Rock down in the Electric Avenue, on perfect time to celebrate an independence day, an’ an’ we’ll take it higher, as Eddy Grant used to sing.
Well, Brixton is high, you can swear to it. And in flames.
In the borough where there’s the first street to be lit by electricity in the 1880′s, so called Electric, thousands of Jamaican flags, t-shirts, jumpsuits, hotpants, bums, net covered bellies, yellow green and black are everywhere for the Brixton Splash, an annual celebration inspired by the riots of the 1981 to support the local community.

Forget about  devastating riots, forget about Copeland bombs attacks. Brixton has hosted the biggest national proudness so far, taking the “far away country you can always call it home” higher, in those multicultural inclusive olympics games.

On the day before the 50th anniversary of the Jamaican independence, on a four season british Sunday, hit by heavy rain on the north and light by hot sun in the south, just few hours before see again the speediest man in the world confirm his strength and sponsors, Brixton Town centre has became the place where people build community, a poor, multicultural borough still considered dodgy where everyone is happy to party in the streets.
Atlantic Road, Coldharbour Lane, Effra Road, Electric Lane, Windrush Square, where back in the 1948 the first wave of immigrants (492 individuals) formed the British African-Caribbean community in London. Enticed by an advert appeared in a Jamaican newspaper, which offered a cheap dream to come and work in the UK, they arrived  by the Empire Windrush, a giant hope holding ship. Dreamers of a different future, no immigration restrictions for citizens of the British Empire, plenty of work in the post war British Railway and transport, welcome to the Mother Land and her prejudice, intolerance and extreme racism, so far away from the modern obsession for politically correctness.

Windrush Square today is a BBQ smoky main performance stage, with locals spread all around and british auto-relegated on the left hand side. You can find Red Stripes and “rum with stuff” and any kind of food you’re looking forward to taste on the international cuisine courts. Rap- reggae- angry- yelled dubstep music and some kind of kids whistles. Family choice’s place, police officers are holding mini Jamaican flags close to the guns, a couple of curly children with Rastaman t-shirts and air balloon guitars to play Bob Marley are fighting to climb on the neck of their old british school tattooed grandpa. Looks like fun, a quiet fun.

Round the corner you enter into a post nineties street party, ganja flavors in the air, high untiring hippies, rastamen, white suited with brimmed Panama’s hats.
It doesn’t look like London, or maybe it’s another way London disguises itself.
That’s a real multicultural glorification: be free to occupy the streets.

Trying to get through the crowd, while the seniors jamaican are watching you on the side of the streets, is the opposite of the cheered and controversial crowd management of those british olympics. There’s no need of management, no fences or barriers, no forced directions to take, cars are stuck in the traffic on the border lines of this crazy area cranking the volume up to 11, young girls drinks alcohol pops from paper bags, hooded crooks smile with their shiny 24-carats teeths, couples forget the meaning of decency over shop’s shutters, the whole thing is just out of control,an awful mess without the West-end paranoia, people shouts to each other but it’s just for a laugh.
The 4 sound systems dislocated in different streets seems to fight each other with music shots, you can’t breath or walk, pressed in the crowding you can just let it go, better dance and bend on you knees, following the deadly loud music in the street.
Someone is dancing in front of the maxi speakers in a sort of psychedelic solo dance, the old woman at the side seems to not care about the volume enjoying the uncommon scene of collective madness, workers with smocks get outside the butchers and stop themselves working for a glance of freedom, fluttered jamaican flags in the children hands alongside half empty cans of beer in the adults hands, groups of friends praise each other on the best support jamaican colors outfit, very fatty powerful women move the muscles out of their bodies, BBQ close ovens fume as hell, in some food stands someone is using a ridiculously oversized knife to cut a coconut for your next favorite rum summer drink, general screams when “Everything’s gonna be alright” Bob Marley voice comes out of the speakers.

And everything’s gonna be alright for real, even if there’s still vivid memory of the last summer riots, the shops in flames and the looting, even if in some places you can still find the “wanted” pictures of the rioters in the windows, even if some shops today have closed early in Brixton. Come on man, hold back and calm down.
Who you really have to blame for it?

There’s anyway a silent formed organization, there’s a kind of awaited tension which explodes just at once when a couple of rival gangs start throwing empty bottles each other in a fight in the middle of the street party. Police cordon to divide them, families with children taking the opposite way, twits and pictures in the yell to be the first on the web. Nothing really major happened, the party has not been ruined and Brixton is still full of echoes of “Guns of Brixton”, so you can crush them, you can bruise them, but  you can’t stop the music. The party goes on until the live of the most significant olympics event of the 100m men’s final as perfect Jamaica Day. Bolt wins, Jamaica and Brixton explode in flames, “Out of Many, One People” the theme of the party, it doesn’t really matter for a day where you’re from, just don’t forget tomorrow what happened when London plays with fire.

That’s it, the most crazy day of the week is the most relaxed according to the olympics tragedy expectations. More than 3 decades from the 80s riots, Brixton remains an iconic area full of life, the demonstration of how things can work even with thousands of high people squeezed in a very small perimeter.

We choose the big screens as this saturday night’s high. This time the West-End looks like under some kind of tourist riot, when even the crowd with sandals and white socks flock to London you can tell there’s something wrong. Their high is to cross the streets like Lemmings, flags on their face or some psychedelic nationalist headband,  heading to the next fast food/official merchandise shop/monument talking with expertise about obscure sports unknown until last week.

What kind of madness can bring you on a saturday evening in Hyde Park to come face to face with a huge crowd and watch on big screens sports you’ve never heard of, drinking some over-expensive degassed lager while sitting on a field made of plastic cups surrounded by kids swinging badminton rackets ? I’ll tell you, is not bad after all, even if I’m not into nationalist celebrations crap, people went there to have a laugh with mates, get drunk and/or support their team, no matter if they’ve never gave a fuck about the sport on the screen before and they run the obstacle race only on monday morning to catch the tube, sweating their pinstripe suit with the last traces of weekend’s booze.

It doesn’t matter, Hyde Park is one of the only way to be part of the Olympics for a member of the “general public” -I can see the grin on VIP’s  faces in their casual outfit .. get out of my way general public scum .. even if apparently VIP’s don’t leave much their hotels and don’t use much their free tickets and in general don’t give a fuck about an event where they are pure contour. They are everywhere yet you can’t see them, their fast tracks are empty, their party are guarded by security and they don’t mix with the general public.

We got through the gates after 20 minutes of queue, surrounded by thousands of people from every nationality flaunting their colours on flags, faces, backpack while they rush to eat their snacks before to face the draconian security careful to strip the public from dangerous suncreens, bottles of water or forbidden food. A sound-system is pumping some pop music while a recorded voice explain that is  just “like getting through an airport”. It’s all scene anyway, they search me for something (a knife? a cup cake? my whisky flask ?) that I may conceal inside my trousers but they’re not even curious about the metal thing wrapped in a t-shirt inside my bag (a big medium format camera), their real foes are food and drinks.

The view inside the BT Live is quite impressive, a shouting mob gathered around a huge maxi screen far away, you have to step over bodies lying on a field of plastic cups, pink faces shrouded in union jacks, families with children, crooked bankers on a binge. The atmosphere is somehow more relaxed than the first days of Olympics, no police with riot sticks, no machine-guns. While athletes are running or jumping in the sand on the maxis, people here are getting in the mood with huge quantities of overpriced foreign beer, gobbling all the junk food the stands can offer, seems to me a reasonable idea of leisure so we go for that. The field is dotted with food stands selling from foot-long hot dogs to hand made sushi-rolls. The cheapest alternatives of mexican fajitas or frozen hamburgers looks beyond human consumption, so we go for the classic, fish and chips. We sit on a corner of the field, careful to not get run over by the mob. I feel nostalgic about Brighton: the wind, deckchairs, fish and chips on a beach of rubbish, the pigeons running amok with left-overs. The sun is going down and the crowd gets more and more excited, team GB is on a winning spree, everybody is cheering and more and more forgetful of its usual aplomb. A sudden howl of incitement draws my attention to the screen, 10 skinny guys are in the middle of a long-run, tired and relentless in their silent battle of endurance. Last few laps of a 10k run, when all physical resources are gone, the real battle starts, I see these athletes kept on the track only by pride, the last rational thought lost halfway, in a zen-like tactic ballet. There is this Farah in 5th position, he starts climbing the battery, one by one, in a painful 2 laps process of feints. He wears English colours, that’s why the  crowd here is so excited. I can care less about his nationality, still I find myself standing for him. He will cross the finishing line first, leaving the whole Hyde Park in a frenzy state. I can’t forget his eyes after he crossed the line and almost dropped dead, the lost gaze of someone who get back to his body. He didn’t know where he was anymore. And then the family, the cheers, the medal and everything .. but those eyes ..

While I was staring at the final laps of the final, the last scene of the “Loneliness of the lost distance runner” came to my mind. The main character, a working-class rebel in a young offender’s institution has the chance to redeem himself winning a competition for the institution’s head. During his long run, we can follow his thoughts: he wants to show  all the upper-class kids in the competition that their privileged education doesn’t make them better than him. On the other side he’s running for the institute he hates, he wants to win but doesn’t want somebody else to use him as a symbol of victory. So he’s leading with a big advantage, and he stops at the end of the run, waiting at the line, that he won’t cross. Nobody will understand what happened inside his head, he will be kicked back to the unprivileged institute life, and Iron Maiden (from Leyton, hell yeah !) will sing a song about him.

I don’t get why people in general cheers for nations more than for the singular athlete. What are you celebrating ?  The power of your country? Your feeling part of it? Your sporting educational system? Your sponsors? No, it’s not bitterness because I’m italian and they’re winning only crap medals in fencing and shooting,  I just never felt like supporting an athlete just because we were born in the same country ..  in a globalized world is it still important ? Or maybe the countries are becoming more and more jealous of their frontiers?

On the other side, I’m happy Farah success  can shut the  mouths of people like the one of the Daily Mail who before the Games were complaining about “Plastic Britons” (their words), those in the team GB who were born overseas and later acquired citizenship: this is an achievement for a  multicultural society, maybe the flag thing still matters and it’s not always about blind nationalism.

Truth is we still need wars and heroes, panem et circenses, a national feeling to feel part of something bigger, a winner to make us forget about our losses and a properly packaged event to showcase this battle. Just food for thought.

Doesn’t matter, Farah was great.

Chill in the Park, drink cold beers and watch sport are some of Londoner’s favourite leisures. In search of the “ultimate British experience”, we head to Victoria Park, one of the only place in London where without tickets you can have some sort of “Olympic experience”, alongside with James Boris Johnson Bond stuck in mid-air on a zip-line . We make our way through an empty park, we pass the Chinese Pagoda and finally we see the queues, another British specialty ,”an Englishman even if he’s alone, forms an orderly queue of one” as George Mikes  said. There’a a list of prohibited item, you know all the things you can’t bring with you on an airplane? Here the list is far longer. Luggage scanners and body searches where the security makes no differences: kids, elders, mums, everybody is searched, a small bottle of parfume is thrown away from a boyscout’s bag, a kid is stripped of his sponge ball, too scared to cry.

“The Victoria park Live Site” is huge, with 3 big screens, a ferris wheel, a zip line and two marquee pubs. It’s like being in some fair of  times gone by, barkers, kids rolling in the grass, the ferry wheel, the soundtrack is a brass orchestra playing Jay-Z Empire state of mind,  sound systems broadcasting nostalgic music 60s to 80s .. nobody can beat Britain when it comes to nostalgia, Reef Petit and Otis Redding, unknown synthpop gems and 60s girl group. People zip on your heads from one side to the other of the park, Kids can play sumo with oversized costumes, barkers with moustaches and 50s hairstyle call the people to join the party. You can replicate the Wimbledon’s moves on the maxis from the ping pongs under the maxiscreen. Kids prefer to practice judo’s moves. For journalism’s sake we sit at the pub sponsored by the Sun newspaper,around 2 pm in full business. All around us at least 10 people with an English flag wrapped as for a toga party, small crowds from all countries with the same t-shirt: Norway, Finland, Germany.

Tired of watching people watching sport, it comes in my mind Hackey Marshes, “the spiritual home of sunday league football”, a huge field with hundred of football pitches not far away from the olympic area. It’s not easy to reach, no olympic ambassador or high visibility person in Hackney Wick acknowledge its existence “Hackney Marshes?” “Yes, it’s a field” “What’s inside the field? “Nothing, it’s a field”"Never heard about it” .. horror vacui, if nothing goes on in there, it’s worthless. At last we find our way through  road diversions and parking lots. The East Marsh, next to New Spitalfield Market is actually turned into a parking lot, access is denied. It’s a mistery why they could’t use the market’s parking lot instead of submerging a field with concrete. The rest of the marshes are still there, but there’s  no football, not today nor sunday. I find it funny there are so many events going on about watching sport and no sport events except for the televised ones.

Hackney Marshes is one of my favourite places in London, you can walk for miles between these empty pitches, dotted by crows, the river Lea flowing on the side. Some peole do jogging on a wild track, between nettles 2 meters high. We forget to be in London, just a mile away from the olympic site. I have my moment on the river Lea when I feel like Fitzcarraldo. Then we reach again the main road. Leyton, Baker’s arms, Walthamstow, big traffic in Stratford’s direction, mainly commuters. If the West-End is a ghost town, Leyton is alive and well, not  many can work from home or go on holiday here, everybody is on the streets, off-licences and family run small businesses. If you like food but don’t care much about Michelin’s stars and top-class service, forget Covent Garden: in Leyton you will find everything for a cheaper price.  It’s like walking in a back to the future’s landscape: old brick houses, garages and old school barbershops, lithuanian stores when you can buy cheap tobacco, eastern dumplings and a bottle of “Vodkat” for 2,39: a quarter of a classic schnapps drink, full of flavour and headache.

Here the community spirit overwhelm the olympic one, the five cirles brand doesn’t sell much here, but you still can find afro hairdresser with 10 peoples partying inside with Jamaican T-shirt, listening to a transistor radio.

No luxury apartments with canal view, no chains, no big projects, the area is untouched by redevelopment’s plans. I guess they call it a wasteland.

London is more liveable than we thought it would be, things are running smooth, everybody is having a good time taking pictures with one-eyed mascottes next to a battleship.

Since we talk about misjudgement I’ll try to concentrate all the shit into this post.

TRANSPORT

Some weeks ago Boris Johnson and the TFL started a psychological warfare about how busy the public systems will have been during the olympics. “Find an alternative route” “Work from home” “During peak hours please let people sit on you” kind of thing. Last but not least: “Don’t die during the Olympics”, as churches and funeral directors were warning in Newham, scared about a funeral function stuck inside the traffic.  I guess they scared the tube drivers too, so they managed to  extort some extra money just to turn up at work. Anyway, the psychological warfare worked, people escaped from London and now is better than usual. The journalists were disappointed, I bet they already wrote their homework about a public transport rampage and a nightmare on Jubilee Line. With a last minute U-turn they’re now forced to write about the West End as a ghost town. Come on, it’s not “28 days later” yet, I think they just missed the point thinking the olympic crowd would be like the Sale crowd before Christmas, easy cash. They reason like: +people +money, and it leads to people = money. There are people around, but they’d rather sit in pubs and see the city than shop till death, and they go to sleep early too.
If nobody walks in the shops, they say the city is dead. If an area has no shops, it’s called a wasteland. But yes, the shops are empty.
+1 for the olympic crowd.

And this lead to

RETAIL

We asked some questions about business to a manager of a big retail company on Regent’s Street: “We hired 100 people for 2 weeks, with a 4 hours contract. They supposed to be available in the peak hours for all our stores in the West End. Fully flexible, up to 39 hours.  We told them. Well, at the moment we use the minimum contract of 4 hours and we’re cutting shifts for the full timers. It’s a tragedy.”

Yes, again the Olympic crowd is not the Boxing Day crowd.

And 1,49 for a can of Stella at the off-licence is ridicolous.

HOSPITALITY

Not as erratic as for retail but the demand for hotel has suffered a bit as well. We asked at some hotel manager in North London and the answer are almost the same, plenty of vacancies,they were expecting more business.

They say it’s normal, tourism try to avoid inflated prices and crowdness (so we were told it was going to be) of olympic city .  Prices from 90 pounds for a single room in an average hotel, up to .. well, I got no idea about how crazy people can be, in Myfair a room can cost you a thousand per night, but apparently prices are already down respect of some months ago, and the minimum stay rules they wanted to use no longer apply (you can now book for any number of days). Ok, but where is the misjudgement here ?

As part of the bid to stage the 2012 Games, the organizing committee had an agreement with hotels to provide some 40,000 rooms, representing more than 600,000 room nights during the period. Part of the deal was that the Locog promised to return any unwanted rooms back to the hotels so they could sell them in time for games. So they did. Too bad they were already selling the skin of the bear, rising the prices for the remaining stock. But the unwanted rooms turned out to be quite many and the hoteliers could not sell them with inflated prices.

About hospitality, the Shit Medal goes to to all the landlords who kicked out their tenants for these two weeks  renting instead to olympic goers at extortion rates.

SECURITY

Well, they were expecting something close to an invasion. 3500 militars, missiles on residential areas, boats, snipers, dogs, FBI, Mossad, Robocop .. yes, the deterrant factor. Why not putting missiles on residential buildings then ? Helicopters? Yes, the city is very safe, more sirens than you can find in Gotham City. Even in Italy they were trying to ride the paranoid wave, claiming they had proof about “italian anarchists preparing an attack in London”.

What about the G4S, the security firm that was supposed to manage crowd control and security services before to fail in hiring enough people, result: the 3500 UK troops on the streets. And these are the same guys who were detaining Jimmy Mubenga under their custody when he died on a British Airlines flight, the same guys who aspire to win policing services in UK through privatisation.

And privatisation start from ..

BUDGET

Or ill budget assessment.Original budget n 2005 : £2.4bn. Revised budget in 2007: £9.3bn.

The Olympics are not an investment, they’re more like luxury shopping, a status symbol,  you can’t expect money back from it, all you can expect is a return on your image. I don’t think is bad, if you can afford it. But if  you have to borrow money and do cuts for your luxury shopping, there must be something wrong in your list of priority. It’s already pretty clear that after this big event, all the other events will remain unfunded. Misjudgement ? Or just a smart all-in? On the table there are 736 millions of pounds of public funding, . The bets are on, and I hope is not a bluff.

Let’s finish this with some Q&A and assorted lies collected from various sources.

REDEVELOPMENT

“The five host boroughs represent the most concentrated area of deprivation in the country. Despite our proximity to the wealthy financial heart of London, we lag well behind the rest of the capital in terms of employment, poverty, health and education. The promise of addressing this imbalance and regenerating the area – what has come to be known as convergence – was a central part of our bid and one of the decisive factors in securing the Games.”  foreword from Newham symphosium Olympic legacy session.

summary, what they think about the east end= unemployment, poverty, education and health issues. The place need redevelopment. We’re here to do it. Always beware of good samaritans

About Improving conditions for existing communities

“As Sir Robin explained, in improving the area we do not want to drive out deprived communities, but keep people in the community and help them raise their aspirations and become more prosperous. The goal must be regeneration, not just gentrification. This makes the provision of new affordable housing all the more important and requires innovative solutions locally to help residents get a foot on the property ladder.” newham symposium

Fools Gold, a report from the New Economics Foundation (NEF) warns that frequently regeneration leads to gentrification.  The London-based think tank explains: “assets of the local communities get transferred out of the local area, because local people who don’t own local homes or business are priced out of the area.  High land values, fragmented ownership patterns and poor engagement of the community in planning decisions and local stewardship all go together to undermine the development of sustainable communities.  Local retail services and local enterprises struggle to survive in the face of rising commercial rents and competition from larger companies.”  In the end, the argument goes, the poorest residents in the area end up paying the highest costs in terms of disruption and displacement.

Basically the same thing locals in a Stratford pub told us

 JOB CREATION

 ”The games will improve job conditions in deprived areas of the east end”

from “London 2012 contractors FAQ”

“What kinds of jobs are available at Games time?

There are a wide range of jobs available for contract staff at Games time. These opportunities fall mostly within Catering & hospitality, Cleaning & waste, Event Services, Retail and Security.”source: contractors FAQ at London2012 dot com

Catering, cleaning, security. Nothing above the minimum wage. Amazing opportunities.

“Is there a chance of a permanent role once the Games have finished?”

London 2012 Contractors are recruiting people for short-term contracts to cover only the Games-time period. However, many London 2012 Contractors are event specialists and may have employment opportunities elsewhere in their business after the Games.

summary: “Is there a chance of a permanent role once the Games have finished?“  “No”

TOURISM

“The games will boost tourism”

“The ETOA study claimed that anticipated increased tourism levels were not based on any evidence to support such expectations and that the statements of massive economic benefits were solely based around hope and illusions. As Olympiads are televised, the onus on spectators to travel to the host city itself is reduced. In fact, the costs of staging the games are not recouped by tourism revenues and the attendant rise in travel costs and accommodation in the minds of travellers effectively deters them from visiting host cities before, during and after games. The economic evidence presented shows that tourism revenues have decreased during these periods on the last five Olympiads, while the business case for staging the events always optimistically inflates the likely benefits.”

source: Andrew Stevens, Uk editor for citymayors

summary: massive economic benefits are solely based around hope and illusions. People will watch the games on TV, avoiding the city during the period due to increased prices. During the last five olympics tourism in the host cities has decreased.

GREEN AREAS AND OLYMPIC LEGACY

“The Olympic Park will be a “stunning green oasis” to be proud of after the 2012 Games, Olympics minister Tessa Jowell has said.
The Olympic Delivery Authority (ODA) announced details of work taking place to transform around 250 acres of former industrial land in east London.
It will become one of the UK’s largest new urban parks.
New plans developed with the Olympic Park Legacy Company also include hanging gardens [...]

source: BBC news

ahhh, cette Babilon..
at least the major of London found a way to tackle part of the debt problem .. but what does it has to do with green areas and the olympic legacy ?

“There are six plots of land on the Olympic Park site that will be sold off to the private sector for housing after the 2012 Olympic Games. Valuations of the land have come in at a conservative 650 million pounds, and could be worth more. ” source: The telegraph 23.2.2012 Jacquelin Magnay, olympic editor

MODUS OPERANDI Summary

1: They contract a debt to build the olympic site.

2: they build the olympic site and the retail park

3: They’ll sell a good chunk of the “stunning green oasis to building speculators to repay the debt.

Meanwhile the previously existent green areas will be destroyed: Stratford Marshes is now Westfield+Olympic park, Hackney Marshes will become a parking lot.

big summary of optimism

short-term minimum-wage jobs will be created during the summer 2012

the property values in the east end are skyrocketing: landlords get more money, tenants spend more money

Locals are pushed away and yuppies can finally colonize the East too

BabiLondon will televise from hanging gardens just before building some new apartments on them.

on the long term our money will be used to create  some more luxury apartments with a view on the biggest shopping centre in Europe.

Ok, that’s the last boring post I want to write.

When it comes to squeeze answers out of someone who doesn’t want to be bothered about life questions, there’s just one way to succeed:
Get in a pub, don’t lack cheek, get drunk with strangers, get the answers.
There’s a journalistic pose you have to learn before approaching anyone for an interview. Cheeky attitude, straight to the point, semi-professional notebook and a Leica from the fifties hanged on your neck. Maybe one foot behind the other, one shoulder forward the other, finger cross you don’t lose your balance or they don’t slap your face.

You get in a pub where all the locals spend the time drinking pints of beers. You noticed that there’s an unsaid rule on who has to buy the drinks round. Who can afford it pay for everyone. Who doesn’t, would be the lucky one, sitting silently waiting for his foamy draft beer for free, under someone else’s open heart and wallet. This is the local olympics spirit: friendship, generosity, beers contest, drink until you can stand, the winner.

"Ex-boxers, ex doormans, workers .. all these East end characters will be pushed away from the area, they won't just afford to come here anymore"

A group of seniors is about to finish the umpteenth round of beers. It 4 pm. You don’t know how many rounds they have had already, they look fine in their way, someone is holding his back, someone speak slowly, someone goes and comes back from smoking quick cigarettes and every time is smiling at you.
The man in pinstriped suit has just paid for the next round. He replies straight away with a resonant “that’s great” to the “What do you think about olympics” question. Then he goes deeper to the point. He had just came back to London for a couple of days. He lives in Cyprus now. He had a restaurant on the Stratford High Street  for 30 years, but when he found out about the olympics he sold the place and ran away from the mess: years of endless roadblocks and public works, digging and noises, dust and traffic, redevelopment and skyrocketing prices.
The red hair man sitting on a side shuts down the shocking list pointing the finger across. “Don’t get me wrong” he says, “we are all glad Stratford is hosting the olympics” but something has changed, you can smell it.

Stratford has always been a quiet place to live. It was surrounded to the north by a 73-hectare brownfield railway lands, a white wasteland on the maps of London, where the olympics park has recently been raised. It used to be a deep east end suburb, where everyone knows each other, the community goes to the church, the public houses are full at noon.
Then the focus of regeneration, some years of works to build up a multi-billion pound scheme to fill the wasteland, a Westfield’s temple of money, the olympic park, another wasteland after the games will be over. Apparently it will contain sport centers for the local community, too bad they won’t afford to get in.
“Nothing has been done for the locals. They are pushing us away. We suffered for years, they should have paid us back at least with a maxi screen.” There is a big screen, but it costs 25 pounds just to walk in. And in general it seems that all the prices are increased, starting from the pints of beer, still quite affordable in Stratford.

Straight to the point. We are in the opposite side of Stratford, the quiet zone, the untouched broadway, the place where old people, working class east enders keep on feeling proud of being english, surrounding by the memory of the overcrowding of poor people and immigrants, as the oldest woman in the pub remembers. She was born in Stratford and she knows that much of the area remains, however, one of the poorest in Britain. She doesn’t want to be photographed. I guess she doesn’t even want to know why I’m interviewing her.
“I hope that despite the rising housing prices and the new luxury buildings someone will still think about us, the people of Stratford.”

Which can not afford to go the olympics park, during the games and after the games.
Well, someone doesn’t even bothered. “Happy to be here, watching a game in a pub with my pint”. He’s got a massive gold ring on the little finger, “Dad” is written on capital letters, his two children’s gift. Family ,work and few words.

Family man of few words

Someone else is more challenging, on the last polemic wave about olympics: “It is not bad, though is a pain in the arse. Why they don’t give to locals all the empty seats reserved to VIPs which are not going there?”
He is right. Cheers with the glasses and loud laughs.

I feel like I’m getting used to know all those locals. Probably for this reason after a while I lose completely the professional journalistic point of view.
Around 7 pm the group of seniors has left, one of them has just changed table and company, as a tireless boozer which host the new generations until the closing time.
A couple of Americans springs at the bar flirting with the waitress, they are exchanging national badges and collecting everything, a colorful group of jamaicans devours a mountain of fried chicken legs and chips, the oldest woman in the pub is holding herself at the frame door, smoking a cigarette with the security just arrived to control the annoying drunkenness of the evening, and then a couple of Russians builders, the turning point of the evening.

One of them approach me and an off-the-cuff new member of the twoweeks project. He introduces himself with an awful slowness, trying to create a sort of suspense which bothered me from the beginning. I knew he was hoping to get female company for a bottle of wine.
For a double russian interview about olympics I decide to accept the offered wine.
The interview lasts few seconds, the second russian get closer speaking in russian.
He doesn’t know even one word of english. He mutters “olympics is good” with a open smile. He is a builder in the olympics site, removing all the opening ceremony remains from the stadium to make space for the games, eventually he is one of the luckies can enter in off limits places, security controls permitting.
We simulate an escape from Russia taking seats outside close to a group of olympics members of staff. The wine is making effect. I ask them if they are working for olympics, without noticing the purple uniforms and the writing protected brands of London 2012. They laugh, one give me a five, one says “I’m your man, I’ve got power, ask me anything”, we conquer each other. They are from Zambia. The Russians seem to forget about us, holding the muscles of the security man at  the door and sharing advices about how to become more Kenshiro.
Zambia beats Russia 2:1.

I figure out my workspace around the olympics team table, sure of an alcoholic comfort and their funny stories about the “inside” of the olympics days. One talks big about the fact he has seen 3 times the opening ceremony. After 2 trial runs, during the official evening he was already bored.
They are working for the games as well as the Russians, few weeks of work and then back to uni. Not a big deal, olympics bring money and jobs, raise your hopes for a better life filled by fairness and big opportunity, someone will be the winner, someone will lose. That’s more or less what I remember between the second and the third bottle of cheap white wine.

Then the black out. Like a bat out of hell, I harass everyone, a group of irish people in a working trip not interested in the olympics, a north korean official who doesn’t want to talk about the flag mistake happened few days before, a couple of bored friends happy to see naked men in the swimming pool’s competitions, two indians proud of their last shopping for wives back home, a sleeping man I take a picture of, the security man who forced me to get out of the pub because he needs to protect his customers from my camera with flash persecution, the french waitress which hates Germany, a guy from not far away Stratford which tried to sell me tickets to get to see sports match, considering pointless my twoweeks project.

We had a long drunk conversation about the fact I don’t like sports. Then I run in the street after a policeman. “Hey mate have you got a lighter?” I say, sure of his proverbial politeness as official member of forces. I don’t think I could have looked more drunk at that point, but I professionally fake an interview with him and a ending picture, certain with his answer that nothing will change after the olympics and Stratford will remain as it was before. It’s truth, I guess, a policeman said that. He has been informed by someone else with powers.

On the way back home, on a busy overground last train, I harass everyone taking pictures at 20 cm distance from their noses. I haven’t seen them yet and I don’t remember any of them.
Eventually I found what the local olympics spirit means: an alcoholic marathon, some pictures I don’t remember to have taken and a huge huge hangover.

The wonder-waste-land

Coca Cola bridge, the cheesy torch, the bored policemen.

A company have to pay a big deal of money to exploit the olympic brand but having a whole bridge, a train station or a 25 storey building with your brand on it can be perceived as good value from money. Another option if you have cash to splash is to fund a huge sculpture of torn iron and brand it with your name,that by the way is the name of your company too.

Yes, he's holding a VISA card and yes, that's a wall

Funny thing about these sponsorships is that you’re in or you’re out: in the biggest olympic venues you can get money out of a cash machine only with Visa, if you want chips you can buy them only from McDonalds (tasty even in the middle of a marathon) while the competitors can sell them only with fish.

But even if you were partially responsible of a massive chemical disaster in Bhopal during the 80s, you still have the chance of redemption in wrapping the olympic stadium with advertisement, DOW chemical.

All the others have to be creative in ripping the event’s name off: some combinations of words are banned from commercial use London 2012, olympic, and you have to be careful with “Games” “Summer” “Gold” “Silver” “Bronze” “frienship” “30″ “XXX” and the 5 colours of the symbol too. On the Locog site there’s a 61 pages document about marketing rights, it explains in detail why you can’t refer to London as an olympic host city or why you can’t write on a t-shirt Made in London 2012.

the olympics brands covers the city

Doesn’t matter, in Stratford especially every business and every church is quite creative in linking its identity with the event. we have the four circles of “the assembly of God” , “the closest venue to the olympic stadium”, a “jesus loves you” flyer disguised as a tourist guide in purple and with two circles.

Stratford is like a Jerusalem temple in reverse: inside the shopping, outside religion fanatics of all sorts, divided by the Meridian line that pass through the bus station. Inside Westfield everybody want to save my skin/teeth/style, outside everybody want to save my soul : Geova, the Team Islam, adventists, the “Team Jesus TV is coming soon”, Mr Samba a clairvoyant with spirital powers of (his) ancestral master spirit. Other leaflet I’ve been handed today: “the truth about drugs”, “beware of religious fanatics handing out pamphlets”, a DVD with a channel four documentary about Sri Lanka’s killing fields handed by a supporter of a hunger strike against the Sri Lanka’s inclusion in the olympics.

Anyway, in Stratford at the moment everybody is involved either in buyin, selling or exchanging something olympic related: salvation, shoes, drinks, beers, fish and chips, badges. Everybody loves to be here and is enjoying this time, even the locals are proud of it, forgotten by every authority, harassed by 6 years of roadworks, ripped-off by the raising prices of housing and pints, physically excluded from part of their own neighborhood; but now at last every doubt is wiped off the blackboard for two weeks.

Outside Westfield you can still buy your salvation.

On the way out I ask a volunteer what is the olympic spirit to him and he replies “it comes in a bottle”

So me and the team we follow the hint and head to the nearest pub.

Das model

I wondered how people were partying in the streets of the London East-End on the first week-end of the olympics, so I left home around midnight, a summer night of breeze with people rampaging the streets in search of booze to ease the heat. I wander through Old street, the sylicon roundabout, Bethnal Green, Brick Lane, Shoreditch High Street. All the clubs are full of people, queing patiently to be searched by security at the entrance. At the door of the City of London beats from a rave party mingles with the Heron Tower. Everybody on the street is carrying a bottle or is tryin to get in some place. With this kind of heat there is no way I close myself in some dance club. I take pictures of what I see: a poster of a man in antiterrorism outfit carrying the olympic torch, a very sad guy sitting on the street, legs of people waiting for the bus, a cross-dresser in tights and sandals just out of a party at the exclusive Shoreditch House, two guys running in an alley carrying a home made torch, an east european worker in a 24 hours car wash, I ask him about his job but he doesn’t speak english.

illegal olympic torch

Taking pictures of the people queing is not funny anymore, and after two hours of walk I sit down to have a chat with this bloke sitting on the street with two huge plastic bags full of cans, just outside a big club and its big queue. He’s telling the security guard how he found a parfume and he sprayed it and the parfume was not parfume but it was Mace pepper spray and he ran into pubs to wash it away but everybody was turning him away. They both laugh. We start talking about the olympics and he’s happy about it, despite drinking all day he loves sport and being healthy, He says his job is to give food to cats and foxes, and it is important to keep doing something if you’re unemployed. He’s from Turkey and talk slowly with this low voice. “I have many friends like me, we have a flat lo live but we like to drink on the streets and we beg. Some friends of mine are squatters or anarchists, some of them they went on the bycicles yesterday in Stratford and they were in 68, they’ve been cattled by 120 police officers. Too many security, and now have to show the newspaper a justification f .. far too much! They didn’t do anything against the law, they were cycling and were arrested because . I too was there but not protesting,because I like sport, is good, healthy and social is the capitalist part of it is bad the exploitation and the destroy greenery. I would love to see the olympics but there is no way to even come close for me. Have a cigarette, I found them, I found everything in my life, life is sooo goood” Then he suddenly  jumps away going somewhere in the night, like he’s late for an appointment.

"Life is sooo good"

I decide to hit Shoreditch High Street and next to the strip clubs there is this transvestite with a bottle of cider that is falling on the floor. I help her, “are you alright?” “…” “Can you here me?” “…sss…” She can hear me but can’t speak. She speak in a hiss, Lady Gaga her name she tells me. Come, let’s go for a walk .. she explain she can’t talk because her husband cut her throat with a knife.. she got a collection of scars on the chest and neck but I can’t see the throat scar. She stops groups of people hissing “shhhhhhhh” .. Most of them are disgusted .. “..Mate, you’re nipple is out!” “What the fuck is THAT” some are not, a girl in her 20s stops and kiss her. “sheee was beautiful sssss”, we take some drinks at an off licence and she gobbles a small Jack Daniel’s. She ask me to shoot pictures of her, she asks me if I have a pussy. I say no, I don’t have one. She says she’s going to find a pussy, or maybe two so in case I want one too. I said I’m allright as I am but she doesn’t listen and start scaring all the people arond once again, this time in search of a pussy.

“Do you have a pussy ?” “No I don’t”"Oh .. let’s go find one than”. Here she finds one

At the Tesco near overground station there are more people sitting outside. Lady Gaga run away somewhere, and this homeless guy at the entrance is laughing “she is sooo crazy”. And there’ this lad, middle age, disheveled silver hair and a guitar case: “Did you realize she got a dick, mate ?” I did .. I’m not looking for that kind of thing, ” I start talkin with the guitar man outside the Tesco, and this somalian guy that just came, Tom, he’s very polite and we’re having a laugh and then he comes his friend, baseball T-shirt, aggro type with gold teeth, obviously the boss, he speak to his friend like in a school lesson “Tom, why you wasting your time talking to strangers at the corner of a fuckin store? Time is money and you are losing money here talkin rubbish. You don’t know them, if you are bleeding on the streets they wouldn’t raise a finger for you brof” and he got in the Tesco again. The guitar man than started talkin again with Tom “You’re a good man, but careful, he is a control freak he will drag you down” Tom “I’m tryin to raising him up, he’s family, for the somalians I’m half Ethopia, for Ethiops I’m half Somali .. life is dangerous” He shows us two big scars on the arm, he is part of this gang but he’s allright. The boss resurface from the supermarket and pick on Tom again:”Are you stlll here, wasting your time with strangers?..”and he goes along the time is money, strangers are rubbish line. This time the guitar man stops him “Hey, I’m here, talk to me, I’m human ..and time is far more valuable than money”you know what? We have a word for what you are saying: gobshite. Gob means mouth and shite means shite” He had a wise and convincing way to say that, his charisma preventing somehow the situation to degenerate, the leader of the gang anxious to go back to his business. Some more chat with the guitar man and I’m on the way to Dalston, maybe 5 AM.

Dalston speakeasy 6 am

Sun is rising on an incredibly tidy Kingsland Road, , they clean it twice during the night. There are some guys just out from a party in a basement on the main street, a designer-photography studio with a street entrance that doubles up as a semi-legal club. Tattoos and some R&B house still going on, they tell me drinks are cheap so for the sake of journalism I feel obliged to check it out .. a dark place with pavement covered in sticky booze, an illegalbar with cans and third class alcohol from unknown brands, people dancing for the last hours, others sleeping on sofas. I stay for a while keeping a watch at the bar, everybody is still thirsty and voices are raising, violence never too far from the surface. Time to move. At Stoke Newington I found Andrzey and Dominic, one is unable to walk straight, gets sick every 50 m and has forgotten english, the other one is still kind of ok and he’s tryin to lead the friend home, but is more than happy to have some few drink. He tell me they worked as builders in the Olympic park and once finished they were now both unemployed, they had a good night out but doesn’t remember where. We stop outside a close shop to finish some Tisky cans and after few minutes there is this police van watching us from 10 mt away. Andrzey wants to drink more, for me is enough and I don’t want to test the kindness of policemen with drunk people during olympic time in the early hours of the day.. The Way home still long so off I go.

Andrzey and Dominic

On Stoke Newington High Street I make acquaintance with Francis, he has 55 years, gray hair and dark eyes, he’s from India and is homeless since he had rows with the wife about bills and money. They used to manage a hotel but So he went on the streets, where he plays a flute between Stoke Newigton High Street and Church Street, he is very proud of his hand made wooden carved flute, he studied music in his country and want to show me, he start playing a sweet melody in the desert dawn of shut organic stores, estate agencies and charity shops of Church Street. He finish playing and tells me that he loves his wife and will go back home one day.

The next encouter is an italian lady that lives in Bangkok, she’s jogging in the park and she’s happy because London is full of green and in Bangkok you can only do jogging on the streets, she wanted to see athletics but couldn’t get the tickets.

Then I’m home, sun is high (it will rain later, of course) and every kind of sport is already on the screens, shiny tracksuits and bikinis, China has the most golds, in Jamaica many will finish earlier the weekly christian mass to see Usain Bolt.

Maybe I haven’t found what this olympic spirit is but I think I learnt something inclusion and exclusion, and I wouldn’t exchange last night for a VIP pass to the olympic village.

Taking the tube is painless.
Nothing could be easier today. On a normal saturday afternoon going towards the centre of the city you can’t find any seats. A fake signal says: “Peak hours, May necessitate that you let other people sit on your lap”. It wouldn’t be so helpful if it was for real.
On the tube there’s no one wearing funny nationality’s ostentation hats. No uniforms or over pointed security around. Just flip flops, handbags, sleeping eyes, few rubbish, a bored cameraman which has not intention of making any film anywhere.
Our team decide to go ahead. First stop House of Switzerland, few steps away from London Bridge. Few days before we’ve been promised that we won’t found just cows and cheeses.

climbing a plastic wall and feeling stupid for the sake of journalism

The olympics Swiss hospitality centre is open to public, it is a  “Wooo”, “Heyyy”, “Aaaaah” “red zone” where you can watch games for free in german , eat sausages, listen to fanfare music (“I don’t know at what time will be”), climb a fake mountain at the shadow of St. Paul cathedral, win chocolates bars and trips to the cow land.
The other member of the twoweeks project team has climbed a wall. It is for a journalistic point of view, he said. I reckon Swiss is the only country that more likely won’t win any game, so they decided to inject some olympic public spirit into the street and let feel everyone doing no proper olympics sports.

Ah, yes, olympics are about sport.

Seen from belove

We decide then to move on. Let’s walk. Let’s do some sport as well. From London Bridge we follow the Thames towards the Somerset House, by the north river. We find empty used-to-be offices buildings, a national cultural site in an abandoned dirty 5 meters beach, the first woman fighting the pollution, doing joggings on an overpass steps, sad no wonderers streets, fences to close the main streets sides, a giant poster of the Royal Family taken in 1977 on the South Bank with the Oxo tower visible on the far end, a couple kissing each other under a bridge with two dangerous dogs watching the passengers, few japans taking pictures of a bar boat with the V of Victory fingers, a dub-lounge music from a terrace. Again, not a big crowd around.

Jogging in a invisible city

We follow to the Brazil House, in the Somerset House, looking for a proper traditional Caipirinha to avoid to die of thirst, forgetting about doing some more sport. It is enough walk.
A Caipirinha is 10 pounds, pretty too much for an english barman pretending to know how to do capoeira.
We regret not supporting the Brazilian team in any way, 10 pounds were too much and people were not dancing yet.
We ask a couple of informations about the brazilian events and a dressed up blonde hostess answers that she doesn’t know anything about what will happen. Well, yes, there will be some brazilian music everyday. Ah yes, she knows the opening and closing hours.
It is not the first time we ask informations and we listen carefully to the “I don’t know” answer. The best one was: “We haven’t been informed about” which was from a police officer from the Midlands.
We stopped also a couple of guys holding a Visa big round signal asking for a card machine. My italianhumour translated in english hit the sign.
They didn’t know where to find card machine. “We are here just for the olympics sites”, they saiy from behind a hugeVisa Card sign.

From the north side of the river to the south

Then we take the road looking for the Africa Village, a whole country all together in the Kensington’s Garden. I’ve never been there, even if I’ve been living in London for more then two years now. The upper class gardens remind me that an italian singer from the sixties ventured to remake in a Peter Pan point of view, “Walk on the wild side” of Lou Reed in italian, calling the song “Kensington’s Garden”. Such a bad song.

Well, probably we entered from the wrong side of the massive beautiful peaceful park but we found just Russian House, follow the drunk vodka flavor screams and a gypsy style concert of an apparently famous russian artist. Too bad you have to pay a lot to get in.
Russian House seems to be an impregnable ground cloths fortress in the middle of a peace zone.

Ah, yes, olympics are also about the pacific coexistence between nations. So, where are the Africans?
Of course the gardens are big enough to fit two of the biggest countries in the world. We walk across all the park, London at the sunset in Kensington’s Garden seems to be the most beautiful place in the world. Too bad again is not always like this.
Africans are closed already. A security informed us about the opening and closing hours to the public, again too late.

The Sonic Manipulator

But then the big surprise. Exhibition Road, a central european organized walk path, which is the venue of a summer festival with several drinks and foods specialities, a man dressed up as an futuristic ’80s astronaut making noises and sounds from synths and different retro-futuristic handmade tools (the best street artist ever seen), a big screen on the side of the Natural History Museum showing the Great White Silence, a film shot 100 years ago during the last Antarctic expedition made by Captain Scott in 1910-13, with a live soundtrack improvised by a quartet of strings.  One of the few cases where I didn’t find nationalism and flag-pride revolting, Scott was an explorer and researcher, he frozed to death for not being the first to reach the South Pole. If in the olympics venues you’ll find empty seats in here you need to sit down on the street. Never been so happy to do it. Culture to sports 2:1.
The best experience of the day.

Well, I forgot about the olympics for a while. I’ve been taking into glacial and images of penguins making love.

The best shortcut ever to go home thinking about the fact that sometimes living in a city where are the olympics are hosted is not that bad.

I was expecting the worst but Central London in the morning is quiet. You can almost walk straight in Leicester and Trafalgar square. On the corner there is House Canada. I ask if there will be any event going on and the answer is: “are you an athlete?” (I’m obviously not) “are you friend or part of an athlete’s family?” Again no and no. “Sorry there’s nothing here for the public” “Allright thanks”. Oh yeah, Canada you suck.

Time for my team to move  away. I heard about Casa Italia, wrote down something on a piece of paper that I lost.. I remember Elizabeth something. Not a big clue for London. But there’s one of the favorite London destination for summer Pimm’s  with Elizabeth in the name, just across the river. The road is blocked by fences, some people from the army are searching contractors that need to get inside the park. Following the road diversions my team get lost in a maze of boring central roads with no pubs, dead ends with army checkpoints and tourists takin’ pictures of the royal guards. Yes, that could be a clue. Buckingham Palace. The road is almost desert, crowd controls barriers are around every walkway,the proportion between tourists and security is 1:2. They take pictures promiscuously together, England is one of the only places on earth where a policeman is considered an acceptable company for a souvenir photo. Other tourists are asking where can they buy tickets to go inside Buckingham palace. Next stop: Southbank, but at the Queen Elizabeth’s Auditorium the sound of bongos and scream from the inside warn me that this is not Casa Italia. There are South African crazy dances, everybody looks happy and music is good. A group of girls is running around the stand, jumping shouting and shaking the bums. Then is the turn of 5 guys that do gumboots dance, it’s like a tip tap with wellies’ hand drumming, the atmosphere is good and the event in unrelated with the olympics. South Africa wins.

Then me and the team hit the road again, we pass next to the London Eye (now advertised as “EDF London eye”) where there is now a kind of western theme park sponsored by Mastercard. things are quiet inside: some late morning drinker, families, merry-go-round, VIP area for Mastercard’s owners.
Then the human statue’s walk at its best, where you can find from Michael Jackson to the bronze statue, from the policeman to the fakirs to Hulk. Next to the Big Ben there is one guy carrying a cross and giving “Don’t wait, pray now” flyers,  and at least 10 red telephone boxes in 20 meters. Here everyone can have his souvenir picture without queuing for  too long.

Then I see Casa Italia, signaled by sober white letters 3 meters high. And at least 10 FIAT’s brand new cars. From the outside it looks like a car dealer. On the way in an hostess inform me about opening hours and asks my details. I give to her the email, thinking that she’s going to send me some newsletters about events and free drink. No, she just wants to send me some advertisement about a bank that doesn’t even exist in England. At the desk they tell me there are no events for the public, the Italian Disco at the 6th floor is for VIP only. But there is a showroom where I can enjoy the Italian experience: a room with blue carpet with some crap from the sponsors, neatly piled prosecco bottles , kitsch crockeries, a scale model depicting the Italian dream of family and sport cars.
The photography exhibition at the 5th floor is not bad: magnum photographers meet Italy and their stereotypical gesticulating characters. Alex Majoli’s pictures are great, but the Paolo Pellegrin’s ones are missing and the organizers didn’t seem to notice it.

In the afternoon we hit the road again in search of the olympic spirit. The opening ceremony is at 9 pm, so at 8 the overground is manageable and the trip is uneventful: an event in itself. Everybody on the train is looking at the stadium and the red steel melted tower.

Once in Stratford we follow pink arrows through a maze of crowd management barriers passages and found ourselves on the Westfield’s bridge. Every single inch of space is covered in advertising from the sponsors, the Stratford’s bridge is now a claustrophobic branded tunnel, leading to a huge building  completely covered by a billboard.

From the stairs you can see the people moving like ants, carefully controlled by the screaming security “Tickets” “That way”"Stay clear”. They direct everybody without tickets on the other side of the road. On the other side of the road there is a shopping mall and a small patch of grass where some people are already camping. Cans of beers and Californian wine, mexicans with sombreros and busy asian broadcasters, you can read the desire of being part of something, you can imagine them saying I was near there.

Crossing the street a storm of bikes and long boards disorderly pass by,  a wild critical mass. You could tell they were not part of the celebrations. Going down the road we see the same people cyclists passing by again, but quicker. And this time there are policemen throwing off the bike who’s not quick enough to run away.  Handcuffs and sirens, TV cameras and a bad night ahead. Somebody try to explain: “Cycling is not against the law .. “  too late, somebody’s already keeping your arms crossed behind your back.

The smarter protesters dismounted the bikes, the others ran into almost one hundred security guards some 300m away: They’re outside  Tesco, almost silence, sitting people and their bikes surrounded by 100 policemen. They make pretty clear that Stratford doesn’t like hippies.

Along the High street there are more protesters: Sri Lanka’s freedom, human rights ..and passers-by sipping their off-licence can, peeking through glass windows of cocktail  bars to see the ceremony. I saw some cows, hospital beds and what could be Mary Poppins. Others are camping along an highway where you can see the stadium faraway, they are looking at the flickering lights of the stadium, framed by a concrete bridge and an 8 carriages road, already waiting for the final fireworks. Something they can see with their own eyes and not through a screen.

Most of the people are partying  inside their houses, St Georges crosses and gin tonics,  nobody along the street between West Ham and Victoria Park, a still summer night like a World Cup Final. Some guys are pumping some loud reggae music on Bow Road, high-fiving everybody passing-by, while In Victoria Park we are welcomed by a group of junkies starting a fight.

A long fence is running around the big screens area, after 10 minutes we still can’t find the entrance, just some drunk people tryin to peak inside without any luck. When we find the entrance people are flowing out. They explain us they closed the park before the end of the ceremony so nobody will have problems with public transport. They tell us about the ceremony ” it was ok, from the industrial revolution to the punk era, with the songs everybody knows” , they didn’t sound very impressed .. others were flabbergasted at how amazing it was. I’ll see it tomorrow.

We find our way to Hackney Wick, on a bridge with a view on the stadium there are others waiting for the fireworks, an old couple covered with a flowers blanket, students, Hackney Wick locals. Down, cars are slowly passing-by.

When I’m home I hear the fireworks exploding far-away.
I guess the snipers have had the best view from above.

Even with one or more from the above list, a 2 weeks event will be damn hard to cover even if you have some serious journalistic skills, a consistency in what you do and a good grasp of English. No ticks on the above boxes.

So, let’s do it.  This is the plan: to fool around the city with some old film camera, shoot a roll of film every day and try to figure out what this two weeks madness is about.

At the Jubilee I found myself stuck on London Bridge

Like most of the normal people and misfits out there I have no tickets for the events, I will ride on  TFL transport system, experiencing the misery of over-crowded spaces tryin to find if the national feeling can be converted in some free drinks.

A reportage from this point of view risks of becoming a bullettin from a limbo of neverending queues and overcrowded spaces, an account of big screens and drunk people at noon. But nevertheless is the most common point of view one is likely to have for the whole event.

Like many others I’m sceptical about the Olympics, are they a military occupation? A parade of half-naked people for other people dressed in suites ? A vulgar display of power ? A lavish party in a tough recession time? Who cares, it sounds fun.

Since I will use a Ricoh GR1V and some other analogue cameras, I will not be able to post the pictures straight away (the workers of my cosy toilet’s darkroom are on strike), but maybe every two days (develope, dry, scan etc.).

It would be unpolite to leave the first post of a documentary project without pictures. So here there are some from the past weeks .. kind of random thing you will be likely to encounter.

London eyes

Last saturday night's heatwave

PS : The use of the word Olympicis to be intended as per “Use when publishing or broadcasting a report or information about the Olympic/Paralympic Games or the Olympic/Paralympic movement, or incidental use in literary and artistic works etc;”

According to the LOCOG marketing document the use of the words:
“Olympic(s)”
“Olympiad(s)”
“Olympian(s)”
(or anything similar to them, or translations of them) is protected by trademark.

I would happily use another word instead but this post is already messy enough.