It started with a seminar for the sixty or so museums and galleries that make up 'Stories of the World'. One of our flagship Cultural Olympiad projects, it invites young people to explore the great collections held in our galleries and share the stories that excite them about their world. Two days of debate and an inspirational tour of the Olympic Park suggest they are fired up to create ground-breaking exhibitions and to put young people at the heart of the proposition.
Tuesday was memorable for a voicemail from my teenage daughter. For once it was not about having lost her house keys or needing my services as taxi driver. Unknown to me, her school was one of thousands taking part in the Lloyds TSB National School Sport's Week – a project promoted by London 2012's Education Team. She's not the most sporty child in her year but she came second in the welly wanging competition and wanted to know if I could push the sport into the running for the 2012 games (sorry…I'd better stick to being house taxi driver).
But the big thrill – and such a thrill that I had to play her euphoric message on a loudspeaker to our team meeting – was the unannounced arrival of a medal winning Olympian to fire the starting gun and award the medals. There can be few better ways to share Olympic and Paralympic gold dust.
By Wednesday, London and much of the UK was enjoying or enduring the tropical weather but 20,000 or more basked in a balmy evening of open air opera. Our first Premiere Partner for the Cultural Olympiad, BP, relayed Renee Fleming's La Traviata from the Royal Opera House to big screens around the UK, including a number of the London 2012 Live Sites.
Very soon we'll have more than 20 of these screens dotted around the country. They play host to great moments of sport and culture as well as offering a local platform for education projects, news and information. There were similar crowds at the Live Sites throughout the week as Andy Murray tormented, thrilled and then finally disappointed us at Wimbledon (- don’t worry Andy – I’m sure there’ll be even more 'Murray Mounts' set up around the UK in time for next year’s campaign).
Wednesday evening also saw BP and the rest of London's commercial partners sharing ideas and experiences of Olympic and Paralympic cultural sponsorship in a workshop hosted by Sir Nicholas Serota at Tate Britain. There was much debate about Grayson Perry's attitude to the Games (does he approve or not?) and Eva Rothschild’s installation for this year’s Duveen Commission – a vast iron structure that weaves its jagged way through the elegant gallery and forces the visitor to consider form, shape and perspective. Judging by the encouraging debate we should have other commercial partners following BP’s lead in the coming months.
Thursday's breakfast time offered a glimpse of the spirit of our forthcoming Open Weekend (24th – 26th July). I was part of a group being shown around the British Library’s exhibition about Henry the Eighth (one of many projects marking 500 years since he came to the throne). What looks like a rather learned and archival presentation based on the Library’s unique collection of original documents and artefacts, was brought to life by a brilliant exhibition curator. 45 minutes with Peter Barber made five hundred years of history feel like yesterday and took the two dimensional Henry into fascinating 3D: scholar, musician, philosopher, sportsman and statesman. He was, said the curator, an 'Obama figure' in the early years, feted as the bringer of fresh ideas and a new era. It was only relatively late in his long reign that he became the serial husband, the religious revolutionary and the increasingly violent despot. It's a wonderful exhibition but it shows the value of having a great story teller who brings the exhibits to life.
By Friday it was time for a change of mood. Wembley Stadium hosted eighty thousand people screaming, dancing and generally going crazy for four guys who look like they could sitting in front of you in the queue for the car wash, proud of their new Mondeo or Vectra. The joy of come-back-kings, Take That, is that they know how lucky they are and make deft use of their apparent ordinariness. With our ceremonies in mind I was there to take a look at the production aspects of the show (he emphasised a little too hastily) and I wasn't disappointed.
Es Devlin, the talented young designer with a pedigree in theatre, opera and major spectacle, created a stunning three dimensional show in which the light self mockery of the band could sit amongst high tech creativity and innovative circus skills. This was the slickest piece of musical clownery I've enjoyed in ages.
And so to the weekend and a trip to north for the start of the The Manchester International Festival. Its talented Director, Alex Poots, has focused the biennial project around premieres, commission and collaborations.
Around the many plaudits some have found the Festival too 'International' and not enough 'Manchester', so Turner Prize Winner, Jeremy Deller's opening Procession was an affectionate and quirky self portrait of the city – fish and chip, sporting mascots and David Hockney all thrown in.
Zaha Hadid, the architect for London 2012's Aquatics Centre, has turned a 100 metre ribbon of fabric into a hall for chamber music in the City Art Gallery, and extremely elegant it is too. Just like the Aquatics Centre, it revels in waves, flowing lines and a sense of liquid motion.
The sensory highlight of the weekend was, without doubt, a piece called 'It Felt Like a Kiss'. A promenade piece through a semi-derelict 1960s office block, it was created by BBC film-maker Adam Curtis, the artistic director of innovative theatre company, Punchdrunk, Felix Barrett, and musicians Damon Albarn and the Kronos Quartet.
It's late on Sunday night on the train south from Manchester and I've just remembered that tomorrow morning takes me on a school visit. Everyone in my team is trying to take the London 2012 message into a local school before they break up for the summer. My task is to invite a group of 17-year-olds in Marlow to design their version of an Opening Ceremony. I need to dig out some video clips of previous ceremonies and in just a few hours time I'll at the front of the class. How quickly the next week comes around. And only one hundred and sixty more weeks to go...
