Sponsors to the fore in torch relay but who will light the flame in the London 2012 Olympic stadium?This article titled “The London 2012 torch mixes the Olympian and the corporate” was written by Owen Gibson, for guardian.co.uk on Thursday 19th May 2011 09.58 UTCAs Seb Coe stood up to speak about the inspirational effect of the flame that will a year from now be passing through the cities, towns and villages of Britain having been “lit by the power of the sun on Mount Olympus”, three other figures looked on intently.They sat alongside him as he went on to talk about the galvanising effect he expected the tour to have on communities as the Olympic spirit coursed through them and they hosted their own celebratory events in the early summer gloaming.And they listened intently as Coe spoke affectingly about a husband and wife team who sold their house so the community gym they run in south-east London could survive – his nomination for one of the 7,200 out of 8,000 torchbearer slots reserved for members of the public.The three onlookers, who then got to take their turn to speak, were representatives of the three “presenting partners” – Samsung, Coca-Cola and Lloyds TSB – who get to plaster their branding over the torch relay. The man from Coca-Cola alone promised to bring “happiness and celebration” to the route.It is they (along with local authorities along the way) who effectively pay for the hoopla that will surround the torch relay that organisers hope will be the moment that the nation drops any lingering cynicism and truly embraces the Games.It was the most obvious manifestation in London to date of the sometimes uneasy, but ultimately profitable, mix of heady Olympic ideals and hard-nosed commercialism that has turned the modern Games into the globe-straddling event that it is.The genius of the International Olympic Committee’s commercial growth since the Los Angeles Games of 1984 has been to rake in huge sums from sponsors while enforcing very strict rules on how they can use the rights.As one of the very few events that the IOC allows them to overtly brand, the torch relay is where that symbiotic relationship – the organising committee Locog needs the sponsors to contribute £700m towards its £2bn budget, the sponsors want to extract every last drop of value out of their huge investment – becomes clearest.So it was that Coe began his press conference invoking the loftiest of Olympic ideals and ended it defending the involvement of Coke and answering questions on how many fizzy drinks his children guzzled.In common with their wider activity to date surrounding the London Games – which has tended to focus on warm and fuzzy corporate social responsibility activity rather than overt branding – all three sponsors have bought into the idea of using the relay as a means to run campaigns offering worthy members of the public the opportunity to claim their own slice of Olympic history and run a few hundred yards with the torch.A Locog team has spent two years painstakingly researching the 8,000-mile route and negotiating with local authorities. They hope that when the relay hits town, backed by wall-to-wall coverage from local media who will concentrate on the rich back stories of those running and the celebratory event that will take place every night (something between a Radio 1 roadshow and a county fair sponsored by multinationals, by the sound of things) Olympic fever will take hold up and down the country.Whether they succeed will depend to a large extent on those sponsors. If they get it right, Locog, the brands and the public will benefit. Get it wrong, and it could dent public enthusiasm.Sally Hancock, head of 2012 at Lloyds TSB, argued at the launch that in many ways the Olympics couldn’t have come at a better time for her company. Struggling to repair public trust and negotiating the internal challenge of merging two huge banks, the opportunity to create a feelgood factor around an event that is at once local and national in scale could be a huge one.But if the public is turned off and fails to buy into the concept – Locog has promised half the runners will be between 12 and 24 and 90% will be ordinary members of the public, to be nominated through four separate campaigns by the organisers and the sponsors– then it will feel like a long 8,000 miles.Locog will also have to get the balance right between safety and celebration. The defining public image of the Beijing international torch tour, which caused the IOC to turn it into a domestic event confined to the host country, was of a scrum of security guards bludgeoning their way through human rights protesters as bussed-in supporters of the Chinese government looked on.The UK’s experience will be becalmed by comparison. But Coe – who has often described Britain as a “slow-burn nation” that will take time to reach fever pitch over the Olympics – knows more than anyone how crucial it is that the relay is the moment at which the flame ignites that enthusiasm.And by the time the torch reaches the Olympic stadium, the eyes of the world will be on it. Which raises three obvious questions: Who will light the cauldron? How? And where will it be (there is still debate within Locog about whether it should be in the stadium, on top of it or on some sort of structure nearby)?The most memorable final torchbearers – Muhammad Ali in Atlanta, Cathy Freeman in Sydney – have held resonance beyond merely their status as sporting heroes in their home country. And the more spectacular the method of lighting the cauldron (the archer in Barcelona, the flying Beijing gymnast), the greater the risk of global humiliation.The task for Danny Boyle, the Trainspotting director already planning the opening ceremony in an east London warehouse, will be to come up with something to top what has gone before. Bookmakers immediately installed Sir Steve Redgrave as favourite, but will the emphasis on youth that characterised the bid promises lead organisers to a younger face? Coe, who might have been a leading contender were he not already so intimately involved with the staging of the Games, has already ruled himself out. guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010Published via the Guardian News Feed plugin for WordPress.Thanks for subscribing to Andy Roberts blogThe London 2012 torch mixes the Olympian and the corporateRelated posts:London Olympics organisers appeal to protesters not to disrupt flame routeLondon 2012 Olympics countdown clock stopsLondon 2012: Ten best of the web
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The London 2012 torch mixes the Olympian and the corporate
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May 19 2011, 5:24am | Comments »
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London Olympics organisers appeal to protesters not to disrupt flame route
Lord Coe says he is confident balance can be struck between security and celebration as he unveils locations of the Olmpic torch’s 70-day journey around the UK to herald the start of the London 2012 Olympic Games.This article titled “London Olympics organisers appeal to protesters not to disrupt flame route” was written by Owen Gibson, sports news correspondent, for The Guardian on Wednesday 18th May 2011 16.03 UTCLondon 2012 organisers called on protest groups not to disrupt the 8,000-mile journey of the Olympic flame around the UK, after unveiling its route for the first time.Lord Coe, chairman of the London organising committee of the Olympic Games (Locog), said he was confident the balance could be struck between guaranteeing the safety of the 8,000 torchbearers and ensuring a celebratory atmosphere.“We will make sure that the torch flame gets around the UK in the safest and most secure way, but at the same time we want communities to celebrate it and not [put it] behind a cordon of steel. I think we’ll get the balance right,” he said.He appealed to protest groups not to target the route of the torch, which according to tradition will be lit on Mount Olympus before beginning its journey around the UK at Land’s End on 18 May next year.“This is friendship, this is respect, this is showcasing extraordinary talent in local communities. I really don’t sit here thinking this will be a catalyst for massive demonstrations. I think people get this,” he said.The Beijing torch relay in 2008, the last that ventured beyond the borders of the host country before the International Olympic Committee (IOC) changed its policy, was chiefly remembered for protests and heavy-handed security. In Vancouver, protesters disrupted the last few days of the event, sparking counter-demonstrations from those supporting it.Coe, unveiling the first 74 locations on the torch’s 70-day tour of the UK, said the relay would be vital in igniting enthusiasm for the London Games beyond the capital and insisted that it would not be a giant marketing exercise for sponsors.“I am proud and excited as I envisage the moment that really marks the start of our Olympic celebrations in the UK and far beyond,” said Coe, who ran with the torch ahead of the Vancouver Games.“As it made its way around Canada, it drew renewable power from every community it passed through. As it made its journey across that huge land mass, Vancouver’s Games became Canada’s Games.“That is London 2012′s intention too. Ours will be a Games that takes place on your doorstep.”The 8,000 torchbearer places are divided between Locog and the three “presenting partners” – Coca-Cola, Lloyds TSB and Samsung – who will help fund the events that will take place at each overnight stop.As the only part of the Olympics that can be branded, it is likely the sponsors will have a heavy presence but, like Locog, they have promised to make the vast majority of their torchbearer places available to members of the public.Coe said more than 90% of places would be taken by the public, with half of the torchbearers aged between 12 and 24.Locog has already launched its own nominations campaign, inviting the public to put forward members of their community with inspiring stories.The sponsors will take a similar approach in distributing the tickets to the public and staff. The cast of public torchbearers is likely to be augmented by athletes and celebrities.The announcement has also sparked speculation about the likely identity of the final torchbearer who will light the cauldron in the Olympic stadium at the climax of the opening ceremony, with bookmakers installing Sir Steve Redgrave as favourite.The final route will take the torch to within an hour of 95% of the population across England, Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland and six outlying islands. It will visit the Isle of Man, Guernsey, Jersey, Shetland, Orkney and the Isle of Lewis. Coe said Locog was also in advanced talks to take the torch to Dublin.British IOC member Sir Craig Reedie said the route would also pass UK sporting landmarks including Wimbledon, Old Trafford, St Andrew’s and Much Wenlock in Shropshire, the birthplace of the modern Olympics.The event will also be crucial to the cash-strapped British Olympic Association. Under the terms of its recent settlement with Locog after it backed down in a row over the division of any surplus from the Games, it will receive the royalties to two branded items of Olympic merchandise.In Vancouver, more than 3.5m pairs of red mittens were sold to those who lined the route to raise money for Canadian sport. The BOA will unveil its branded merchandise next year. guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010Published via the Guardian News Feed plugin for WordPress.Thanks for subscribing to Andy Roberts blogLondon Olympics organisers appeal to protesters not to disrupt flame routeRelated posts:London Olympic organisers defend ‘peculiar’ ticket payment processLondon 2012 Olympics countdown clock stopsIran claims London 2012 Olympics logo spells ‘Zion’
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May 18 2011, 11:57am | Comments »
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London Olympic organisers defend ‘peculiar’ ticket payment process
London Mayor Boris Johnson brands Olympics 2012 ticketing process ‘an oddity’ Locog gives itself until 24 June to inform successful applicantsThis article titled “London Olympic organisers defend ‘peculiar’ ticket payment process” was written by Owen Gibson, for The Guardian on Wednesday 18th May 2011 16.51 UTCLondon Olympic organisers including Lord Coe have been forced to defend their ticketing process in the wake of criticism from consumer groups and after the mayor of London, Boris Johnson, called it “peculiar”.Consumer groups including Which? have criticised the fact that money started coming out of applicant’s accounts this week but Locog has given itself until 24 June to inform them which tickets they have received, if any.Coe denied the policy was an attempt to avoid a scenario where customers may cancel their orders if they had only received tickets for less popular events. He argued instead it was an attempt to create the breathing space to solve any problems with payments.“The important thing here is, let’s not be coy or naive about, we want to make sure that people have the funds to be able to do this. We’re talking £500m here, this is not chopped liver,” said Coe. “We want to make sure people have funds available. In the event they don’t, we don’t want to rip up that application on the first day.”Which? has said the ordering process forced people to take “a gamble with their finances”. Johnson told a parliamentary committee that taking payment before emailing successful applicants was “a bit peculiar” and “an administrative oddity”, though he added it was “not the end of the world”.Locog’s head of ticketing, Paul Williamson, said up to 25% of ticket payments may not go through first time due to lost cards, technical problems or because there were insufficient funds, adding an extra layer of complexity to a system that had 6.6 million tickets on sale across 648 sessions at five price points and numerous venues. He said the ticketing process had been well trailed and that he had no regrets about the strategy.“We can’t tell people what tickets they’ve got until we’ve charged their card. We need to make sure it’s a fully paid for order before we inform people. That’s sensible business practice,” said Williamson. “The second reason is the sheer scale of this enterprise. More than 1.8 million applied and more than 20 million tickets were applied for. The sheer scale of it is why it takes time. If we told people the day after their credit card went through, we’d be telling people across three or four weeks. You might be told and your next door neighbour wouldn’t.”He said that by the middle of next week Locog expected to have charged well over half of all payments. The emails to inform applicants whether they were successful will all go out on the same day.“We’re trying to be fair to people. No one is going to be allocated a ticket they haven’t applied for. On average, people have applied for 12 tickets worth a total of £500. People are applying for tickets they’ve chosen,” said Williamson.He also defended the fact that Locog has not informed buyers where they will be sitting, effectively asking them to take on trust that more expensive tickets will have better views.“The higher price points are closer to the action and more central, the lower price points are further away and higher up. That’s quite normal in major events where you’re selling tickets a year beforehand,” said Williamson, drawing comparison with other events such as Wimbledon and the FA Cup final that sold tickets in price bands.In June, anyone who didn’t get any tickets at all will get “first bite at the second chance cherry”, said Williamson, followed by those who didn’t get everything they applied for. All the remaining tickets will go back on general sale in November. guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010Published via the Guardian News Feed plugin for WordPress.Thanks for subscribing to Andy Roberts blogLondon Olympic organisers defend ‘peculiar’ ticket payment processRelated posts:London Olympics organisers appeal to protesters not to disrupt flame routeWill the 2012 Olympics be a sell out?London 2012: Ten best of the web
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May 18 2011, 11:55am | Comments »
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I can’t get up worked up about the royal wedding, AV or the Olympics
I can’t be bothered to argue with Fielding about the royal wedding, and I asked him about AV but it’s a bit like the Olympic tickets business. It’s into the void with both of them
This article titled “I can’t get up worked up about the royal wedding, AV or the Olympics” was written by Michele Hanson, for The Guardian on Thursday 28th April 2011 20.01 UTC Three huge events going on and I can’t get worked up about any of them: the wedding, the AV decision and the Olympic ticket deadline. Fielding is fairly ratty about the wedding. “I don’t want to sound like Dave Spart,” says he, “but England is all about class, and they absolutely reinforce it. Do you know they own England?” He’s ashamed that his own mother used to go to Ascot to admire the bonnets of the ruling classes. Yawn. What a spoil-sport he is. At least his mother had a jolly day out, which we’re all trying to have today. And I know this is a fiercely republican newspaper, but Olga and Olivia have met the Queen, and they assure me that after all these years and a squillion handshakes, she’s still perky and amusing. How could one not love the darling creature? Her grandson is perfectly pleasant, the bride seems to want the job, and the costumes and the horses are heaven. So what is Fielding griping about? I can’t be fagged to argue. I asked him about AV. We both tried to sit up straight and not glaze over, but it’s like the Olympic ticket business. You’re into the void with both of them. You tick your boxes or send your credit card details, and who knows what you’ll get, whether you’ll like it and how much it will cost? Could be the Euro-Sausage Party in charge, or first-round ping-pong, or everything or nothing that you asked for. At least buying Olympic tickets isn’t compulsory, but I suppose we have to vote. People have died so that we can. But which way? We can’t understand it, so Fielding plans to vote Yes, because Osborne is voting No and Eddie Izzard (below) is voting Yes. But that method is flawed. John Prescott and union people are for No, Nigel Farage and Cleggy for Yes. The nice and the nasty people are mixed on both sides. Now down in Dorset, Fielding has gone off to drink ale at a village wedding party. The turncoat. What does it all mean? Don’t know, don’t care.
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April 28 2011, 3:58pm | Comments »
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Red songs ring out in Chinese city’s new cultural revolution
Chinese city Chongqing’s ambitious party boss Bo Xilai has got the population singing red songs such as Road to Revitalisation and Love of the Red Flag
This article titled “Red songs ring out in Chinese city’s new cultural revolution” was written by Tania Branigan in Beijing, for The Guardian on Friday 22nd April 2011 15.46 UTC Road to Revitalisation may not sound like the most catchy name for a tune, but authorities in Chongqing are urging residents to sing along to it – and 35 more carefully selected “red songs”. The south-western Chinese city has launched the musical campaign to mark this year’s 90th anniversary of the Communist party’s birth. Television and radio stations are broadcasting the tunes, newspapers are carrying the scores and officials are arranging public performances of Love of the Red Flag and Good Men Should Become Soldiers. Officials are also urging artists to help train people “to raise a fever of singing red [revolutionary] songs,” according to the People’s Daily website. The initiative is the latest phase in the “red culture movement” launched by the city’s ambitious party boss Bo Xilai. “Red songs won public support because they depicted China’s path in a simple, sincere and vivid way,” Bo said last year. “There’s no need to be artsy-fartsy … only dilettantes prefer enigmatic works.” Chongqing television was recently ordered to drop popular soap operas and sitcoms. Instead, it airs improving material such as classic dramas and red song shows, reportedly leading to a sharp drop in ratings and advertising revenue. Other initiatives include ordering students to work in the countryside and getting cadres to don Red Army uniforms and follow the path of their forebears “to deepen their understanding and experience of hardships”.
While most expect Bo to be included in the top political body, the politburo standing committee, it is not clear what position he might take. His other striking initiatives have included a mass drive to urbanise the population and a campaign against organised crime, which won him plaudits but raised concerns about the manner of the crackdown. “He is a maverick. He has the confidence of his family background,” Bo’s father was a Communist “immortal”, rehabilitated after the Cultural Revolution, in which Bo’s mother died. “Bo’s approach appears to be gaining some traction among some very high-level leaders,” said Beijing-based political analyst Russell Leigh Moses. Several senior figures have visited Chongqing recently, notably Xi Jinping, the vice president expected to take the top job next year, who praised Bo’s cultural drive. Moses said: “Bo’s campaign is multidimensional, but its primary objective seems to be trying to redefine local affairs as mass politics. [It] is not about policy as much as it is about a new communist theology that is nostalgic and not like anyone else’s.” Brady said propaganda had changed so much in content as well as method that comparisons to Maoism were lazy. When Bo invokes Mao Zedong in text messages to residents, instead of references to class struggle he chooses feelgood quotations such as: “The world is ours, we should unite for achievements.” “Some appear to have misunderstood the message in our campaign,” Xu Chao, the official leading the red song drive, told the Global Times. “‘Red’ doesn’t only represent revolution, communism or socialism. It also includes elements that represent happiness, harmony, being positive and healthy. The term is actually quite inclusive.” There are no Mao-era songs on the 36-strong list and many are recent popular hits about loving one’s family or one’s nation. Go China! praises Olympicdiver Guo Jingjing, baseball star Yao Ming and film director Zhang Yimou rather than Communist cadres. “It’s definitely not on-message in terms of what was traditionally regarded as ‘red’,” said Brady. “I think a Cultural Revolution-era propagandist would be appalled.”
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April 24 2011, 4:21am | Comments »
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Olympic Park: name that neighbourhood
http://distributedresearch.net/blog/2011/04/19/olympic-park-name-that-neighbourhood
Some sort of competition for naming the five Olympic villages for the London 2012 Olympic games in Stratford East London.
This article titled “Olympic Park: name that neighbourhood” was written by Dave Hill, for guardian.co.uk on Tuesday 19th April 2011 09.47 UTC The Olympic Park Legacy Company recently made known four of the entries to its competition to name the five residential areas the park will eventually contain. It says the four are a sample of the “hundreds” it has received, and quite an instructive sample it is. I’m guessing that the suggestion of Plastic Fantastic is aimed at Area 3 and a historical reference to the development of early forms of plastic in the old chemical industry area of Hackney Wick, where dry cleaning too was pioneered. But who would rush to reside in a place called that? Would it assist estate agents in their noble task of wooing purchasers of the mixture of flats and family homes destined to rise alongside the Lea Navigation Canal? Stylish modern living in, ah, Plastic Fantastic? The OPLC’s Duncan Innes anticipates it being “quite a funky little area,” with “lots of arty people living there,” perhaps because the new local industry is galleries. From the commercial point of view, I’d be looking for bog standard pretentiousness in that case. Leaside Quarter? Wick Modern? Old Laundry? The three other suggested names released are Little Athens and Redgravia, whose Olympic inspirations, though ingenious, are perhaps a bit too obvious, and Dog and Bike, which to me sounds like a pub and only a pub. Still, I suppose the efforts made public were chosen to give clues and motivation to other potential competitors rather than on the basis of quality, and they do concentrate the mind on the complexities of the task. It needs to be tackled seriously. The organisers reserve the right to reject all contenders if they don’t think they’re up to scratch and impose their own instead. Should the five neighbourhoods’ names be Games-connected or reflect local history? They can’t really be both. If Games-connected, should they have a British or an international flavour? If localist, how local? And if history is to be the guide, whose history should take priority? That last is, of course, a political question and there was more than a whiff of politics about the decision to elongate the park’s name to the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park. Would such eager deference to royalty have happened under a Labour government and Labour London Mayor? The very Conservative Boris Johnson is plainly pleased with the monarchical association, and it is one that could in theory be extended to the neighbourhood names, giving the whole area a thematic unity. Charles Environs? Middleton Village? On the other hand, perhaps Boris’s predecessor, who played such a big part in securing the Games for the capital, should have a neighbourhood named after him to recognise his contribution? Alas, Kenton and Kensington have already been taken. I’d been interested to hear your suggestions for Olympic Park neighbourhood names, and I’m sure the OPLC would too. Full details of its competition and the five neighbourhoods are here and the BBC, a partner in the enterprise, provides further helpful information here and here. I’ll be away on holiday when this post goes live, which means I’m unlikely to respond to comments. However, I’m sure there will be more to say on this subject before the competition’s closing date of May 18.
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April 19 2011, 6:36am | Comments »
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Olympics 2012: Are there ways to save on tickets?
http://distributedresearch.net/blog/2011/04/08/olympics-2012-are-there-ways-to-save-on-tickets
What’s the best way to get good value Olympics 2012 tickets without breaking the bank?
This article titled “Olympics 2012: Are there ways to save on tickets?” was written by Jim Griffin, for guardian.co.uk on Friday 8th April 2011 11.07 UTC Every week a Guardian Money reader submits a question, and it’s up to you to help him or her out – a selection of the best answers will appear in next Saturday’s paper. This week’s question: My husband is planning to spend more than £1,000 on Olympics tickets, which seems crazy to me. He wants to go for the pricier tickets, as he says the cheap £20 ones will be over-subscribed. Is he right? Any tips I can pass on for reducing his (our) bill? What are your thoughts?
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April 8 2011, 6:34am | Comments »
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Olympic stadium completed on time
http://distributedresearch.net/blog/2011/03/29/olympic-stadium-completed-on-time
London 2012 Olympic Stadium designers hail ‘the beginning of the end’ of the construction phase as the main arena comes in on schedule and under budget.
This article titled “Olympic stadium completed on time” was written by Owen Gibson, for The Guardian on Tuesday 29th March 2011 19.51 UTC The designers of the Olympic Stadium in east London have hailed its completion as “the beginning of the end” for the construction phase of the 2012 Games. As International Olympic Committee inspectors arrived in the city for a three-day visit to check on progress, organisers hoped the good news on the completion of the Stratford stadium would overshadow an ongoing row with the British Olympic Association over how any hypothetical profit would be distributed. Lord Coe, the chairman of the London Organising Committee of the Olympic Games, watched Frankie Fredericks, a four-time Olympic silver medallist, lay the last piece of turf on the infield. The £486m stadium is the second major venue on the Olympic Park to be finished, after the Velodrome was unveiled earlier last month. “I do not want anybody to run away with the idea that this stadium is ready to stage a track-and-field championship tomorrow,” said Coe. “But as a chairman of an organising committee to be able to tick off this venue is terrific. It is fantastic. I think it will be an intimate theatre for sport and it has fantastic legacy potential, too.” Work began on the 80,000-seat stadium in May 2008 and the Olympic Delivery Authority, which is responsible for spending £8.1bn of public money on the infrastructure to host the Games, said its completion was a “huge milestone”. “The Olympic Stadium has been finished on time and under budget,” said ODA chairman John Armitt. “To complete a complicated project such as this in less than three years is testament to the skill and professionalism of the UK construction industry.” Rod Sheard, of stadium architects Populous, said he was looking forward to watching “this innovative design perform for the first time”. He added: “Its completion marks the beginning of the end of the construction phase of London’s Olympic Games.”
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March 29 2011, 3:35pm | Comments »
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I posted to distributedresearch.net
Millions will watch as Boat Race is re-branded as ‘world-class event’
The 157th Oxford and Cambridge Boat Race will be shown in more than 200 countries and it’s one of the top 10 annual events in London
This article titled “Millions will watch as Boat Race is re-branded as ‘world-class event’” was written by Barney Ronay, for The Guardian on Friday 25th March 2011 20.38 UTC In terms of sheer weight of numbers, the biggest attraction of a busy sporting Saturday takes place tomorrow afternoon, not in Cardiff or Colombo, but on a suburban stretch of the River Thames between Putney and Mortlake. The 157th Varsity Boat Race, an event competed for by amateurs at several rungs below world class level, will once again attract six million UK TV viewers, with 250,000 watching from the river bank and a further multitude tuning in via BBC website streaming and TV coverage in over 200 countries. At last week’s weigh-in at City Hall the London mayor Boris Johnson described the student race as “a world-class sporting event that is huge for London”. He seems to be at least half right. Part nostalgia pageant, part emerging talent showcase, the Boat Race has in the last two years made a visible effort to reposition itself as a high-end London heritage event. Selling it has been the lot of Boat Race Ltd, the company responsible for dragging this unique sporting “property” — an unavoidably class-bound two-horse race — into the modern world of high-end revenue raking. “It really is a part of London’s history,” says David Searle, the company’s executive director. “The mayor has been incredibly supportive. He’s there to promote London as a centre of all things and the Boat Race is considered one of the top 10 annual events in London.” Menaced by the loss of its ITV rights deal two years ago, the race has since promoted itself aggressively and is now brought to you by title sponsor Xchanging, plus a slew of commercial partners. Despite all of this Boat Race Ltd maintain the race is still financially under-geared. “Running it is very expensive,” Searle says. “We pay the clubs [Oxford and Cambridge] to turn up and row. That’s very expensive. There’s travel and coaching for teams. We don’t get any money at all from the colleges.” If the Boat Race has perhaps been more energetically sold, paradoxically today’s race is one of the more parochial of recent years. The race is often maligned as a sub-standard event. This is perhaps unfair: with the national squads yet to be formed, and thanks to the unusual intensity of Varsity race training, these are still currently the two finest eights in the country. On the other hand, with London 2012 now officially looming the pool of available talent is at a four yearly low. Currently the priority for potential Olympians is national competition. Hence the unusual absence of jobbing overseas rowers in today’s field; 13 out of the 18 competitors are British with just one American. On the plus side both of today’s eights are unusually well-stocked with young British talent, including six undergraduates whose chief rowing experience has come through their colleges. Cambridge are fancied by many to repeat last year’s triumph. They are the heavier eight, by 13 kilos, and also the more experienced, with four previous rowing Blues. But even in the light blue boat there is a fresh-faced tinge. Cambridge’s Dan Rix-Standing didn’t even try out for the race last year. There is also undergraduate colour: David Nelson, an Australian economics student, likes to hunt crocodiles in his spare time back home in Brisbane. In the Oxford boat the teenage old Etonian Constantine Louloudis is flagged up as one to watch. Dark Blue cox Simon Hislop, a 26-year-old testicular cancer survivor and a campaigner for awareness of the disease provides the most heartening story of a race that, true to its own branding as an annual rite of spring, seems set to take place on an unusually placid River Thames.
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Related posts:November 1-3 Wikis and Nonprofits Online event ¦ NetSquared Golden rower Tom James forces his way back into Olympic reckoning Online Learning and Collaboration event
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March 25 2011, 4:46pm | Comments »
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I posted to distributedresearch.net
London 2012: Ten best of the web
http://distributedresearch.net/blog/2011/03/25/london-2012-ten-best-of-the-web
Lots of sites about London 2012 Olympics tickets including Oscar Pistorius, ticketing guides and Visa’s new Olympics ad
This article titled “London 2012: Ten best of the web” was written by Steve Busfield, for guardian.co.uk on Friday 25th March 2011 12.52 UTC 490 days to go As promised, here is this week’s selection of the best London 2012 Olympics content on the web (please add links below the line or send via email or Twitter. 1. Top 10 Olympic travel tips from Diamon Geezer. He also has a pretty good ticket guide (Via Owen Gibson) 2. There’s an (unofficial) app for that. 3. Visa has a London 2012 ad featuring plenty of Olympic stars. Eat your heart out Mastercard. Oliver Holt in the Mirror had this to say about it. (Via Penny Woods) 4. Worried about staying in London during the Games? Matt Beard of the London Evening Standard reports: “Top hotel chains in crisis talks with 2012 Olympics organisers over ‘rip-off’ re-sale packages.” 5. Have you looked at the terms and conditions of Olympic Tickets? Nick Pearce did and here’s what he found. 6. Oscar Pistorius’ dream of running in theOlympic Games at London 2012 moved a step closer when the South African set a new personal best, just 0.06 seconds short of the ‘A’ standard needed for automatic Olympic qualification, reports the BBC. 7. Want to know more about the BOA v Locog row? This piece by Alan Hubbard uses boxing metaphors to explain. (Via Owen Gibson again) 8. The mountain-biking arena is ready. 9. Should handball be an Olympic sport? There was a brief but entertaining below the line debate on our Watching The Games series. 10. For 2012 refuseniks, here’s an apposite cartoon from the Daily Telegraph’s Matt. (Via Chei Amlani) Please share your thoughts or more links below the line or send via email or Twitter.
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Related posts:London 2012 Olympics countdown clock stops Olympic Games 2012 medal haul will beat Beijing, promises UK Sport Iran claims London 2012 Olympics logo spells ‘Zion’
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March 25 2011, 8:31am | Comments »
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I posted to distributedresearch.net
Orbit Tower in progress
http://distributedresearch.net/blog/2011/03/21/orbit-tower-in-progress
Orbit Tower (ArcelorMittal Orbit) #2 a photo by George Rex on Flickr. Orbit Tower (ArcelorMittal Orbit) #2 20110302 work-in-progress. The Orbit Tower will be one of the attractions in the London 2012 Olympic Park. There will be two viewing platforms accessible by elevator. Sculptor: Anish Kapoor, Structural Designer: Cecil Balmond. Design and Engineering: Ove Arup. The controversial red tubular steel tower will be 115m tall and completion is due in spring 2012. London Borough of Newham. Image: George Rex Photography) Thanks for subscribing to Andy Roberts blogOrbit Tower in progress
Related posts:The Orbit Tower, Olympic Park Stratford East London 2012 London Orbit Tower Rises at Olympic Park Olympics Anish Kapoor tower hopes to attract 1m visitors a year
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March 21 2011, 12:21pm | Comments »
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I posted to distributedresearch.net
London 2012 Olympics countdown clock stops
http://distributedresearch.net/blog/2011/03/15/london-2012-olympics-countdown-clock-stops
I was in Trafalgar Square yesterday, but that was before the unveiling ceremony of the countdown clock for the London 2012 Olympic Games. It all looked like and advertisement for Omega, buts as it turns out, not a very good one perhaps.
2012 Olympics countdown clock Trafalgar square London
This article titled “London 2012 Olympics countdown clock stops” was written by Owen Gibson, sports news correspondent, for guardian.co.uk on Tuesday 15th March 2011 15.24 UTC It was launched in a blaze of sparklers by Lord Coe, London Mayor Boris Johnson and potential London 2012 gold medallist Jessica Ennis. But on the day Olympic tickets went on sale, organisers suffered a major embarrassment as their official countdown clock stopped. The timepiece, which has become a traditional fixture for Olympic host cities and is made by sponsor Omega, stalled reading 500 days, seven hours and 56 seconds to go until the opening ceremony. The 6.5m-high structure, which is in a prominent position in Trafalgar Square, was launched on Monday night at an event hosted by Clare Balding. It was unveiled by four Olympic gold medallists from Team GB – rowers Pete Reed and Andy Hodge and sailors Iain Percy and Andrew Simpson. “The launch of the Omega countdown clock is an important milestone for any Olympic Games and is something of a tradition within the Olympic movement,” said Locog chairman Lord Coe before the launch. “It will be a daily and hourly reminder to everyone who visits Trafalgar Square that the countdown to the start of London 2012 has well and truly begun and that the greatest show on earth is soon coming to our country.” Omega says it is not immediately apparent what has caused the problem. In a case of life imitating art the BBC on Monday night launched a Thick of It style mockumentary, Twenty Twelve, which featured a PR farrago around a countdown clock. A spokeswoman for Omega said: “‘We are obviously very disappointed that the clock has suffered this technical issue. The Omega London 2012 countdown clock was developed by our experts and fully tested ahead of the launch in Trafalgar Square. “We are currently looking into why this happened and expect to have the clock functioning as normal as soon as possible.”
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March 15 2011, 10:39am | Comments »
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I posted to distributedresearch.net
London’s 2012 Olympics must be a ‘regeneration games’
http://distributedresearch.net/blog/2011/03/15/londons-2012-olympics-must-be-a-regeneration-games
Unless the London 2012 Olympics deliver their promised regeneration legacy for East London, the whole project will have ultimately failed
This article titled “London’s 2012 Olympics must be a ‘regeneration games’” was written by Dave Hill, for guardian.co.uk on Tuesday 15th March 2011 12.57 UTC There are 500 days to go, the tickets are on sale and the big question on Radio 5 Live this morning was, “Are you up for the Olympics?” Well, I am, in spite of everything. Everything? Well, there’s been Locog’s miserable decision to switch the marathon route away from the East End, enabling overseas TV viewers to be spared seeing what real East Enders look like and instead compare their chocolate box mental images of Buck House with scenic pictures of the real thing. There’s the mad prices of some of the seats and the lurking whiff of ligging and privilege. There’s the colourful tale of Boris Johnson, his “fund-raising champion“, her former lover and the eighty grand that unhappy gentleman coughed up to help an arty monument tower immodestly above the Olympic Park. The result, being bolted together as we speak, is formally called the ArcelorMittal Orbit, though London blogger Diamond Geezer thinks only by people who write press releases. Then there’s the logo, which I still can’t learn to love. There’s the unending, well-meaning bilge about the Games inspiring a modern equivalent of Muscular Christianity, when we all know perfectly well that Britannia’s couch potatoes will take still deeper root when high definition telly makes it plainer to them than ever that serious sporting exertion involves pain. Most of all, there’s my bedrock scepticism about the Olympic project as a whole: I like sport, but the industry that attends it is absurd; I like the idea that London 2012 will bring prosperity to what has long been the capital’s poorest compass point, but am wary of the very concept of urban regeneration. Who really profits in the end? And yet I’m “Up for the Olympics” anyway. For one thing, is there a choice? The rash of post-credit crunch commentariat demands that London 2012 should emulate the austerity Games of 1948 struck me as joyless and contrary. There was no point in rowing back by then. The Games have long been a case of in for a lot of pennies, in for a lot of pounds and work like crazy to make the investment pay. For another thing, I live near the Olympic Park. Once these words are safely launched I’ll be running from my doorstep to the stadium and back as part of my London Marathon training schedule. Over the months I’ve watched the various venues grow from seed. I challenge anyone to stand on the Greenway linking Stratford and the River Lea and remain unstirred by the romance of the Olympic vision even if, like me, you fret that history will judge it foolhardy. I don’t mean patriotic dreams of sporting glory, intoxicating though they are. I mean those hopes that the running and the jumping, the pedaling and the diving, will indeed prepare the ground for the gradual creation of new London neighbourhoods that bring new jobs and homes to the Londoners who need them most and exemplify the best in big city planning. West Ham’s securing of the stadium as their new home was a hopeful sign. Neither their bid nor Tottenham’s was ideal, but the principle that the publicly-funded Games infrastructure should have some continuing public use has been honoured. Will the same spirit guide the sorts of homes built on the wider Olympic Park – the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park as it’s become since the general election – over the next twenty years? Will as many as possible be affordable to low-paid and even averagely-paid Londoners? Will the press and broadcast centres, which have formed before the sometimes disbelieving eyes of residents of Leabank Square, really give career opportunities to locals who lack them now? I could be applying for my Freedom Pass by the time answers to such questions are truly known. Tomorrow morning, the London Assembly will be trying to find out if those answers will be “yes”. Unless they are, more ominous one will soon arise. What were the 2012 Olympics really for?
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March 15 2011, 8:11am | Comments »
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I posted to distributedresearch.net
Artist Anish Kapoor warns arts cuts are ‘rolling us back to the Thatcher years’
Anish Kapoor is the artist commissioned to build the Orbit Tower for the Olympics Stadium in Stratford
This article titled “Artist Anish Kapoor warns arts cuts are ‘rolling us back to the Thatcher years’” was written by Maev Kennedy, for The Guardian on Thursday 3rd March 2011 17.14 UTC The Turner prize-winning artist Anish Kapoor has accused the Tories of having a “castration complex” about the arts, warning that it will take decades to recover from the damage caused by current cuts. “Already they’re rolling us back to the situation of the Thatcher years, and that took 15 years for the arts to recover,” he said. “I despair of this government, they just don’t get it, they just don’t understand that citizenship, community spirit, all the things they’re talking about, can come from art, can come from a sense of cultural belonging.” “I’ve given up on them, I’m afraid. To me it seems that it is neo-rightwing policies being forced through under the pretence of being middle of the road and reasonable.” Kapoor, in uncharacteristically angry and political mood, was in Manchester for the opening of his first major exhibition outside London in 12 years. He fears that no young artist today will have the career boost from a public institution that he received when at 25 the Arts Council Collection, organiser of his current exhibition, bought some of his earliest work. The collection paid £3,500 for his 1982 piece White Sand, Red Millet, Many Flowers, which used intricate shapes and raw powder pigment. The money was enough to keep him working as an artist for many months at a time when most of his contemporaries despaired of earning a living from their art. The exhibition – at the free admission Manchester Art Gallery, now losing staff to voluntary redundancy and struggling to make major savings for a second year – includes loans from other public collections. Her Blood, three enormous reflecting discs which took two lorries to transport, is owned by the Tate but has never been exhibited in the UK before; a major mirror piece came from Bradford, and another very early pigment piece is from Liverpool, and has not been displayed for years. “The value of having these pieces in public collections is immense,” Kapoor argued. “Not just in money terms, though they are all worth far, far more than these institutions paid, but in being where people can see them freely, be inspired, believe that this is possible.” Kapoor is on a roll. His giant twisting red tower is already rising on the 2012 Olympics site, and he became the first living artist since Henry Moore to be exhibited in the royal parks when several of his mirror pieces were installed in Hyde Park last year. He mounted a huge twin city show backed by the British Council in India last year, his first in his native country, and he is also working on commissions for the Venice Biennale, as well as a site specific piece for the gigantic 13,500 sq metre nave of the Grand Palais in Paris. Surprisingly, although Kapoor is responsible for giant public art installations in cities across the UK, his last exhibition outside London was in 1999. He helped choose the works for this show, which include loans from his studio of new pieces in alarmingly blood-red wax. This is the second Flashback exhibition drawn from the Arts Council Collection, showing off some of the curators’ most inspired hunches, artists now world-renowned whom they backed in their earliest days: the first show was of Bridget Riley, and the next will be Gary Hume. The collection, now run by the Hayward Gallery at the South Bank arts complex, was founded in 1946 – “two years before the National Health”, as director Caroline Douglas points out – to support emerging artists, and holds work by Henry Moore, Lucian Freud, Francis Bacon, Antony Gormley and Tracey Emin. At a time when most cash-strapped public collections have pared acquisitions to the bone, it still has an annual acquisitions budget of £180,000, and adds around 30 works every year. As well as mounting exhibitions, the collection makes loans to institutions such as hospitals and schools. Kapoor looks fondly at the brilliant colours of the piece he made and sold just two years after graduating from Chelsea School of Art. “It made a huge difference. That a public institution had enough confidence in me to put its money where its mouth was, that meant everything.” Anish Kapoor: Flashback. Manchester Art Gallery March 5 – June 5, then touring.
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March 3 2011, 11:59am | Comments »
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I posted to distributedresearch.net
Iran claims London 2012 Olympics logo spells ‘Zion’
http://distributedresearch.net/blog/2011/02/28/iran-claims-london-2012-olympics-logo-spells-zion
Well this seems a bit crazy but the London 2012 Olympics logo has been controversial from the start.
This article titled “Iran claims London 2012 Olympics logo spells ‘Zion’” was written by Julian Borger, diplomatic editor, for guardian.co.uk on Monday 28th February 2011 14.29 UTC Iran has threatened to boycott the London Olympics unless the organisers replace the official logo, which Tehran claims spells out the word “Zion”. The logo, a jagged representation of the year 2012, has been said by its critics to resemble many things, from a swastika to a sexual act, but the Iranian government argues it represents a veiled pro-Israeli conspiracy. In a formal complaint to the International Olympic Committee, Tehran has called for the graphic to be replaced and its designers “confronted”, warning that Iranian athletes might otherwise be ordered to stay away from the London Games. According to the state-backed Iranian Students News Agency, which is frequently used to convey official pronouncements, the letter says: “As internet documents have proved, using the word Zion in the logo of the 2012 Olympic Games is a disgracing action and against the Olympics’ valuable mottos. There is no doubt that negligence of the issue from your side may affect the presence of some countries in the Games, especially Iran which abides by commitment to the values and principles.” The letter, from the country’s national Olympic committee, leaves unclear what “internet documents” it is referring to. Amid the popular uproar that accompanied the unveiling of the logo in 2007, there were some claims, particularly on conspiracy-oriented websites, that its constituent shapes could be rearranged to make the world “Zion” and some animations were posted on YouTube showing how to do it. An IOC official confirmed that the Iranian letter had been received but said: “The London 2012 logo represents the figure 2012, nothing else.” A spokesman for the London Olympic organising committee added: “It was launched in 2007 following testing and consultation. We are surprised that this complaint has been made now.”
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February 28 2011, 8:43am | Comments »
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