensive, even for central London. It's five pounds for a pint of Heineken or £4.50 for Fosters, plus you can add a "commemorative stackable cup" for £1 (recently reduced from £2). Food stalls are everywhere, mostly of the burger, chips and grilled meat variety like you might find at a car boot sale, but with more ethnic diversity if you look around. With even a Dairy Milk coated ice cream on a stick costing £3, the disposal of food on the way in feels entirely mercenary.
For those not watching the action, the number of other things to do is strangely limited. One good thing is the have-a-go area, where kids can try judo, boxing or some other proper sport in the hope they might be inspired to take it up properly. At the other end of the health scale there's Cadbury House, a big tent experience with a free chocolate medal at the end (and, obviously, very long queues). BT had a pavilion with an exclusive lounge upstairs for customers, plus games to play downstairs and some hats to try on (honest). Samsung have turned up, and a couple of Murdoch newspapers, plus a handful of sporting organisations (for example for badminton or triathlon). The latter were doing good work, but were vastly outnumbered by the food floggers. For all the government's talk of promoting children's sport, there's a hugely missed opportunity here on site.
BT London Live in Hyde Park is busy, but not over-busy, at least on weekdays. That's not a bad state of affairs. If you're in town with no home or hotel room to fall back on, it makes a good spot to catch up on the day's events. A sea of orange shirts indicated that the Dutch had settled in watching the handball, for example, and there was a positive communal vibe. Various medal winners get paraded on the stage if you're there at the right time - apparently I missed Rebecca Adlington and the Brownlee Brothers because I wasn't. But I still couldn't avoid the feeling that this is an event with its heart not quite in the right place, a sop to those not moneyed enough to get 'proper' tickets, and would you like chips with that?
Travel: Even on days when no Olympic events are taking place in Hyde Park, TfL's travel arrangements are rather draconian. Marble Arch may be the closest station to the entrance, but big magenta signs at Bond Street attempt to lure Central line passengers off their train one stop early and then make them walk further than necessary. Marble Arch and Hyde Park Corner stations are officially exit only between 10am and 10pm. For those departing Park Live, the two nearest stations are therefore closed. Pink signs above the exits suggest walking to Paddington, Edgware Road or Bond Street to the north, or Green Park or Victoria to the south. Knightsbridge is actually closer, but that's not mentioned until you're offsite. The walk to Victoria takes 20 minutes, which is fine if you're expecting it, and a nasty shock if you're not. Us Londoners are well prepared for this sort of thing, but I watched a pair of elderly out-of-towners setting off towards Paddington and felt rather sorry for them. Blind acceptance of TfL's travel advice can cost you dear, with the official signs designed to ease "worst case" scenarios that don't always exist.
BT London Live - Victoria Park The second series of big screens is Tower Hamlets' pride and joy. It's located not far from the main Olympic site, in Victoria Park, in the enclosure where all of this summer's festivals have been held. And it's not busy. It was, right back at the start of the Games and possibly at weekends, but recent footfall has been disappointing and the council have taken to increasingly urgentpublicity. I turned up on Tuesday during Team GB's Velodrome golden window, but there was tons of legroom on the grass for watching the cycling, and a vast amount of unfilled space elsewhere. Near the entrance is The Sun's tent, where non-beefcake men can line up to have their photo taken with mini-skirted cheerleaders, or go for a drink in The Sun Pub (which is another tent). This being a commercial event they're not giving newspapers away, merely giving you a free bag when buying one, plus the chance for Junior to get his or her face painted in suitably patriotic style.
No Team GB athletes will be appearing here, but there is a big observation wheel (which costs extra), and zorbing (ditto) and occasionally a hot air balloon. On my visit the "have-a-go" sport on offer was lacrosse, which various children seemed to be meekly enjoying, although I'm not convinced any will ever go on to take it up. The best fun for creative kids was the pink plastic construction set, and apparently there's a Universal Tea Making Machine, but I missed that. A fairly dire musical dance act was screeching in the performance space - it's clear that Hyde Park gets the good stuff and Victoria Park the leftovers. And the legendary zipwire is in place, although I saw absolutely nobody on it, and certainly not a danglingmayor. I have to say the entire site felt somewhat lacklustre and rather dead, and not somewhere you'd travel miles out of your way to visit. If even Boris's aerial antics can't drum up publicity for BT London Live in Victoria Park, what hope is there?
I went to the Olympics again yesterday. This time I went to Eton Dorney to watch the canoe sprint. You might have seen me on BBC1.
Canoe Sprint - the venue: Eton Dorney Normally when the Olympics come round the host nation has to build a 2km rowing lake from scratch. Not so London 2012, who appropriated Eton College's pride and joy at no additional taxpayer outlay. Dorney Lake is set in a bend in the Thames to the west of Windsor, which is great if you fancy a riverside ramble, but not so easy when delivering thirty thousand spectators by nine in the morning. A shuttle bus service was put into operation, with steady streams of vehicles running in from Slough and Windsor & Eton Riverside. They gravitated towards a vast temporary bus station on a paddock near the racecourse, where huge numbers of lilac vehicles lined up to disgorge their human cargo. And then the long walk. London 2012's been full of long walks, which is fine if you're fit and expecting it, less so if you're elderly. In this case the trek followed all the way around the racecourse and over a number of temporary footbridges (the last of these spanning the Thames). Security was easy - I again experienced no queues, despite several busloads arriving at once. And all fairly fast - I reached my seat just over an hour after departing Paddington. This being Eton, spectators were very much grouped by class. Prestige visitors got their own bespoke pavilion near the finish line. Mainstream spectators in Grandstand 1 got a better view than those in Grandstand 2, further up the course. And those who'd paid the least got to sit on the lawns near the 500m start, with an oblique view of the big screen and pretty much no sight of the far distant finish. A lovely location, with waterfowl occasionally swooping in for an impromptu airshow. Should you ever fancy a peek at the lake shorn of hog roast stands and portaloos, the surrounding parkland is normally open to the public for a wander. [my report]
Canoe Sprint - the event: Men's 1000m C2, Women's 500m K1, Women's 500m K2 A morning of heats and semi-finals was on offer, nineteen races in total. We were treated to a broad mixture of events, some with one woman (sitting) in a kayak, others with two men (kneeling)in a canoe. This is paddling, not rowing, which probably explains why you don't see it on TV much, although the first half hour did make it onto BBC1 simply because there were no other Olympic events taking place. I've checked the iPlayer footage and I think I can work out which small dot is me, but you're unlikely to be so fortunate. Each race lasted somewhere between two and four minutes, unless you were the two-man crew from Angola in which case nearer five, eventually reaching the finishing line to a chorus of encouraging cheers. It's not like you get on the TV, watching live, more a lengthy session of repetitive races interspersed with some waiting around. Some of the younger children in the crowd found this difficult to maintain for two hours, indeed a few of the adults couldn't stick it either. But on the whole this was a polite but enthusiastic crowd of the southeast's middle classes - more Maidenhead than Slough, let's say. The dad to the left of me proved he should have been in the office by taking a call about a Birmingham property deal on his Blackberry. The daughter to my right hoped to support New Zealand, but had made a right mess of painting "NZ" on her face in a mirror. Several genuine national contingents were also present, with clusters of vocal over-enthusiasm whenever Germany or certain Eastern European countries paddled past. "Go Hungary! Go Hungary" they cried, which sounded like they'd not had enough breakfast. The grandstand erupted when race 8 finally included a competitor from Team GB. Rachel Cawthorn was competing in the heats of the Kayak Single, and the crowd whooped and waved as she powered down the course at the head of the field. Their fervour was astonishing given the non life-or-death nature of the race. There were six competitors in her heat of whom the fastest six would qualify... but never mind that irrelevance, the cheering collective were enraptured anyway. They were more rightly chuffed when she squeaked secondin the semi-final, rising to their feet to see better... and thereby completely blocking the view for all the under five-footers in the grandstand. Rachel's final is tomorrow, and we'll all have a better view online, but it was good to be there to watch far more than the edited highlights. [five photos]
The Olympic Journey (Royal Opera House) 28 July - 12 August, 10am - 6.15pm While the Games are taking place, a free exhibition at the Royal Opera House tells the story of how they began and why they continue. Think of it as having an Olympic Museum in London for a fortnight, with various artefacts and mementoes on loan from the actual Olympic Museum in Lausanne. It's a popular attraction, so expect to queue. I got inside in under half an hour yesterday afternoon, but that time'll probably grow as the week draws to a close. Expect bag checks too and friskdowns too, because they're commonplace at anything officially Olympian at the moment. Visitors are guided through the exhibition in small groups, initially through a sequence of four themed rooms. The first two look back to Ancient Greece, and are perhaps more atmosphere than information, but include a nice recreation of a chariot race screened round the rim of a jug. The next focuses on Baron de Coubertin and his global sporting vision - it's entirely his fault that the world pauses every four years to play games. The fourth contains one of every design of Olympic torch, from Berlin right up to London, and blimey how very different they are. Finally you're left to explore a much larger room featuring 16 athletes' biographies and one example of every Olympic medal ever awarded. Your half hour journey ends with the opportunity to have your photo taken with the current Olympic torch, unsullied by sponsor's branding, which might be enough to attract you along in itself. The whole thing's done with class, and you only have five days left to get inside.
Five Olympic Facts from the museum i) The ancient Olympic Games took place every four years, but lasted only five days. Sporting competition took place only on day 2 and day 4. ii) The ancient Olympics included an event called the "hoplitodromos" in which athletes ran dressed in full armour. iii) Only 14 countries took part in the first modern Olympics in 1896. Team GB has won at least one gold medal in every Summer Games since. iv) Jesse Owens wore Adi Dassler running shoes when winning his Berlin long jump in 1936. They're here, in a cabinet. v) Since 1972, host cities have been allowed to design the back of the Olympic medal. London's 2012 logo most definitely isn't the loveliest of these.
London 2012 - final day
• Bow: Across the Lea, the Olympic Stadium rises. It's been strange having it as a near neighbour over the last few years, even stranger seeing it brought so vividly to life. White and spiky by day, brightly lit by night, this former patch of industrial estate has hosted umpteen world records over the last fortnight. But it'll be a while before passengers on the upper deck of the number 25 bus catch sight of it. They're queueing at the roundabout, and they could be queueing for some time. All the lights were rephased before the Games to the advantage of the Olympics Lanes beyond, and seven seconds is all that traffic's from Bow's been rationed. The cars and buses and coaches wait patiently, while the police vans sit there with side doors open, the coppers inside tapping away bored on their phones. Three ladies are standing lost by McDonalds, trying to work out how on earth to get to Fish Island. They're clutching the official blue London tourist map, but this gives no clue that the A12 has no footpath and the parallel towpath is closed. I try to offer directions but it's a complicated route which I'm not sure they'll follow. Until the Olympic Park is stitched back into the local community in legacy phase, which may take some time, its 500 acres remain an impenetrable transport vacuum.
• Victoria Gate: It's been the backdoor entrance to the Olympic Park, used by little more than a handful of spectators, but by mid Sunday afternoon it's been closed. The metal gates are locked, the volunteers have fled, and only a small number of G4S guards remain behind the wire. Here it's as if the Games have already finished and The Hiatus has begun, but that's not stopping people turning up. Dozens with Closing Ceremony tickets are here, having not read the instructions that came with their tickets, thinking they'd be able to gain access this way. Mistake. Previously there'd have been an excess of Games Makers standing around doing nothing, but now they're finally needed they're not here. One gloomy family with a Dad in a wheelchair are sat at the top of the Greenway looking very lost. Goodness knows how they got here in the first place, but suddenly they face the unwanted challenge of getting to the other side of the Park unaided. I step in, again, in the absence of official advice, to dissuade them from struggling to a distant station and instead to take the bus. Fingers crossed.
• Fish Island: A young well-heeled crowd are walking through the streets of Fish Island. Smart sportswear, immaculate hair, the occasional whiff of Eastern European money. It looks at first like they might be heading to use the Water Chariots, where a couple of staff wait expectantly beside a small tent hoping for customers. Not so. Instead they turn off into the Fish Island Riviera, the salmon-based hospitality hotspot, for a glass of champagne and an ogle at the beach volleyball. Presumably none of them have read the Telegraph's damning one-star review of Forman's £75 breakfast, or they're so loaded they don't care. It's hard to miss the noise erupting from the Stadium across the water. Waterloo Sunset, then Elbow if I'm not very much mistaken, in what must be a run-through for the Closing Ceremony coming up later this evening. I'm excited when I hear Kate Bush's Running Up That Hill floating across the afternoon air, but will be less so later when it turns out she was only a recording. Still, the whole thing's a big warning to local residents of how loud it's going to be round here when West Ham turn over their new football ground to summer rock concerts.
• Eastway: The world's media are getting ready to leave HQ. The final medals have been awarded, the last stories have been told, so it's time to start packing bags at the International Broadcast Centre. Having said that, all the shuttle buses pouring out of the car park appear to be empty. I have to wait for four to emerge before crossing the roadway, not a single passenger aboard. It's hard to comprehend the scale on which these single and double deckers have streamed round East London over the last three weeks, buses brought in from Brighton, Blaenavon and Dundee, delivering a not insignificant total of exhaust fumes to the local population. It was one of these buses, swinging on to the A12, which killed cyclist Dan Harris on his evening commute last week. A white ghost bike has appeared at the roadside, decorated with flowers and tributes and mementoes. It's heartbreaking to read the letters "To The Greatest Brother In the World" and "To Our Wonderful Special Boy" taped to the top of the tree. Those look like Dan's cycling gloves, and his helmet, and I think that's the same black and white checked neckerchief that he wore in the photo on the "A Bit About Me" page on his blog. A tragic and unnecessary loss, in such sharp contrast to Team GB's cycling's triumph in the Velodrome a brief ride away.
• Stratford International: Westfield is rammed. It shouldn't even be open this late on a Sunday, but the Coalition's temporary relaxation of the Sunday Trading laws have allowed retail mayhem to break out. A lot of this is the fault of the Olympic athletes. They're going home tomorrow, so this is their last chance to pick up UK goods and souvenirs before they leave. Athletes in official tracksuits wander the mall clutching John Lewis carrier bags, or maybe a nice little number from Prada, before returning to the adjacent Olympic Village. Several are propping up the outdoor pop-up bars - there's Cuba, that's France, here's Montenegro. Come 8pm it'll be time to move on, as the shopping centre is flushed out before the Closing Ceremony. There's just time for some last minute pin-trading along the scrappy grass down the back of Mothercare, a final opportunity to swap that 1996 Atlanta Disney for a 2012 Samsung Umbrella. And later all these athletes will be trooping into the stadium to watch the Spice Girls reform, and Boris jive, and Rio samba, and the cauldron extinguish, and a battery of blazing fireworks light up the sky. And then that's it, everyone moves on, returns to their lives, and all that's left of London's third Olympic Games is a memory. But what a memory. Paralympic tickets at the ready, everyone.
Sailing - the venue: Weymouth Bay
Sailing - the event: Women's Elliot 6m medal races
As the Games have progressed, TfL have become increasingly desperate to divert Olympic Park spectators via West Ham station. On the Jubilee line, for example, the initial plan was that all passengers would continue to the end of the line and alight at Stratford. The line maps aboard Jubilee line trains still specifically earmark Stratford for the Olympic Park, with West Ham entirely unlabelled. But partway through the last fortnight new magenta signs have appeared on every train, one on either side of every doorway, urging spectators to get out early. The given reason is "to avoid delays due to congestion at Stratford", although what's not mentioned is that these delays don't necessarily exist. They do sometimes, so I'm told, although every time I've been to the Olympic Park via Stratford I've walked straight in with no queues whatsoever. What the magenta signs fail to mention is that if you get off early you face a 25 minute walk, whereas if you stay on one more stop it's only five. That lengthy trek comes as a shock after you've exited the station, there's no mention anywhere beforehand that West Ham might perhaps be sub-optimal. It's a particularly cruel trick to play on the elderly, the unfit and the infirm, gullibly heeding official advice then absolutely wishing they hadn't. But it's a trick that's worked, with the Greenway full of spectators nobly (and unwittingly) sacrificing themselves for the greater good.
Leaving the Park, even more extreme measures have recently been added. On exiting the Aquatic Centre a cluster of staff now stand around with big pink placards pointing desperately towards the Greenway Gate. "Quickest route out of the Olympic Park", the placards say, and that's true. Only fractionally true - the Greenway Gate's mere metres closer than the Stratford Gate - but technically correct. What's not mentioned is that the quickest route out of the Olympic Park dumps you nowhere near a station, but by the time you discover that you're out, and the trek to West Ham beckons. There's worse been installed on the lighting poles between the Orbit and the Stratford Gate. Thin magenta signs point invitingly towards West Ham, announcing that this is the "Fastest route to Central London". Like hell it is. It's 5 minutes walk from the Stratford Gate to the Greenway Gate, then 25 minutes to West Ham, then at least 13 minutes to travel to any station that might possibly be described as 'Central London'. Three quarters of an hour in total, and that's to the wrong end of the City, not the West End. In the time it takes to walk to West Ham you could have reached Liverpool Street via the Central line, or indeed St Pancras via the Javelin. I can vouch for the Javelin route on Friday, from inside the Aquatic Centre to St Pancras in 30 minutes flat, no queues. Unless congestion throughout Westfield is bad, which it only occasionally is, these pink signs are telling a blatant lie.
Synchronised Swimming - the venue: Aquatic Centre
Synchronised Swimming - the event: Team Free Routine
• Leyton Food Market: They thought there'd be 800 people a minute passing by. They were wrong. The row of food stalls along Marshall Road in Leyton has seen barely any footfall at all, with some outlets failing to sell a single meal. By Thursday all but one stall was closed, and that was only selling cans, while the neighbours piled their cooker and fridge into the back of a van and drove away. But this was always a lunatic location, along the access road to the Leyton Mills Retail Park, entirely reliant on Olympic Park visitors who were never advised to walk from Leyton station anyway. Total investment disaster.
• Water Chariots: The official waterbus of London 2012 hasn't had a good Games. When Water Chariots launched last summer they planned to charge £40 for a return trip. When they relaunched in May that had risen to £95. Shortly before the Games they added a £45 non-VIP option. And on Wednesday they finally admitted defeat and cut their prices to £20. Too late. Nobody wants to travel to the Olympic Park by water bus because the predicted travel chaos hasn't materialised and they all have a free travelcard anyway. At Tottenham Hale three members of WC staff sit around enjoying the sunshine, if not the passengers. At Limehouse the champagne bar has vanished to be replaced by a coffee cart, and two-thirds of the fleet lies tied up by the jetty going nowhere. There's not even any indication of the newly reduced price, only a single mention of the £95 tariff and instructions to book online. I walked a mile and a half along the Limehouse Cut and saw only one barge go by, with only six passengers aboard, while several moorhens enjoyed the silence. A greedy business has vastly over-estimated its appeal, and I'm pleased they've been caught out.
Only people with tickets to an Olympic Park event were given the opportunity to buy a ticket for the Orbit. It was treated like any other Games session, in that tickets had to be bought in advance online, but one year later than everything else. Unless you were watching the London 2012 website back in May you probably missed the sales window, so your chance to buy one of the limited number of £15 tickets was lost. And numbers really were limited, only a few hundred an hour, despite the attraction having been designed to withstand more than that. When I reached the foot of the tower on opening weekend I was surprised by the total absence of queue. A number of people approached asking if tickets were available, then looked rather miffed when told not. Only a select few of us were able to pass onward into the queueing slalom beneath the bell-end, where no queueing was required, and I walked straight ahead into the lift.
At the top you're directed out onto a metal walkway and woo, there's the view. The entire Olympic Park stretches out ahead of you, through a wide metal mesh, right the way down to the hockey grandstands in the distance. Tiny figures scuttle along the central piazzas, and the scale of the whole redevelopment enterprise is evident. The Copper Box is bigger than it looks from the ground, and the Media Centre behind clearly vast. Hackney Marshes stand out very clearly as a green expanse, with the flatlands of Walthamstow beyond. Bad news if you live in Leyton or Redbridge, that direction's pretty much obscured, here and on the rest of your journey round the observation deck. The immediate foreground is blocked too, hidden behind red bars and the tower's exterior walkway, but never mind, it's the stadium you really want to see.
As well as the exterior delights, Anish Kapoor has added a couple of his trademark mirrors for guests to stare into. Each is long, and doubly curved, for the full "I'm at a fairground" experience. There being so few visitors up here, it was possible to enjoy the experience without the reflections of others getting in the way. That'll never last. And there's a square void in the middle, not for stepping onto but for looking down. That's the food court at Orbit Circus, with a beautiful geometric pattern of tables and umbrellas laid out below. Before you head down a level there's another exterior walkway, this time with better views in the Stratford direction. Rest assured it's not scary outside. As someone whose head for heights occasionally deserts him, I never once felt uncomfortable up here.
Will you go down in the lift, or will you take the stairs? There are 431 steps, if that helps to make up your mind. And be warned, the metal staircase is attached to the exterior of the sculpture rather than being an integral part. I was wondering whether I'd cope, but I was absolutely fine. The stairs are enclosed in a gentle mesh tunnel, which means no chance of photographing anything, but means you'll feel entirely safe all the way down. It is a long way though, with each circuit bringing the roof of the stadium closer, then the Aquatic Centre nearer, and finally the ground rushing up. I sped down mostly unhindered, but you could get caught behind a slow group, possibly a family with children, and then the descent could take some time.
If you're expecting parkland, think again. The entire area's been covered with woodchips to protect the grass, so bring something comfortable like a beach towel to sit on. Earlybirds get green picnic tables, but they're few and far between (try the very southeast corner for your best chance). I counted five screens round the park, some much bigger than others, offering a broad choice of events to watch. Table tennis in one corner, BMX elsewhere, a bit of handball on the opposite side and equestrian on the main screen... take your pick and plonk down with a beer. The beer's expensive, even for central London. It's five pounds for a pint of Heineken or £4.50 for Fosters, plus you can add a "commemorative stackable cup" for £1 (recently reduced from £2). Food stalls are everywhere, mostly of the burger, chips and grilled meat variety like you might find at a car boot sale, but with more ethnic diversity if you look around. With even a Dairy Milk coated ice cream on a stick costing £3, the disposal of food on the way in feels entirely mercenary.
BT London Live - Victoria Park
A morning of heats and semi-finals was on offer, nineteen races in total. We were treated to a broad mixture of events, some with one woman (sitting) in a kayak, others with two men (kneeling) in a canoe. This is paddling, not rowing, which probably explains why you don't see it on TV much, although the first half hour did make it onto BBC1 simply because there were no other Olympic events taking place. I've checked the iPlayer footage and I think I can work out which small dot is me, but you're unlikely to be so fortunate. Each race lasted somewhere between two and four minutes, unless you were the two-man crew from Angola in which case nearer five, eventually reaching the finishing line to a chorus of encouraging cheers. It's not like you get on the TV, watching live, more a lengthy session of repetitive races interspersed with some waiting around. Some of the younger children in the crowd found this difficult to maintain for two hours, indeed a few of the adults couldn't stick it either. But on the whole this was a polite but enthusiastic crowd of the southeast's middle classes - more Maidenhead than Slough, let's say. The dad to the left of me proved he should have been in the office by taking a call about a Birmingham property deal on his Blackberry. The daughter to my right hoped to support New Zealand, but had made a right mess of painting "NZ" on her face in a mirror. Several genuine national contingents were also present, with clusters of vocal over-enthusiasm whenever Germany or certain Eastern European countries paddled past. "Go Hungary! Go Hungary" they cried, which sounded like they'd not had enough breakfast. The grandstand erupted when race 8 finally included a competitor from Team GB. Rachel Cawthorn was competing in the heats of the Kayak Single, and the crowd whooped and waved as she powered down the course at the head of the field. Their fervour was astonishing given the non life-or-death nature of the race. There were six competitors in her heat of whom the fastest six would qualify... but never mind that irrelevance, the cheering collective were enraptured anyway. They were more rightly chuffed when she squeaked second in the semi-final, rising to their feet to see better... and thereby completely blocking the view for all the under five-footers in the grandstand. Rachel's final is tomorrow, and we'll all have a better view online, but it was good to be there to watch far more than the edited highlights. [five photos]
