Spitalfields Festival means different things to different people – to some it's three weeks of familiar and new music in June, to others it's a winter alternative to mainstream seasonal offerings and to others it's their first chance to play, compose or hear music.
Starting 32 years ago when taxis would not go as far as Brick Lane, the festival has developed from a single event to a year-round music programme throughout Tower Hamlets with two major focal points in our June and December festivals as celebrations of music and the area. It has built its identity on high quality...
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30 July 2008
Last night I was one of 23,000 lucky people who saw Kylie Minogue on her world tour for her latest album. There were groups of girls in pink cowboy hats; ten year olds dragging their parents off the Jubilee Line in a rush to get there so as not to miss anything; as well as groups of blokes looking for a glimpse of those famous legs (!) – but mostly it was just people who were there for a good night out and a bit of a dance.
I had never been to the venue before, either as it is now...
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Getting Stratford Regional Station – used by 40,000 people each morning – ready to be the gateway for the 2012 Games is a big job. What makes it more challenging is that the station has to remain ‘business as usual’ while work takes place.
Blue hoardings are now up around the station. Behind these hoardings, the Olympic Delivery Authority is making
improvements to the station to boost its capacity and accessibility. This includes new lifts and stairs, an additional Central Line platform, a new entrance and restoring an old subway.
These enhancements, which are being delivered by Network Rail and London Underground,...
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Daeth un o’n Olympiaid gwychaf i’n swyddfa'r diwrnod o’r blaen...
Anaml iawn mae rhywun yn gallu dweud rhywbeth fel yna, ynte? Fel rhan o ymdrechion Llundain 2012 i sicrhau fod pob rhan o’r DU yn cael budd o'r gemau, daeth Seb Coe i Gaerdydd fel Cadeirydd y Pwyllgor Trefnu gyda John Armitt o Awdurdod Gweithredu’r Gemau Olympaidd a Charles Allen o'r Grŵp Cenhedloedd a Rhanbarthau.
Yn ein cyfarfod siaradom am nifer o faterion - sut all Cymru ddathlu’r momentau trosglwyddo yn ystod seremoni gau'r gemau yn Beijing y mis nesaf; y diweddaraf ar y lleoliad beicio mynydd ar gyfer 2012; a’r...
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Today marks the 60th anniversary of the Opening Ceremony of the London 1948 Olympic Games.
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28 July 2008
Last week I took the opportunity to visit some of
Network Rail’s key projects for the London 2012 Games. This involved a tour of our major work taking place at
Stratford Regional Station, the Stratford City development and the Olympic Park itself.
Our work is central to the successful delivery of the Park and the London 2012 Games overall. We need to deliver our work on time, within the resources that are available to us and without jeopardising the other projects that we are committed to. This can only be done through collaboration and partnership working and...
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I'm part of an on-site policing team of five officers and we're lucky to have a unique job in the Metropolitan Police - providing policing support to the huge construction site of the Olympic Park, Olympic Village and surrounding developments. Everything about it is new territory for us - from the equipment we need, to the training, specialist skills and construction industry knowledge.
Our days are always different - it's fascinating to watch the site changing from one day to the next and the speed of delivery that's happening before our eyes.
I'm usually called in circumstances that you wouldn't...
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Today, Sunday 27th at 9am saw the Village officially opened by BOCOG senior Vice-Presidents and the Mayor of the Village in front of hundreds of staff and volunteers, and more importantly the majority of the Chinese Olympic team. The whole event was split into two halves, with the Village Opening followed by the official Team Welcome Ceremony for the Chinese team. This ceremony is part of the traditional protocol of the Village and signifies (once the national flag is raised and the anthem played) that the host National Olympic Committee has officially taken up residence in the Village. All other Team Weclome Ceremonies need to...
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A video created as part of the
'Welcoming the World' project with schools in the five Host Boroughs. The pupils of Lathom Junior School produced this video, 'Our future'.
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I am here in Qingdao, competition site for the sailing events, 690 km from Beijing and with two days to go before the Sailing village starts to accept athletes, you may think that it would not have an Olympic feel? How wrong could I be, as soon as you step off the plane from Beijing and start the 35km drive towards the Sailing venue you are immediately overpowered by Olympic branding. Every lamp post and hoarding is decked out in Beijing colours and Olympic rings.
The impressive thing is that it doesn’t stop; it just goes all the way to...
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With only four years to go until the London 2012 Opening Ceremony, these latest photos of the Olympic Park show progress ahead of schedule.
This photo of the Olympic Stadium site shows the clear outline of where the Stadium will be and the distinctive lower bowl taking shape. Construction started in May, three months early:
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The first 'Meeting of Minds' took place on 20 June. Eight businesses drawn from diverse sectors came to London 2012 headquarters to meet up with one of our tier one contractors. It was a very informal occasion designed to offer small businesses an opportunity to come and talk with London 2012 and a main contractor to better understand what it takes to do business with us. We were joined on this occasion by Jackie Connolly from the London Borough of Newham and Hemant Mistry from the London Development Agency (LDA) programme 'Diversity Works for London'.
Each business took five minutes...
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When the Olympic Flag is handed over to London in August amidst great media excitement the pressure is also on in a small town over looking the Cardigan Bay. For here stands Harlech Castle - the most formidable fortress in Wales whose battlements spring out of a near-vertical cliff-face. Like an all seeing sentinel, it gazes out across the land and sea, keeping a watchful eye over Snowdonia. It stands on the site of the most important mythic saga of the Welsh culture - The Mabinogion. The tales of magic and heroes and giants and betrayal are told to every...
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A video created as part of the 'Welcoming the World' project with schools in the five Host Boroughs. The pupils of George Mitchell Community School in Leyton produced this video.
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On Sunday, 27 July, we mark four years to go to the London 2012 Olympic Games Opening Ceremony.
And where better to mark the moment than with the workers currently transforming the Park site?
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I work on the north of the Olympic Park and our team runs two soil washing machines. The machines are helping to clean up contaminated soil (mostly from the previous industrial use of the area) so that it can reused in the creation of the Park.
Across the site, soil has been tested for a range of contamination, which consists mostly of hydrocarbons such as petrol and oil. Samples of contaminated soil are tested in an on-site lab to measure the levels of contamination and to establish the appropriate treatment. The soil is then sent to our 'Soil Treatment Centre (STC)'....
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Well, what to say about the last four and a half months? Firstly, the construction is ramping up rapidly (believe me I can attest to this as I have been stretched over this period). The Park is constantly changing - it is almost as if it is an autonomous machine changing day by day. If you haven’t been round for a week something will have drastically changed.
The tier one contractor I work for has been awarded a five-star award by the British Safety Council, which was a huge achievement for us. My company has also managed to clock up 1.55...
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At the end of June the Olympic Delivery Authority (ODA) took part in a jointly organised event with British Waterways to celebrate the
London Festival of Architecture (LFA), which took place from 20 June to 20 July 2008. This year's festival focus for east London was Canary Wharf, Stratford and Greenwich Peninsular.
I was asked to take this forward and find a suitable event which would achieve a lasting association with the festival. The result was an event which involved a winning combination of boats, water, London 2012, a history of canals and rivers and, fortunately, sunshine last month....
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The three weeks at the start of July on the archaeology 'discover' programme were a lot of fun, getting to meet a whole load of students, community members and teachers from across the five Host Boroughs (Greenwich, Hackney, Newham, Waltham Forest, Tower Hamlets).
People attending the sessions at Hackney's East Marsh watched a ‘blanket dig’, which used blankets to represent the different layers of the ground, with each being a different period: starting with the modern day and a London 2012 badge, to artefacts from the Second World War and Victorian times, through to medieval, Roman and pre-historic finds, such...
Read more of “Interesting lessons from archaeology sessions at East Marsh”
