Morning:
9°c
We're letting you in because you like the Olympics now," joked the PR at the London handover party in Beijing on Sunday night. Oh dear. If that is what London 2012 believes, the piece you are about to read may mark a tragic end to the shortest reconciliation in history.
Now it's true that I did, last week, describe Team GB's unexpected assault on the Beijing medal table as a triumph for London's cause. I did, indeed, write that the pro-Olympics lobby would have things much easier from now on, and that Olymposceptics like me would find life difficult for a while.
I still believe all that. But I'm also still an Olymposceptic. It's not that we should stop questioning the Games as a result of the past fortnight; it's that we should start asking slightly different questions.
Beijing has made it clearer that, important as regeneration and legacy are, the only thing the public will really care about in four years' time is the party, and the amount of gold around necks.
The instant conventional wisdom appears to be that in a scruffy, unfazed, Britishly creative sort of way, we'll be good at the party - and as for the medals, Team GB will see to that. Well, I wonder.
I wonder whether in sporting terms, Beijing 2008 was the Games that London should have had. When I asked him last week, Simon Clegg, head of Team GB, was distinctly reluctant to predict that we would increase our medal haul in four years' time.
We will almost certainly be weaker in some of our key sports. By 2012, for instance, the triple gold-winning cyclist Chris Hoy will be 36.
I started to wonder about the party side of things when I sat in the Bird's Nest on Sunday watching the flag handover. It began well. Rather to my surprise, I felt a little thrill of excitement when the national anthem played. Boris Johnson is another of those unchanging, timeless institutions that could only be British.
But then Leona Lewis rose from the roof of a red double-decker bus, wobbling slightly, with a pole up her bottom. Then the music shifted from general Olympo-warbling to Jimmy Page's electric guitar, in the kind of gear change that would get any London bus driver the sack.
What sounded like a railway station announcement played in the background. All of 12 dancers writhed in the foreground. A man in Lycra played a double bass. A woman in an athletic vest and shorts played a violin. David Beckham kicked a football into the arena, hitting one of the other performers.
Maybe it looked good at home. A TV screen is a small thing, and it doesn't take much to fill it. But in the stadium, I watched with a terrible sinking of the stomach. Britain could have done something clever, even subversive, with the postage-stamp it was allotted. Instead, we tried to stage a Chinese-style spectacle - with a cast of 25 people.
That is one of my worries about the whole Games. We claim not to be competing on Beijing's terms but with our vast collection of new stadia and facilities we are, in fact, trying to do a Beijing Lite.
My other worry, also exemplified by Sunday's performance, is that like anyone who desperately tries to seem youthful and modern, London 2012 has so far ended up just looking naff.
This is, of course, the organisation whose previous attempt at style was the London Olympic logo. London 2012 risks becoming the trendy vicar of our time.
And is London, more broadly, really the great welcomer of all cultures, the home of freedom, the party capital, that we fondly like to think?
How welcoming really will the average Olympic visitor find a city where virtually none of the indigenous inhabitants speaks any language other than English and where there is a serious crime problem?
On Sunday, it wasn't just the Beijing part of proceedings that fell short. The London end of the handover show in the Mall was an all-ticket affair, sponsored by some credit card company and corralled inside security fences, with nagging warnings not to come if you hadn't got a ticket.
The next day, on "health and safety" grounds, orders went out to the public not to go to Heathrow to welcome the athletes home.
We rightly bemoaned the Beijing Games's lack of spontanaity but spontanaity-often seems just as unwelcome in Britain.
Terrorism will be used as a reason to build every bit as many fences as they had in Beijing, and perhaps with more justification. Heavy policing will inevitably dampen the Olympic party atmosphere.
The fact is that petty regulation, "security" and a can't-do mentality are as much a part of London's personality as are creativity and freedom.
I can think of plenty of things that would create a giant party during Olympic fortnight. We should open every museum and gallery, free of charge, until midnight every night. We should suspend the licensing laws.
We should have an event like the annual Open House weekend, allowing people into normally closed buildings, but lasting the whole fortnight.
We should run the Tube all night and lend every Olympic passholder and athlete a free bicycle. We should force hotels to keep their prices down to non-exploitative levels.
But I'd be willing to bet that not one of those things will happen. The Tube unions, the museum staff, the pubs' neighbours, the hotel companies and the police will see to that. We'll have some giant screens and that will be it.
The Olympic organisers, locked into their world of secrecy and control, should remember that true creativity means letting go, and that state-sponsored fun is a contradiction in terms.
If they forget those things, the "world's greatest party" will end up looking, rather as it did on Sunday, more like a Seventies Royal Variety Performance. On now, Jimmy Page. Up next, Rod Hull and Emu.
Reader views (15)
Too much cynicism stifles creativity. The Handover is always pants, and is always hated by the home country. The Greek handover referred to above, was quite widely derided. The chinese handover in Athens was magnificent but the chinese back in china didn't like it.
Agree - we must not do creativity by commitee. A strong creative vision is needed - otherwise the whole ceremony will look like the handover - which was a bit disturbingly reminescent of show at the Dome - if we are talking about legacy - there are a lot of lessons there.
ps - Helen from Norwich - museums and galleries do open late at night in the capital - not as much as they should but they certainly do.
- Jc, se1
I assume whoever chose "Whole Lotta Love" to advertise London 2012 must have known just the title - unless they intended the song´s true meaning, which is all about shagging. Perhaps more iconic figures such as Eric Clapton or Brian May weren´t available.
- Aj, London, London, England
Here'a a puzzle, Take the 2012 Olympic logo and look closely at the individual component parts of it, what you find on close inspection is a word.
When you decipher the word you will see where the benefits of this Olympics will go.
- Jane, Tower Hamlets, England.
So we've got four years to plan some spontaneity? (note spelling you subs out there!) Best of luck with that one, especially if you remember the cock-up that was the Millenium Celebration at (or near to, depending on which day you started your journey there) at the Dome.
As for Boris, at least he looked human and quite understandably a bit overwhelmed by it all. And a quick word for Tonypow USA - when we start taking sartorial advice from across the pond, it really will be time to give up!
- Paul, London
I would not get to pessimistic. We need to keep the visitors away from places like Whitechapel and Stepney because the disgusting streets look like Calcutta. Of course Stratford, Hackney, Brixton indeed most of South London and of course Barking and Dagenham have very high youth crime, knife crime and obesity ascoiated with immigration. But is we can keep visitors away from those places it might be OK.
- Barry Bunn, romford
To Tonypow,USA
Boris Johnson may be scruffy, and not tow the line; but that's probably what got him elected in the first place. In the UK we appreciate the value of the individual, and eccentricity of all kinds. You will just have to accept that your way is not the only way, that in other parts of the world people do things differently, and that appearance and reality are not necessarily the same thing.
- Anne, hongkong
Let us look at the logo again.
it was pointed out like a much taller female (distinguishable by her hair style) works very hard on an old male to please him, even half on her knees. He is enjoyed with his head tilted back.
I hate this, can we change it to a better one?
- Johnsmith, London UK
Don't get me wrong, I am a very proud Brit and a true Londoner, but I was shell shocked when we won the 2012 games, as no way can the city cope with the influx of visitors in the summer, let alone thousands more for two weeks! It's performance on Sunday in Beijing was embarrassing to say the least, so I just hope they lift their game in the next four years in preparation for the opening ceremony, or we'll be the joke of the year! As for London itself, well it's far too expensive and as for the crime, well... that's another story.
- Maureen Cohen, London UK
I agree with most of comments here. The handover from Bejing to London was very poor and uncomplimentary. Those shabbily dressed dancers (?) waiting at the bus stop throwing papers about then hoading onto a bus like a bunch of hooligans was pathetic. Who is giving the go-ahead for these embarrassing shows? Are they on drugs or something? Surely London can do better. It is a city with class - lets see some of that...
- Mark, London
You are right that in the first few moments in really looked promising - great screen graphics, snappy Double Decker bus, but it all went to pot quickly. The dancers were the most embarrassing - like watching a sloppy routine from some early 80's MTV clip. I was genuinely sad to see this, because I really hoped for something symbolic and low-key. All they needed was an orchestra and maybe a choir of some sort, dressed as bus commuters.
One of the best, and most moving handovers was to Athens in 2000 with the traditional Greek women singers in Pagan dress. One of the worst was to Atlanta in 1992 with the dancing "Blue Sperm" (if anyone dares remember). We should have taken heed.
- David, N10
I need to ask this old, fat, London "mayor":
(1) How many drinks you had?
(2) Did you pick up your bargain clothes from the flee market?
(3) Did you have opium before the ceremony? (Should the mayor be tested for illegal drug?)
(4) Can you button your "clothes" for EIGHT minutes (exposing your fat belly is NOT ok here?
I used to think the London janitor could get a high ranking government job only in Hong Kong, but not any more. I'm very interest to know whether you graduated from high school and is the queen your close friend.
One Briton can make all Britons stupid and ugly in EIGHT minutes while the WHOLE world is watching.
- Tonypow, usa
Come off it. And then you try to get home and find that your companions on the Picadilly line are violently drunk and aggressive and intent on making your journey a misery. London is truly a city of dreadful night.
- Peter Haldane, London
I couldn't agree more re the 8 minute 2012 Embarrassment at the closing ceremony in Beijing.
We have so many mainstream and quirky themes to pick from in the UK and are loved world over for most of them. A completely unchoeorgraphed dance slot, we couldn't even rumble up a routemaster for the red bus daftness. At least Mr Beckham was world class but the Olympics isn't even about Football!
Lets hope the recruiters for 2012 get some serious creatives on board after this debacle instead of patting themselves on the back for this embarrassing showcase of mediocrity.
- Rachel, London
I agree with your "health and safety point". Building a stadium in Greenwich Park for the equestrian events will surely mean that one of the busiest parks will be closed for weeks. This could mean that ordinary families in SE London will be denied access to recreational facilities in the height of summer. You also make a good point about "security". Holding an event in an iconic site, which includes the Royal Observatory, will surely increase the security threat. If you want this event moved to another venue, you can sign the e-petition on:
http://petitions.number10.gov.uk/GreenwichOlympic/
- Rachel, London, UK
I love the idea of late opening of museums. Would it work in London though...? I went to an Italian town this summer; after supper around 10.30pmish, we strolled around a fabulously lit exhibition of huge modern statues in a disused medieval church and in the piazza. Afterwards, we went to have a drink, leaving about 11.45. Church and piazza were full of people of every age - almost all Italian. There was no hateful screaming, intrusive personal music, vomiting, litter. It was heaven. Brava!
- Helen, norwich
