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Hundreds of arts and sports events will take place across the capital this weekend to mark three years until the Olympic Games.
London Open Weekend will feature dance classes with the English National Ballet, the chance to play beach volleyball in Barking and language lessons at Birkbeck College.
A highlight of the three-day celebration is a giant dominoes game with thousands of concrete blocks being used to create a six-kilometre moving sculpture beginning in Mile End Park in Tower Hamlets and winding its way south to Greenwich to end in the grounds of the Old Royal Naval College on Sunday.
There will also be a "hip hop Shakespeare" performance, hosted by Mobo and Mercury Music Prize winners Akala and Ms Dynamite, which will be held at the Southbank Centre, while visitors to the World Rugby Museum at the Twickenham stadium will be invited to share their sporting memories. Londoners will also get a chance to become circus artists for the day with trapeze and juggling lessons among other workshops on the waterfront in Woolwich, while for film fanatics, there will be a three-hour walk around locations featured in Alfred Hitchcock's films Frenzy, The Man Who Knew Too Much and The Paradine Case.
The events, starting on Friday and organised by London's sports, arts and cultural communities, will mark the three-year countdown to the Games which start on 27 July 2012. As well as in the capital, a range of festivals, arts performances, free films, music performances and workshops will be held across Britain.
Organisers of London 2012 are also arranging a walking tour of the stadium construction site with the opportunity to stand on the viewing platform in the south stand of the venue.
Last year, London's first Open Weekend which featured 655 events, attracted more than 700,000 participants.
Reader views (8)
Completley Agree Emma.
2012 is A fantastic showcase for London, for some reason people love to moan.. and most of those people seem to hang around the Evening Standard!..
The possibility of Fun.. Regeneration?... What A terrible Idea!
- Adam, Soho London, 23/07/2009 16:31
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Emma from Chiswell obviously isn't funding this waste of time.On benefits perhaps?
- Steve, London, 23/07/2009 10:18
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Why is it we can't have a weekend of fun events without these naysayers moaning on about the cost of the Olympics? A lot of people have worked really hard to coordinate this weekends events so rather than sitting at home grumbling about the money being spent why don't you get out and enjoy the activities and who knows you may even enjoy yourselves! Why are British people so negative whenever we host any sort of big event. I actually live in East London and I am pleased with all the regeneration in my area there are a lot of new buildings going up and the whole place is generally being spruced up why is that a bad thing? No wonder foreigners laugh at us whinging Brits!
- Emma Chiswell, London, 22/07/2009 22:36
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Mdj E10 - you and I are paying - along with all other tax payers. What I will not allow to be swept under the carpet is the fact that £100 MILLION has gone "missing" from the olympic purse but the olympic committee are refusing to publish the results of the investigation by KPMG forensic auditors into this allegation. As I am being made pay for this debacle I demand to know if there has been mis-appropriation of my money. Jowell has refused to answer my e.mail so I have no alternative but to ask the press to investigate on my behalf.
- R.F., Yorks, UK, 22/07/2009 16:01
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We seem to have a lot of money to spend on an event we can ill afford.
- Steve, London, 22/07/2009 13:47
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Can I just have my money back?
- Mark, South-East London, 22/07/2009 13:45
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I hope enough people boycott these events as they will the Games themselves. They are a waste of money and have turned Stratford into a hideous building site that is poisoning local children.
- Frank, London, 22/07/2009 12:44
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Is any of this funded by the Olympic budget, or is it just another North Korean-style outbreak of spontaneous compulsory adulation of the party line?
If the events are all free, who's paying?
- Mdj E10, london uk, 22/07/2009 12:41
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