BLOG 213: Our Turn

"Britain was the world's first industrialised country. In the twentieth century the two world wars and the end of empire diminished its role, but the UK remains a major economic and military power, with considerable political and cultural influence around the world".  Wikipedia GREAT POWER

I'm not pretending that I'm not  - though I appreciate that is the chosen course of action for the COOL kids - I just can't pretend that I am not.  I am ruddy excited! Face facts I was ruddy excited in 1996 in Atlanta (and it had already finished then - but I did the tour and bought the postcard anyway). I was beside myself in 2004  and I was 350 miles away in Sidari while world events happened in Athens.  And even though it's a life time ago back to 1992... I still did the tour when I was in Barcelona in 2010.

   

And before we progress any further, I want to make this clear that I am not in any way in any shape and in any form athletic or remotely interested in those who are. But YES... the Olympic games thoroughly excite me.  No one is more delighted than me that Greeks got independence from the Ottoman empire and thought... hey ho! let revive the ancient games! No one is more delighted than me that 13 other countries said... You know what we're doing nothing for the summer of  1896... can we come?   

 And absolutely NO ONE is more delighted than me that the city of MY birth will be hosting the Games in a matter of days and 205 countries are sending 10,000+ athletes between them. 

I know the COOL kids are pouring scorn on the enterprise. The COOL  kids are worried how to get to work over the Olympic fortnight  (really? Clearly you do not live in Sauff Eayst Lundin... WE have that worry EVERY day - suck it up guys!). The COOL kids think building anything with public funds is evil (really? didn't I see you going for a drink down the South Bank? So that wasn't you I saw at the former millennium dome in Greenwich?... Okay, fair point then - NOT!). The COOL kids say they "couldn't be bothered" to go see the Olympic Flame when it passed through their locale. The COOL kids can't wait until it is all over... and things return to normal. 

PAH! 

I 

AM 

EXCITED 

So there! If that makes me uncool - then so be it. I long ago realised that the COOL kids are just a bunch of people trying to look for a group identity while pretending that they are individuals.  I long ago realised that I was born to stand out  - I'll leave fitting in to those who can't handle that. Thus... as uncool as it seems to be (And on a beautiful sunny day like today HOW anyone would rather have a misogg face and poo poo the most exciting thing to happen to our city since the royals did something press worthy, I cannot understand... that HAS to be far too much effort.) SO PAH! to the doubters, mutterers and calculator tapping accountants... THE GAMES OPEN IN MY HOME TOWN  in a matter of days... and I am excited! 

Yesterday I went to see the flame arrive in my neighbourhood. I live in Sauff Eayst Lundin, we are known primarily for being the bit no one can get to (we only got the tube a couple of years back and even then it only goes to Greenwich!) but we are also rather famed for our dance music links that go back to the SEL Soul Movement of the 1970's and continues to this day with the likes of Tiny Tempah (he's from Abbey Wood don'tcha know!) Thus it's rather hard for us round here to do anything without it turning into a party really. So we had party in the big park by the lake. All ages on their feet bopping away under a bright blue sky and a blazing yellow sun. Then they announced IT WAS HERE. A hushed reverence for a moment then suddenly a massive roar as 20,000 of my neighbours got to see the flame with their own eyes. 

I know, I know.... the COOL kids can't quite get what on earth the fuss is about... really it's 2012... flames are available on every match, cooker, and lighter... CALM DOWN! 

But it's not just A Flame. It's THE FLAME. 

To have the flame burning in your city, in your town, in your sphere... Well it means something. 

I've been to a lot of Olympic cities... Paris, Berlin, Amsterdam, Antwerp, Innsbruck, Grenoble, Munich, Denver, Moscow, Los Angeles, Atlanta, Torino, and of course I was born in a city that had hosted it twice. BUT I have never been in a host city when the Games are on. Just being an Olympic city makes a place special.  Obviously cities become regenerated by the games - one clear example being Barcelona which quite frankly prior to being host in 1992 was in desperate need of something/anything to revive its fortunes.  The games CERTAINLY did that there. But it's not always a massive cash injection... Los Angeles (with the so called McDonald Olympics in 1984) sponsored just about everything to avoid getting into pokey like many other cities who got a bit carried away with the spending and ended up in debt.

  

I don't think any city could beat the city that stepped up to the mark in 1948 to host it  directly after the cessation of world war II. They called it the Austerity Games.  No new stadiums were built and ordinary people from the city gave the cinders from their coal fires to make the track.  That city was LONDON. And now some 60 plus years later we have the opportunity to do it again. I find it rather beautiful that the area most hit during that terrible war got to be rebuilt because of the 2012 games and is home to new stadium.  There is a sort of poetry and circular historical payback that the East End has benefitted from our city being host again.

 I think our story will be much like Barcelona's when this is all said and done - better infrastructure (yay Sauff Eayst Lundin is on the TUBE!), urban regeneration for Stratford (much needed!) and more than an extra one million visitors spending money throughout the city over those two weeks . If the COOL kids doubt anything about how we all will benefit from the improvements made around our city - just go to Waterloo Station. Since the Eurostar was resited to North London, Waterloo had been left in a sad and dismal state. The grand old station that saw our lads leave for the trenches of WWI, inspired the E.Nebit book the Railway Children, appeared in movies from Waterloo Bridge with Vivienne Leigh to the Bourne Ultimatum with Matt Damon has been entirely renovated  courteously of the 2012 games.  Something that the 91 million passengers who use it annually will certainly appreciate. 

But it's not just the physical stuff being host to the games does for your city. 

It's the uplift to the soul. You don't have to be into athletics to understand that  (- much in the same way you don't have to be into romance to understand that a good wedding brings a family together.)  London 2012 is like the big wedding on your summer calendar if you are a Londoner. ( - Yeah - you are not getting married, but we're hosting this thing and WE are on show.)  OUR city has put its metaphorical wedding hat on  and we're as ready as we will ever be to welcome our guests. We just want them to leave saying "WOW - that was something!"  And that challenge is bloody exciting. 

So yesterday I saw the torch and I saw the flame and it lit  the cauldron that will burn in my locale throughout the games. 

And yes. It was exciting to see and as the flame continues its journey around the London boroughs before it lights the big cauldron in the Stratford stadium on Friday  - the excitement continues. This is MY city, with its wedding hat on. (My goodness my city looks fabulous right now!)

And I really don't care about being COOL right now... because WE are hosting the Olympics... and THAT is bloody...   

HOT! 

PS: I found this transcript from the 1948 London Olympics: 

Lord Burghley began his welcome:  

Your Majesty: The hour has struck. A visionary dream has today become a glorious reality. At the end of the worldwide struggle in 1945, many institutions and associations were found to have withered and only the strongest had survived - The Olympic Movement is one of those. So here is London 1948 - I welcome the athletes to two weeks of keen but friendly rivalry, to show the world London has the warm flame of hope for a better understanding in the world which has burned so low. 

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