London 2012

I just woke up to the physical hangover of a fairly exciting fortnight and all I can think about now is a bed. The exhaustion was dominating me last night, turning me into a bit of a cynic while setting my first foot in Stratford. Deep down inside of me, I was really enjoying, to the point that I couldn't sleep very well last night.

Nevertheless, I can happily affirm that I have survived the Olympic Games; London 2012 and all related to it, totally painless. In fact, I just realised this morning how beautiful days are since we are not receiving TfL's disruption newsletter every Friday. Because, let's admit it: we are used to it now, and it will all go back to normal after the 9th of September.

But my story started probably a month ago. Sitting in our basement, with the housemates, watching Ennis or Bolt strutting their stuff on the red Olympic track; And it is when it hit me: What are the odds of ME living almost round the corner from the Olympic Games in the future? Considering that I'm not planning to move to Brasil and that Madrid has sort of given up trying: Highly remote. I run upstairs rather confused and went into the most feared searching field: Olympic tickets. But this occasion was different than when I tried the time before. I chose the Paralympics tab and full of hope and convincement clicked on SEARCH. And there it was, a rainbow of cheapo 20-quid tickets up for grabs. And when for the most obvious: Final of Men Athletics. A month ahead.

COOL!

And there I was yesterday evening, warming up in Hackney Wick, gaining strength so start my Olympic journey. Because entering a super hygienic and highly sponsorised military zone can only be prepped with good pizza, locally brewed ale and complimentary raspberry muffin.

We entered officially, from Victoria Gate, just on the Green Way, and only known entrance for my without counting the official Startford monster. After walking peacefully paths of artificially grown lovely garden and fenced alleyways, there we were: full on, hordes of people dressed in red blue and white. I took the compulsory A-là Bolt photo and tried to blend in into the crowd.

The thing is that after spending so much time in dodgy London, land of the scruffy and up-cycled coffee shop, this fresh-paint smelling site, full of brands, pristine concrete and unbranded but branded food stalls was kind of disturbing. But it is not a critique. It is sort if like a cultural shock. At the end of the day, London has to be the best dressed at the dance, at least for a couple of months and that can only be achieved the way it has been done.

Even ALL the volunteers were too nice and upbeat with everybody, helping with directions, high five-ing everybody and taking countless pictures of us tourist without complaining and having a good laugh with us.

Leaving corporations aside, the experience was pretty exciting

Erm, we were almost on the last row, high up in the Stadium, but still impressive. Thankfully, almost all the seats were occupied.

Wait a minute, are those Olympic volunteers playing remote control cars in the middle of the Stadium?

Those Minis (massive product placement, amongst others) were actually carrying the Javelein or Discus Back to the athletes. Sounds lazy, doesn't it?

And just when we thought that we were just there to see the final of men wheelchair finals, it turned out to be almost everything involving the track: Javelin, Discus, Long Jump... spot on!

Sweepers

Precise as Swiss watches and coordinated like Chinese Army, so were the London 2012 volunteers. As impressive as the athletes.

The gun dude was pretty scary

Wheelchair 100m. Full of stamina.

Visually impaired runners also quite impressive. Admirable work the one carried out by the guides. They are supposed to arrive a bit before the athlete to the finish line and if their athlete wins a medal, so they do. Cool!

And the kings of the night: the blade runners. The carbon fibre blade lower amputees, all of them below knee from what I could see. Fantastic display. Enjoyed every second.

I saw Pistorius losing to the Brazilian double amputee. I even recorded it. Intense, very intense.

To sum up

The best: the people. The spectators, the athletes and the volunteers.

The worse: the overpriced food.

But we are kind of used to it.

Bravo London. You did well.

Let's meet to see what's up with the legacy. That's going to be another story.

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Random

This weekend was quite random.

First, on Saturday, I reserved my afternoon for a mysterious experience in Hoxton. I think I found it through this week's Le Cool newsletter, and as soon as I read the description, I signed in to get my slot for the day. Actually, it was the fact that it involved finding out about the location by means of clues sent days in advance and reading about it what made it quite interesting for me.

The event was called Traces, and it was basically a very elaborated art/furniture/jewellery display by upcoming artist inspired on the location and the theme around it.

The clues lead, drop by drop (actually, a few of them spreaded around the area, literally posted in random places) by email and Twitter, narrowing the location around Shoreditch and providing with a big of insight and history about the area, but specifically in the corner of Hoxton Overground Station. Just there in the corner: a derelict Victorian Pub in 32 Cremer Street, formerly called Harwar St. The team made a research on the archives to find out that the upstairs part of said pub, used to be a brothel (and one of the reasons was that it was a normal practice at the time, not to specify on the registry of the establishment the type of activity carried out). From them, the team developed a story, some characters and found the group of artist to base their pieces on it.

The result was a candlelit building, hidden behind a green main door, with a dense atmosphere very well recreated with the help of dried flowers, wood and all sorts (plus the +30 degrees hitting the streets of London at that time, that made it more victorian-realistic but a bit unbearable).

Everything was touchable, smellable and obviously observable. Actually, the story was so elaborate that there were (fictional) love letters from clients to the girls showing their love and subsequent anger for being ignored, very clearly portrayed in the evolution of the handwriting (the last letter of the admirer had a very clear upset calligraphy).

Such a peculiar way of exhibiting artists artwork. Definitely worth popping around, but what a pity not to be able to capture some images of the rooms.

Some more info about the pieces here.

Although for some reason I was expecting a treasure hunt or more mystery solving in there, I thought that showcasing pieces this way is a really good idea. Much more engaging, fun and different (oh well, and FREE).

 

And then my usual Sunday street art hunt, that normally ends up in Shoreditch, as it the epicentre for most of the pieces of a big chunk of artists. I went straight to Ebor St to, first of all, take evidence of the new Flip's piece.

 

 

Nice fluorescent squid with a furry cat (?) on top. Flip

Being already in the area, I remember I read about the Mexican Festival going on this weekend in Rich Mix, so I decided to pop around to sneak in and get the latest edition of the free musical magazines around.

As per usual, I took a look at the downstairs part, where the cafeteria is, as it always shows interesting little exhibitions. Actually, I went there back in May to check CityzenKane's stuff within touching distance and I loved it.

Surprise: I came across a lot of little postcards sticked to the walls. The space was empty, but there was Sarah Hyndman. Sarah is actually the person behind the exhibition, so as soon as she saw that I was quite interested, she introduced herself and briefed me into the concept of the Project.

It is called Random Project 2012, and it is a project made by people all around the world. The idea starts from choosing a number from 1 to 100. Each number is related to a specific word, so once chosen, the participants had to design a postcard related to that word and London.

 

 

 

The result is therefore, an interpretation of the views of Londoners and visitors towards that That given word and the city; or literally citing:

Random Project 2012

A growing collection of postcards which are created by everybody. These celebrate 2012 and are visually documenting a historic year. Curated by Sarah Hyndman.

Sarah's idea is to ultimately, by the end of the year, order all the postcards chronologically to get a better picture of the feelings of the participants towards the City, specially to be able to detect the change of behaviour or awareness towards the Olympics games, before and after.

 

Just as Sarah was explaining to me the concept I was getting more and more excited about it. I am aware of how blindly I am in love with London, but some others are not as much. Probably people born and raised here have seen enough of it, or tourist may have a hard time when coinciding with some disruptions in the tube; others may have the most exciting trip of their lives and others may find London just dull and overcrowded.

But it is that essence, the pros and cons, the black and the white, the good and the bad and the colourful range of opinions and points of view in between what makes it exciting. For such an overcrowded yet lonely city, this is a great way of putting together all the thoughts and make it a bit warmer.

 

Bank Holiday.

People may or may not agree with the presence of the Queen in this country, but the fact that the Jubilee is celebrated and involves a Bank Holiday is reason enough to be happy.

 

 

A visitor from Amsterdam and the ticket evidence of his/her trip to the Olympic Site

 

Great British Sunday with a Roast

 

 

 

 

Looks like it is getting a bit crowded at 10 Downing St. One at a time! (Oh, and a bit of summer romance of Boris and David).

 

 

 

 

Somebody was quite happy for Wiggins

 

 

 

Because we all know that diamond is made of carbon. Just as graphite, but different structure.

 

 

 

 

 

 

'This is not like home'. Is it better? Is it worse?

 

OH-O. I am in your pants. This one confused me. H2O? Water? I tried to applied my organic chemistry knowledge but couldn't come up with a solution. What can be in your pants with so many OH and O groups? The first thing I though was sugar, but then, it is a bit strange.

 

 

 

London. The COOLest capital! A bet this person came when it was pouring rain. Still, a lovely drawing of the city (observe the fact that is full of pigeons hehe)

 

 

I liked this one a lot. I suppose the given word was SILVER, easily linked to Silver medal for example. But is is funny how this person has related silver to grey silver hair. I would say that this person is quite young but is starting to get his/her first and becoming conscious about it. Still, he/she dignifies them by naming them Silver instead of the ordinary and depressing grey. Good one.

 

Somebody had a nice and peaceful view of the full moon laying on the grass.

 

 

Full-on football fan and fervent twitter user. I loved the way the person captured the reaction of the famous social network with all the hashtags (#Euro2012) involved and the users.

 

 

Academy Awards 2012. 'Most Miserable' performance in a feature film. A hope this person was talking about the closing ceremony.

The impressive thing is that the participants come from all around the world. From Sao Paulo to Mumbai, and all ages.

 

 

The worse thing is that I almost didn't get to see this. Just when I arrived at Rich Mix, Sarah was taking the last pictures to shut the doors of the exhibition in less than an hour.

 

But Random Project is not finished. As I said, the project will wrap up in December, with a big layout of the time scale and the evolution of the city from the point of view of resident and visitors in Postcard format. Needless to say, there is still time to send more, so do it:

 

Pick a number between 1 & 100 and send it to word@random-project.co.uk.
We'll email you your word and full details.

But talking about randomness... what's going on lately at the Sunday (Up) Market in Brick Lane?

 

Climbing walls apparently...

 

Arrow of love? Robin Hood came all the way from Nottingham to see the Olympics? A little Viking invasion?

I will find out, but that will be another story

 

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