please empty your brain below
Ah but the Olympics did come to you. Your area has had billions of pounds of investment for which the rest of us have had to stump up.

Our payback is that we want and need tourists to come to London - something that I wager would be less likely if the watching millions saw rows of grotty shops and suburban sprawl than if they were to see world famous landmarks and green parkland.

Sorry DG, but you've already had quite enough. Give the rest of us a chance to get some return from this jamboree.

Chris | 06.08.12 - 1:30 a.m. | #

Yeah, DG, don't upset boring people by voicing an opinion!

Just looked back on your original "dear East End" post, and Tower Hamlets Council's furious statement about the removal of the marathon has been, well, removed.

I wonder how happy Mayor Lutfur is with the compensatory designation of "official curry capital" for a spot at the other end of the borough?

Darryl | Homepage | 06.08.12 - 2:16 a.m. | #

At least the area around you dg has benefited from some sprucing up.
As the UK has been winning some Gold Medals interest among the general public seems to have increased. I have been going to Hyde Park on Sundays since 1974 and yesterday there were some people queueing to get into the area of the park which has been screened off for Olympic concerts, big screens etc.. (all free). On many days up until now attendance had been a bit thin on the ground. Maybe the extra publicity has had an effect, as people are not being discouraged from travelling into London now as they were previously. Oxford Street also seemed busier than last weekend. The masses going top the park meant a steady stream of people passing through Speakers Corner where the orators battled at times with the loud bass note noise throbbing from the parks concerts. Oxford Street seemed busier too yesterday.
What a pity that the Olympic flame can only be seen within the stadium and that it is not mounted high and visible from outside.
As for Bow Church giving away water, I have been with a team giving away bottles of water on the Euston Road between Kings Cross and Euston stations, and in 4 days we gave away 140,000 bottles. I'll be there later today if you want one!

John | 06.08.12 - 7:35 a.m. | #

Why did you go out on the streets of Bow to see it when you knew it wasn't coming? Don't you read your own blog?

David | 06.08.12 - 8:24 a.m. | #

I'd like to have seen how they would have got the athletes into the stadium given the way the park is designed.
It was never going to go there was it.

Martin | 06.08.12 - 9:33 a.m. | #

With you on this DG, it was hard at the time to understand how the mayor was so easily mollified with so little recompense and even harder now...

s | 06.08.12 - 10:35 a.m. | #

Do not underestimate the power of NBC.

Dave | 06.08.12 - 11:32 a.m. | #

I think the current popular expression, to sum up situations like these, is "follow the money"

RogerW | 06.08.12 - 12:21 p.m. | #

Several new sports venues, new housing, seriously beefed up transport links, new shopping centre, umpteen other improvements. yes, E.London has been sawn off by this one.

roym | 06.08.12 - 12:25 p.m. | #

Hark at all the idiots above. I didn't know Seb was so fond of sockpuppets...

swirlythingy | Homepage | 06.08.12 - 3:16 p.m. | #

Yes, of course, one is never allowed to disagree with DG here; only true acolytes are allowed to partake of the wisdom.

David | 06.08.12 - 3:32 p.m. | #

I agree with all the lot of you. Of course DG is right to point out that a promise was broken. (And being DG he has pointed this out with a mastery of language and imagery). Of course the breaking of the marathon promise could have been foreseen - probably was widely foreseen. Of course in the "good old days" (if they ever existed) no-one ever broke a promise.

But of course there has been a lot of money spent on East London (some of it may still end up benefitting East Londoners if I can be forgiven a bit of optimism) - and there is a case to be made for spending some of the dosh elsewhere. And of course foreign TV audiences will have much preferred a Buck House finish to a Bow Road one.

This is the real world. Not all fairytales have a happily ever after ending.

Malcolm | 06.08.12 - 4:08 p.m. | #

High Street 2012 was actually a London Development Agency project to boost the area pre-Olympics. English Heritage may well have got involved too but it WAS an LDA initative. The LDA seem to be the forgotten people who actually persuaded Ken to talk the government into bidding for the Olympics in the first place and had a vision for redeveloping East London. What thanks? Closure.

CPgirl | 06.08.12 - 4:44 p.m. | #

Taking the Marathon away from the East End is the reason I never even applied for Olympic tickets. I love the Olympics, and I know I'm missing out, but that decision really angered me.

Ghostface | 06.08.12 - 5:09 p.m. | #

Anyone else sick to death of the Olympics?

This blog used to be good.

Please, enough now.

madge | 06.08.12 - 6:56 p.m. | #

Madge,

There are plenty of other bloggers available if you are bored, but there are plenty of other people who have made real use of dg's information that you can't get from other sources. I am sure dg will deal with other issues later. The Olympics are only a couple of weeks. However the countdown to the Olympics has so dominated London for the last 7 years and the "legacy" will dominate it for many years after that.

KissenMe | 06.08.12 - 7:50 p.m. | #

@madge:

East End blogger blogs about major East End event - where's the problem with that?

NLW | 06.08.12 - 9:29 p.m. | #

I'm not from the east end, but I was dissapointed to hear they'd moved it west. The park is in a high security fenced off island that's like nothing else around it, this would have been more representative of the area the Olympics have come to. Also it would have been great to watch the moment when the leading athletes enter the stadium to a roar, but the Mall finish was an anti-climax.

SJM | 06.08.12 - 9:40 p.m. | #

In other news - man arrested for throwing (Dutch beer which in DG tradition shall remain nameless) bottle onto 100m track.
I thought they were only going to arrest people with non-sponsors' products?

timbo | 06.08.12 - 10:11 p.m. | #

A common mistake here seems to be the illusion that billions of pounds have been spent on "the East End". They have been spent on Stratford. Apart from High Street 2012 and "the curry capital of Britain" (anyone seen that on international telly? No, thought not), Tower Hamlets has barely seen a penny.

swirlythingy | Homepage | 07.08.12 - 1:16 a.m. | #

Tower Hamlets does get part of the marathon - a loop goes by the Tower and is within the Borough boundaries for about 350m (~380 yard)!

Arbiter | 08.08.12 - 3:03 p.m. | #











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