Will Missiles Make 2012 Olympics Safer?

Surface-to-air missiles may be used to help provide security for the London Olympics next year. Defense secretary Philip Hammond says “all necessary measures” will be taken to ensure security at the games, including “appropriate ground to air defenses”, if such action is recommended by the military.

The announcement came as it emerged that America has repeatedly raised concerns about security at the Games and was preparing to send 1,000 agents to protect American citizens.

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Chinese Flock to Buy London 2012 Olympics Toys

The Mirror: The Chinese have gone London 2012 bonkers, with Hornby reporting booming demand for Olympic-themed toys.

The firm is shipping 2012 branded busses, taxis and Minis to 500 stores in China after a flood of interest.

Boss Frank Martin put the unexpected boost down to a Beijing bounce, with many people in China gripped by Olympic fever following the Games there.

He said: “We have already made the first shipments and we expect this new market to be an important contributor to our London 2012 sales.”

Most of the products are made in China yet, because of the ordering process, they’re shipped to the UK and then back again.

Martin said the Games, plus a host of new products, should ensure Hornby a “cracking” 2012. The upbeat tone came as Hornby announced profits soared 80% to £1.2 million ($1.9 million) in the six months to October.

The firm is enjoying strong overseas sales, with demand for train sets in Germany especially strong. Germans spend more per person on train sets than anyone else in the world.

Hornby’s group sales rose 11% to £28.4m ($45.7 million) in the six month period, driven by a 50% surge in overseas takings. Sales in the UK, meanwhile, edged up 4% with orders from store chains higher than in previous years.The firm has responded to customers’ money worries by launching more value products, including its Tornado train set.

Sales of Airfix kits were up this year, although demand for Scalextric sets fell.

Hornby’s Corgi arm was also up, also helped by London 2012 merchandise. Hornby has also secured the toy rights to a new kids’ TV show, Olly the Little White Van, which it hopes will prove a hit.

Hospitality Industry Preparing for 2012 Olympics

Industry Leaders Magazine: The Summer Olympics in London are just six months away. What’s the hospitality industry in London and the rest of the United Kingdom doing to get ready for the half a million visitors (not including the athletes) projected to visit the city during the games?

First, businesses are evaluating their staffing needs, and the UK hospitality industry is seeing a major boom in the demand for jobs. The Hospitality Employment Index from Sector Skills Council People 1st and Caterer.com found that job vacancies have soared from 26,550 in the second quarter of 2009 to 45,000 new roles for the same period in 2011 for the UK hospitality industry. As a result, the number of job applications has grown by more than a third from 640,000 to 800,000 submissions in the past year, reflecting increasing competition in the jobs market. There is especially increased demand for skilled restaurant managers and chefs, highlighting the ongoing challenges of recruiting skilled staff, even in the wake of something as prosperous as the London 2012 Olympics. The index also found that:

● The most jobs were for restaurant management positions, with 7,740 vacancies – a growth of nine percent since the first quarter.

● Demand for head chefs grew by 34 percent; the number of posts for chefs de partie grew by 19 percent.

● London and the South-east proved to be the greatest job generators over the past year creating 12,770 and 13,606 new vacancies followed by the North-east where the number of job vacancies increased by a quarter to 821 new positions.

Second, a demand for hotel rooms and accommodations are also booming, as many tourists would like to get their London 2012 Olympics accommodations before they run out. 2012 is expected to be a record breaking year for growth in the London hotel market, with a projected 50,000 hotel rooms to be built between now and 2026. This demand for hotel rooms has also caused a boom in construction jobs, with over 6,000 people taking the chance to help build Olympic Park and other facilities for the London 2012 Olympics.

Another accommodation choice that’s particularly popular with American, Spanish and French visitors is renting a house. There’s a general trend for the French and Spanish to travel in large family groups and value the opportunity of cooking their own meals whilst sharing the communal benefits of renting comfortable homes for the games. Visitors from the United States are used to booking luxury homes for rent by owners, and enjoy the flexibility of self-catering and eating out combined with the extra facilities offered by renting a house for the London 2012 Olympics, such as satellite TV, fast broadband, and free parking. There hasn’t been any evidence of an increase in the construction or demand of rental and luxury homes.

Any businesses in the UK hospitality industry needing help in getting ready for the London 2012 Olympics can check out the Olympics planning guide. The guide offers specific information in staff training, transportation, and marketing. The hope among leaders and officials in the UK hospitality industry is that this boom from the London 2012 Olympics won’t turn into a huge drop in demand and jobs.

2012 Olympic Posters Revealed

This is London: They show Britain in all its off-beat, colourful and eccentric glory. And they are almost certainly not the sleek images that an advertising guru would recommend.

The 12 official posters for the Olympic and Paralympic Games unveiled today will offer every Briton and visitor a chance to own a slice of the imagination of Tracey Emin, Chris Ofili or Bridget Riley for £7.

Michael Craig-Martin, the artist who also taught the YBA generation of Damien Hirst, presents a simple command, Go, in his trademark black lines and block colours.

Some present pivotal moments of the Games in their own terms such as Martin Creed's extended podium of five steps in the colours of the Olympic rings.

Yet others seem as gloriously abstract as only an artist with no interest in the actual sport could produce - as in Howard Hodgkin's deep swirl of blue entitled simply Swimming.

Ruth Mackenzie, artistic director of the Cultural Olympiad and one of the panel who selected the artists from a longlist of more than 100, said she would buy one of each.

"I think they're beautiful and very touching," she said. "One of our ambitions was to put art at the heart of the Games so it's really great to get the official posters to showcase UK visual artists to the world."

Tracey Emin said she was nervous unveiling her poster, having taken much flak when she was chosen to create one, and that it had been "really difficult" to come up with her idea. Organisers rejected the slogan "I might not come first but I still enjoy sex" before accepting "You inspire me with your determination and I love you". She added: "I think it's good that they chose artists, not designers or publicists or marketing people." The other artists are Fiona Banner, Gary Hume, Sarah Morris, Bob and Roberta Smith, Rachel Whiteread and Streatham artist Anthea Hamilton.

Click here to see a slideshow of all the posters

British SAS to Boost 2012 Olympics Security

British SAS

The Telegraph: SAS squads will be based in a secret riverside bunker by the Thames for the London Olympics to combat terrorist threats more effectively.

The Special Air Service teams will use high-speed rigid inflatable boats to avoid traffic and increase their response speed.

The special forces troopers have been training for months against the potential threat of a Mumbai-style attack, in which terrorists seize hotels or other civilian targets and defend them against the authorities.

A source told The Sun newspaper: “All scenarios are being anticipated. London will be protected like never before - and the message is clear: if anyone is fool enough to try to endanger the public at these Games they will be met with the swiftest retribution by the best equipped troops of our most elite fighting units.

“Troops can deploy by air and water and be on site in moments. Then you’ve got force on the ground while the situation is monitored by the air.

“Major evacuation plans are still being revised in case of a terrorist attack but the most important thing is having the access and ability to strike back at terrorists. That will be achieved and those plans are in place.”

The SAS are understood to have already run training drills with live ammunition at the Olympics Village in east London.

Special Boat Service units have also been training off the Dorset coast to tackle the threat from suicide bombers, it has been reported.

Last year, two former senior commanders of the SAS told The Sunday Telegraph that Britain's security forces would be unable to cope with a Mumbai-style attack in central London.

Colonel Richard Williams and Lieutenant General Sir Graeme Lamb said that such a "paramilitary threat" would "overmatch" any land-based police force and turn London into a war zone.

London Named Top City for 2012

Yahoo: London has been named the best city in the world to visit next year by influential travel guide publisher Lonely Planet.

The city, which will host the London 2012 Olympic Games and celebrations marking the Diamond Jubilee of Queen Elizabeth II, topped Lonely Planet's 'Best in Travel 2012' list, a compilation of the year ahead by the brand's authors.

Muscat, Oman came in second place and Bengalaru (Bengalore) in India was voted third in the list, which was released to mark the October 28 release of Best in Travel, priced at €9.99.

"London will have the spotlight firmly on it next year when it plays host to the Olympics but there are lots of other reasons why it is our number one city for 2012," said Lonely Planet's Tom Hall.

"Although traditionally an expensive destination for international tourists, it is now something of a bargain for many visitors including those from the Middle East, Australia and parts of Europe. Added to that London’s wealth of world-class free attractions and it’s easy to see why people continue to flock here."

The Spanish city of Cadiz and Swedish capital Stockholm rounded off the top five list.

This week has been a good one for London -- US guidebook brand Frommer's also named the borough of Greenwich on its 2012 list of top destinations, along with more exotic spots such as Beirut, Lebanon and the Yucatan Peninsula, Mexico.

Top 10 cities

1. London
2. Muscat, Oman
3. Bengaluru (Bangalore), India
4. Cadiz, Spain
5. Stockholm
6. Guimaraes, Portugal
7. Santiago, Chile
8. Hong Kong
9. Orlando, Florida, USA
10. Darwin, Australia

Olympic Streakers Will Be Fined $31,400

The Post Chronicle: The 2012 Olympics to be held in London have decided to impose a fine of £20,000 ($31,400) on anyone who decides streaking at the event is a good way to 'run' an advertisement.

Body painting and streaking at public events to get attention is a marketing stunt that the Brits are in no mood for this year. The Department for Culture, Media and Sport is also ready to jail offenders, if the punishment fits.

The rules change has passed through the House of Commons; it is now awaiting approval from the unelected upper House of Lords.

UPI reports that an International Olympic Committee commission credited Olympic organizers in London with "good progress" in their preparations for the 2012 Summer Games.

The IOC Coordination Commission on Friday ended its next-to-last visit to London ahead of the Games, which are scheduled for July 27-Aug. 12. The commission has its final pre-Games update in London March 28-30.

“London 2012 continues to make good progress toward delivering great Olympic Games next summer," said IOC Coordination Commission Chairman Denis Oswald. "We have once again been impressed by the overall level of planning and by the results of the first group of test events that were held this summer."

Commission members remarked on organizers' collaboration with other groups preparing for the Games. That has allowed officials to "start testing their operations in optimal conditions," an IOC release stated.

"We have had a very busy six months since the last Coordination Commission visit, selling tickets, recruiting volunteers and relentlessly testing all our operations, including delivering 17 sport test events this summer," said London 2012 Chairman Sebastian Coe.

"We are delighted to receive such strong endorsement from the IOC. With only 42 Fridays until the opening ceremony of the Olympic Games, everyone at LOCOG is focused on putting on Games the whole country can be proud of and a part of." (c) UPI

Go here to check out a video of various Brit streakers over the years, starting in 1975! Too funny.

Passengers Stranded on Tarmac for 8 Hours

The Telegraph: Almost 200 passengers on board an Air India flight were stranded on the tarmac at Gatwick Airport for more than eight hours, after fog prevented the plane from touching down at London’s Heathrow.

Despite the airports being just 44 miles apart, passengers on the flight from Ahmedabad via Mumbai to Heathrow were kept on board the aircraft and complained they received no food, refreshments or information from the crew.

The flight had been due to land at Heathrow at 7.30am, but was diverted to Gatwick in Sussex because of heavy morning fog.

It is believed the crew then departed the flight and the aircraft was unable to take off again until a new team had been sent from Heathrow.

Rahul Joglekar, a BBC producer, who was on the flight used Twitter to communicate the mounting frustration on board.

He wrote: “Too much fog at Heathrow … why not let us deplane at Gatwick?”

At one point officers from Sussex Constabulary attended the scene to calm rising tension amongst those passengers who were angry at the lack of information.

Some of those on board are understood to have offered to leave the flight at Gatwick and make their own way to their final destination, but were refused permission to disembark by the airline.

Eventually after eight and a half hours on the tarmac, the new crew arrived and the flight was able to take off and make the short journey across London to Heathrow where it landed shortly before 5.20pm.

A spokesman for Gatwick Airport said: “A plane was diverted from Heathrow due to fog and landed around 8am. There was some issue with bringing a crew from Heathrow. During this time we provided every support requested of us, but all matters related to the passengers remains the responsibility of the airline.”

The spokesman said Gatwick Airport would have been happy to facilitate the disembarkation of the passengers, but the ultimate decision lay with Air India.

After finally arriving at Heathrow ten hours late, Mr Joglekar expressed his relief when he wrote: “Just landed at Heathrow. There is a God.”

No-one at Air India was available for comment.

Olympic Walkway Will Generate Electricity

Sustainable Business: Follow the yellow brick road - between the site of London's 2012 Olympics and Europe's largest mall - as you walk on it, you'll create electricity.

When you walk along the road, you're bound to step on a paver that instantly converts the kinetic energy of your footstep into electricity. And, of course, those pavers are made from recycled rubber.

The energy generated will help power the mall. In its first commercial application, just 20 slabs scattered along the road will electrify half the mall's outdoor lighting, says Laurence Kemball-Cook, who developed the prototype during his final college year in 2009. He founded Pavegen, which manufactures the pavers.

There's power in numbers. One step can keep an LED-powered street lamp lit for 30 seconds, but 30 million customers are expected to walk that path in its first year. The energy will also be stored for several days using a battery system.

Kemball-Cook has been testing the pavers at a school, where 1100 kids have been stamping on them for the last eight months.

The tiles could potentially light up everything from subways to parts of the developing world that are off-grid.

The tiles are also made with green materials - the casings are made of marine grade stainless steel and recycled polymer with low carbon concrete. The recycled rubber is from of old truck tires. And all the manufacturing is done within 200 miles of the company's headquarters, reducing the energy consumed in transportation and assembly.

Pavegen has won several awards for its product, including the Big Idea category at UK's Ethical Business Awards and Shell's LiveWire Grand Ideas Award. It's received financing from a group of angel investors.

Cast Members Discuss the Harry Potter Studio Tour

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Harry Potter cast members talk about their excitement for the Warner Bros. "Making of Harry Potter" studio tour. Tickets for the attraction went on sale Thursday, however, the Warner Bros. website experienced a technical glitch. Many fans were unable to book tickets and turned to Twitter to vent their frustrations:

Sarah Roots, Warner Bros. representative, confirmed the site was experiencing problems due to the high level of demand. “We have had an absolutely incredible response since the tickets for the Warner Bros. Studio Tour London - The Making of Harry Potter went on sale early yesterday. We know that some people have been experiencing delays in purchasing tickets, but are currently working hard to accommodate this very high level of ticket demand.”

The tours, which feature original sets including the Hogwarts Great Hall, the Gryffindor Common Room, Ministry of Magic and headmaster Dumbledore's office, plus costumes, props and special effects used in all Harry Potter movies, begin on March 31.

London Olympics Officials Preparing for the Worst

Silicon.com: When asked what nightmare scenarios keep him awake at night, Gerry Pennell, the man in charge of technology for the London 2012 Olympic Games, jokes: "At this stage we're all significantly tired that staying awake is not a problem".

With less than a year to go before the Olympics opening ceremony, Pennell, CIO for the organisers of the London Olympics, has a team of 600 people working "flat out" on testing and preparing the technology for the games.

"The pace of delivery has picked up big time. We have been running the test events for the last three to four months - so it's becoming very real," he told silicon.com at an event in London yesterday.

The games hit a milestone this week with the official unveiling of the Technology Operations Centre (TOC) - the London-based centre that will manage and monitor the Olympics systems that run the venues, record results and relay them to the rest of the world. The centre's 450 staff will work with the thousands of technical staff situated in the Olympic's 94 venues to make sure the technology works without a hitch.

Teams from London Organising Committee of the Olympic and Paralympic Games (Locog) and its technology suppliers are currently in the final stages of testing software and hardware before rolling it out to Olympic and Paralympic venues. Alongside this testing, tech teams are taking part in dummy runs of Olympic events and making sure the tech supporting each event performs as expected.

The real test of the Olympics technology will take place during three days of technical rehearsals in the months before the games begin. During these rehearsals, hundreds of different nightmare scenarios will be thrown at technical staff to see how they - and the infrastructure - cope.

"We will simulate cyber security problems and physical attacks, people will unplug cables and switch boxes off," Pennell said.

"We will throw hundreds of scenarios at the TOC over a three-day period - far worse I imagine than anything that will happen during the games. It is important to practice that crisis management, so if anything happens we will be ready."

Pennell stressed that the architecture of the Olympics systems had been built with security in mind.

"We keep mission-critical games systems isolated from other components of the network, particularly anything web-facing. It would be very difficult for any external attack to succeed."

He added that the games website's vulnerability to being taken offline by a denial of service attack will be minimised, because it is hosted and served from a number of different sites.

Aside from security, questions have also been raised over whether London's mobile phone networks will be able to cope with the strain put on them by the one million visitors expected during the Olympics.

Pennell said Locog has been working with BT and mobile phone carriers to put an infrastructure in place capable of supporting the huge numbers of people expected to be using mobiles during the games, but said he couldn't guarantee uninterrupted mobile phone coverage.

"We have been working closely with our communication service provider BT and the rest of the network operators to make sure there is enough infrastructure to provide a good level of service through the games in the Olympic Park," he said.

"There are always moments during sporting events when the volume of demand is so huge that everybody will not be able to connect at the same time, but for the vast majority of the time the experience will be pretty good."

Wi-fi will also be available throughout the Olympic Park, although Pennell couldn't confirm that this would be free as he said "the proposition for the park is still being discussed".

This year's games will also be the first app-enabled Olympics - with Locog planning two official mobile apps on Android, BlackBerry, iPhone and Windows Phone 7 devices. Pennell said the first app will deliver results from the games in real time and the second will provide "spectator information that will help people enjoy the experience of visiting the games".

Pay with your phone
Visitors to the Olympic Park will be able to use Visa cards to make contactless payments at concession stalls and stores.

Pennell said Locog is also in discussion with Samsung about allowing visitors to make payments inside the Olympic Park using an NFC-enabled smartphone.

"We are looking at people being able to use a combination of normal cards and contactless cards, and we are discussing NFC opportunities with mobile phones - which is a possibility," Pennell said.

Visa and Samsung plan to release an NFC-enabled handset ahead of next year's games that they

The Olympic venues will be linked by a fibre network capable of transmitting 6GB of information - the equivalent of 6,000 novels - every second and details are starting to emerge about what those fat pipes will be used for after the games have finished.

A fibre network providing 100Mbps broadband to the Olympic Village will remain in place to serve the thousands of new homes that are expected to be created on the site. Similarly, a 40Mbps fibre connection feeding the Olympic sailing venue on the Isle of Portland, near Weymouth in Dorset, will also remain in place.

"Venue by venue there will also be opportunities to leave network infrastructure behind after the games," Pennell said.

The tech exodus
The legacy of the games won't just be technical infrastructure - in the wake of the Olympics, hundreds of techies fresh from working on the games will be looking for a job.

When the Olympics finish and Locog is disbanded there will be some 320 tech staff on the job market, but Pennell said bodies representing East London Tech City and UK Trade & Investment are working with Locog to find placements for ex-Olympic tech staff.

"My own team won't be employed in a year's time. We have a programme 'Beyond 2012' that is all about helping staff to find good opportunities in other organisations," he said.

Pennell said the experience of working on the 2012 games provided tech staff with plenty of opportunities for "upskilling" that would make them attractive to future employers.

London Olympics Site a New Tourist Attraction

The Palm Beach Post: London has a new tourist attraction, and from the size of the crowds showing up to view it, it may be giving the Tower of London a run for its jewels. Pretty impressive for a sight that isn’t even completed yet.

London’s Olympic grounds, which can’t yet be entered without a hardhat and a construction contract (for the most part; see below), are drawing hundreds of tourists each day to a viewing walkway that overlooks the site. And though the shells of the upcoming structures are impressive (or so I thought on my early September visit), my guess is it’s the dramatic tale behind the development of this area that may be partially responsible for all the interest.

London was, after all, the underdog candidate during the last Olympics pick, having hosted the Games twice before (in 1908 and 1948; it will be the first modern city to host three times). What put the city over the top? Its innovative plans for land reclamations and re-use of the site and venues, plans that may well serve as a paradigm for future Olympic host destinations.

The games are being set in Stratford, an area of London that few, if any, visitors will be familiar with (and no, this is not Shakespeare’s village, that’s Stratford-On-Avon). A tattered, ugly quarter, it had, since the 1840s, been a place of heavy industry. Alas, the factories that once thrived here left an ugly legacy: mercury, lead and other toxic materials sunk into the ground, creating a wasteland.

The effort to secure the Olympics for London, spearheaded by former mayor Ken Livingstone, also was a strategy to get the funds to clean up Stratford. A winning strategy, happily: During the past several years, workers have engaged in “soil washing,” a method of removing poisons from the earth. It’s been so successful that 98 percent of the soil being used in the Olympic park was cleaned in this fashion, and all the contaminants have been removed.

But that’s only the beginning of this very green Olympics story, which extends to the structures being constructed, all of which will have a second life after the competitions end. Seats in many of the buildings will be removable to make arenas multipurpose, and the Athletes’ Village will be converted into apartment buildings.

The thinking that went into creating these games, the intriguing history of the area and the “what’s going to be where” is all discussed on tours, both motorcoach and walking, that sweep the Olympics area. I took an excellent 9 GBP walk with the Blue Guides (www.tourguides2012.co.uk); it departs daily, rain or shine, at 11 a.m. For those who prefer to go solo, there are panels set up at the construction site with computer generated images of what the site will look like when completed.

Because the sites need to be tested, seeing a sporting event in an actual Olympic venue will also be an excellent way, in the runup to summer 2012, to get up close and personal with the games. A number of these are planned for the upcoming months; to view the list and secure tickets, go to www.londonpreparesseries.com.

A final part of the pre-Olympics experience? Shopping! At the Olympic viewing site, a small but jam-packed souvenir stand has been erected. One also can purchase knickknacks galore at a number of shops around London as well as at Heathrow Airport. Yes, Britain’s Olympic mascots are downright creepy – they make the weird Chinese ones from the last games look in good taste – but, hey, they could be worth quite a lot on eBay a decade from now. At least, that’s the plan for my neon-yellow Olympics umbrella.

Harry Potter Studio Tour Hopes to Cast a Spell

The Gaurdian: As all good students of the Harry Potter saga know well, Muggles are not usually allowed at Hogwarts school of witchcraft of wizardry. However, a new exhibition will soon give those not gifted with magical powers the chance to see some of the famous Potter film sets, such as the Great Hall and Dumbledore's office, for themselves.

The Harry Potter tour is opening in spring 2012 at Leavesden studios near Watford, where the film series was shot between 2000 and last year. Over the course of three hours, visitors will view original sets, costumes, props and effects that were used in all eight movies, from 2001's Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone to this year's Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2.

Highlights include a recreation of the giant spider Aragog suspended from the ceiling, and the opportunity to pose for photographs in one of the "flying" Ford Anglia cars used in Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets. Buckbeak the Hippogriff is also said to be making an appearance.

Potter fans in the US have been able to visit Universal Studios' The Wizarding World of Harry Potter theme park since June last year in Orlando, Florida, but the new tour offers the chance for British Muggles to take a look inside JK Rowling's world for the first time without getting on a plane.

Leavesden remains a working studio – in fact it will be one of Europe's largest production centres for film when it reopens as Warner Bros Studios, Leavesden next year. "We have an amazing resource in this country which is tens of thousands of incredibly talented film technicians, film-makers, writers and actors," Josh Berger, the head of Warner Brothers UK, told the BBC.

The studio announced its decision to buy the facility, which sits on the site of the former Rolls-Royce factory at Leavesden Aerodrome, last year. It will make Warner Bros the only Hollywood film studio with a permanent base in the UK, and the company's £100m ($154 million) investment will create a facility that is larger than Warner's lot in Burbank, California.

The new Potter tour has received the enthusiastic backing of some of Hogwarts' former pupils. "It was such a magical place to grow up," said Daniel Radcliffe, who played Potter in all eight films. "People will be amazed to see the incredible sets that we've worked in all these years."

"I had the time of my life making these films at Leavesden studios," said Emma Watson, who played Hermione. "It's so wonderful that it's still going to be around for years to come."

Tickets for the new tour must be ordered in advance and will go on sale on 13 October at the price of £21 ($32.50) per child, £28 ($43) per adult and £83 ($128) for a family of four. Warner says around 5,000 visitors will be able to visit the facility on any given day.

London 2012 Olympics: Reduce, Reuse, Recycle

London Olympic Stadium

 The Globe and Mail: Never have the modern Olympics paid so much attention to the ideas of impermanence and portability, to the goal of packing ’em up and building ’em somewhere else. In a radical departure from the edifice complex that has blighted previous Summer Games, London 2012 is shaping up as the first Lego Olympics.

“ ‘Touching the ground lightly’ is the phrase we use,” says Chris Jopson, a senior architect at Populous, the London firm that’s responsible for the overall design of the Olympic Park and its main stadium. “We want to be able to return things to the way they were.” The firm has a motto for the building the Olympic and Paralympic Games, which begin on July 27 next year: “Embrace the temporary.”

In other words (because the designers themselves are far too polite to say it), London is trying to avoid ungainly hulks that will disfigure the city’s face long after the crowds have gone and crouch like rusting reminders of a party that lasts a month but takes years to pay. The white-elephant legacy of Athens, Barcelona and Montreal is a sore spot. Even the majestic, nation-building stadiums of Beijing 2008 have come to seem, in three short years, like time-capsule relics from a more extravagant age.

Take the Olympic stadium. Mr. Jopson stands next to a model in Populous’s south London office, but the real thing is already finished an hour’s drive away in the Olympic Park, which sits in the down-at-the-heels neighbourhood of Stratford in London’s east end. It is 75 per cent lighter than a typical stadium of its size, it was built of a new type of concrete that requires less carbon to manufacture, and its top deck is partly constructed of gas pipes left over from a failed pipeline project. It is modest, and very English: a make-do-and-mend stadium that nods to the east end’s history as one of the most badly damaged areas in Britain in the Second World War.

Even more crucial, it comes apart, like a very large piece of Lego. During the Olympics and Paralympics, when it will be full to bursting for the athletics competitions and opening and closing ceremonies, it will hold 80,000 spectators. After, the top decks can be removed, down to 25,000 seats. It will probably end up at 55,000 seats, when its new tenant, West Ham football club, moves in after the Olympics (West Ham fought a bitter legal battle with Tottenham Hotspur, which also wanted to make the stadium its home.)

The “reduce, reuse, recycle” Games is a handy narrative for London 2012, which has many successes going for it (sold-out events, venues that were built on time and budget) but an equal number of question marks (the fallout from this summer’s riots, controversy over the use of historic venues and the claim that young people are still indolent couch potatoes, despite the government’s promise that it would use the Olympics to shift them into sports). More than 100 structures have been built for the Games; two-thirds of those are temporary.

Over at the airy offices of Zaha Hadid Architects, designers are showing off their baby, the Olympic Aquatic Centre. This is an Olympics where functionality trumps aesthetics, but the Aquatic Centre, with its wave-like, 160-metre timber-and-aluminum roof, is a thing of beauty, the clear winner of the pageant.

It, too, will be repurposed after the Games are over. Two giant boxes that stick out on either side of the main building, holding a total of 17,500 seats, will be taken away and only the three pools and the diving boards will be left behind. The plan is that when the athletes leave, the neighbourhood’s toddlers and grannies move in.

“The main thing for us is that people actually use it afterward, so that it doesn’t just sit there and turn into a white elephant,” says Jim Heverin, the Aquatic Centre’s project manager.

The people of Stratford could use a pool – and jobs, and some nice new buildings and shops. When then-mayor Ken Livingstone was fighting for the Olympic bid in 2005, he would tell whoever listened that Stratford sat in Newham, Britain’s most impoverished borough. Far from the picture-postcard sights of central London, it was a bleak post-industrial landscape where tourists never ventured. (When the two-square-kilometre site for the Olympic park was razed, it was revealed as a dumping ground for everything from electrical pylons to bomb debris and tar-soaked rubble. An onsite “soil hospital” steam-cleaned hundreds of thousands of tonnes of contaminated dirt.)

“It was a big scar across the city,” says Dan Hawthorn, the Mayor of London’s man in charge of the games. He has to convince the people of east London that this is not just a case of nine million people arriving on their doorstep, partying for a couple of weeks and leaving, and that the park will be scaled down to meet the community’s needs. “That kind of expense and disruption is never worth it just for a few days of sport,” Mr. Hawthorn says. He adds, “If you’re just bringing in wealthy people from around the country and the world, you’re going to make the people of the east end feel even more neglected than they already do.”

When the Games are gone, many of its buildings will be taken down, sold or repurposed. Qatari developers have struck a deal to buy the athletes’ village for £557-million (about half of what it cost to build, critics have pointed out). The basketball and water-polo arenas will disappear, and the BMX track will be dismantled and moved to a new location. The handball stadium becomes a multi-use sports centre, although it’s unclear who will use it. This week, Richard Caborn, the former Labour sports minister, warned that so few young people in Britain were taking up sport – a key part of the government’s Olympics plan – that the Games’ legacy was in danger of “failing completely.”

In the best-case scenario, and barring another serious downturn in the economy, the east end will begin to see forward movement, even if its children remain sedentary. The largest mall in Europe (Westfield Stratford City, which opened this month) and the largest urban park (the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park, opening 2013) will sit next to each other. London’s soaring answer to the Eiffel and CN Towers, the Anish Kapoor-designed Orbit, is currently rising over the Olympic site like a ball of yarn flung by an angry cat.

But that’s only one small part of the city. The third of the three Rs, “recycle,” will be in evidence all over London. Instead of building new venues, the idea was to use world-famous locations in fresh, and sometimes jaw-dropping, ways. Horse Guards Parade, where you can normally see Changing the Guard and various sombre military ceremonies, becomes home to beach volleyball (giving Prime Minister David Cameron a bird’s-eye view, since 10 Downing St. is practically next door.) Archery will be held at Lord’s Cricket Ground, though not in the area deemed “hallowed,” where only cricket may be played.

The greatest controversy centres around Greenwich, a vast park on the river revered for its unparalleled links to the naval, royal and scientific history of England. Next summer, horses will be galloping over the pristine parkland (designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site) in the Olympic equestrian events. Competitors will jump and canter on a special “field of play” designed to protect the ground, which is rich in archeological history, but this was not enough to mollify protesters, who attempted without luck to have the venue moved.

At the end of the Games, the steel trusses and spectators’ stands will be taken down and sold, the debris hauled away and Greenwich will look the same as it has since Charles II ordered the Royal Observatory built more than three centuries ago. That, at least, is the plan.

Futuristic Pods Wisk Travelers at London Heathrow

Reuters: Laser-guided travel pods that work without drivers or timetables were officially unveiled at London's Heathrow airport on Friday.

The system, which featured in an exhibition on the future of transport at London's Science Museum in 2009, has become a reality, reducing the time it takes business passengers to move from terminal to car park by 60 percent.

Traveling at speeds up to 40 km/hour (25 mph), after an average wait of just 34 seconds, the system looks like something straight from a science fiction film.

The pods, which run along tracks and allow passengers to select their destinations, use laser sensors to ferry business passengers and their luggage along a 3.8 km route.

According to ULTra, the company behind the technology, the 30 million pound ($47 million) development could transport up to 500,000 passengers each year and replace 50,000 shuttle bus journeys.

The British invention, which has been on trial at Heathrow since April, is the culmination of over 60 years of development. First dreamed up in the 1950s, it has now become a working reality under ULTra PRT president and former NASA engineer, Martin Lowson who championed the idea while lecturing at Bristol University in the 1990s.

The company, now part owned by Ferrovial's British airports division BAA, is confident that the technology will prove popular. India recently announced it will pilot the system around Delhi and Amritsar and feasibility studies are currently in progress in Raleigh, North Carolina in the United States. ($1 = 0.633 British Pounds)

London Hoteliers Prepare for 2012 Olympics

Hotel News Now: Hoteliers in this legendary hotel city are undoubtedly excited about the prospects of the 2012 Olympics being held in their backyards, but they’re not looking at the single event as an end-all-be-all proposition.

After all, London has operated at nearly 90% occupancy for most of this summer. And besides the Olympics in late July and early August, it will host The Queen’s Diamond Jubilee in early June 2012 and the Paralympics in late August and early September 2012.

Danny Bowerin of Deloitte and London 2012 said during a STR Global client event Tuesday that preparations for the Olympics have been a tremendous success story thus far, but there’s no doubt next summer will be “business as unusual.”

“There is going to be significant disruption, but we’ll all think post-Games that it will be all worthwhile,” Bowerin said.

“London hotels must be asking themselves, ‘How much more business can we take in during summer season,’” said Nick Pattie of Whitebridge Hospitality. “We’ll see something close to 100% occupancy during the 17 days of Olympics.”

But that doesn’t mean there will be a rate boom in the city during the Games. “It’s only 17 days—let’s keep it in perspective,” said Ciaran Fahy, GM of the independent Cavendish Hotel.

Fahy said his top priority is protecting the hotel’s inventory during the special events. “I’m here to say I’m optimizing my inventory. I’m not gouging my customer on price,” he said. “I’m looking for a full length of stay, and I don’t make any apologies about that.”

“Of the 17 days it really is the front end that will be really strong demand, then it will taper off,” said Duncan Bramwell of Revenue-Performance.com. “The first thing we’ve been working on with our independent clients is getting them to look at summer in totality. There is going to be this extraordinary summer, and making sure we are ready for the entire spread of events rather than just getting greedy and jumping on the bandwagon for those couple of days is what we should be thinking.”

Tracy Halliwell of London & Partners said the 13,500 hotel rooms under construction will bring the city’s inventory to about 120,000 by the time the Olympics begin.

Halliwell said despite rumors, there will be little in the way of temporary guest accommodations supply added in London by cruise ships. “We don’t have berthing space for a lot of big ships. What berths there are will be full,” she said.

A focus on meeting space
Gower Tan of InterContinental Hotels Group said a large number of his company’s inventory in the London area has been committed to Olympics organizers.

“We’ve been focusing on non-rooms revenue streams and demands for non-rooms business,” he said. “We’re planning our business mix and looking at what we can do to drive meeting business (during the Games).”

As for the inventory that is available to the public, he said IHG’s priority is meeting the needs of its tops corporate clients and its Priority Club guest-loyalty club members. Beyond that, the company is placing restrictions about prepayment and minimum length of stays during the Olympics, he said.

IHG has some concerns about post-Olympic demand for its large concentration of rooms in London, according to Tan. “We’re working on business that has legacy business afterwards,” he said.

Fahy said no hotel should lose sight of the opportunity brought upon by a strong hotel environment regardless of the 2012 events. “We are in the best position to get corporate increases to get rates back up to 2001 and to educate our sales staff to not be embarrassed about that,” he said, stressing that hotel salespeople need to focus on attaining best-available-rates regardless of the source.

Some concerns
The panelists showed some concern over how the Olympics and other events will affect regular customers who are displaced by the once-in-a-lifetime events.

“Will London damage some of its regular customers?” Pattie asked.

“Olympic host cities experience leisure visitor displacement in the year prior to the start of the Games,” London & Partners’ Halliwell said, citing fear of higher prices and the inconvenience of preparations for the Games as major reasons those travelers don’t make visits.

There’s also some concern about how the number of people descending upon London will affect the infrastructure and complicate the lives of hotel employees. For instance, Halliwell said an extra 250,000 a day will use public transportation.

The other concern among hoteliers is the possibility that some of the rooms committed to the London Olympics organizing group will be released and whether hotels have time to react to having more inventory available. The London Organising Committee of the Olympic and Paralympic Games has options to release rooms in three phases leading up the Olympics but doesn’t think it will need to do so, Halliwell said.

“We have to think about, as hoteliers, what is our plan B, what is our plan C and what is our plan D, and when do you make decisions to implement them in the months ahead,” Bramwell said. “If you have a problem and one of your block releases, what are you going to do? Where are the markets you are going to pursue? Are we brave enough to overbook?”

He said during major global events in the past, hoteliers panicked when faced with rooms released from organizing committees. Having backup plans will allow hotels to optimize their inventories in the event of such occurrences in London.

Learning from the past
Konstanze Auernheimer, director of marketing and analysis for STR Global (a sister company of HotelNewsNow.com), provided background during the session of the past four Summer Olympics cities. Some general observations included:

• Atlanta (1996) and Beijing (2008) had a lot of new supply coming into the market while Sydney (2000) and Athens (2004) didn’t have as much. “Beijing was an emerging market with about 140,000 rooms,” Auernheimer said. “The additional supply in the market actually hurt the market.”

• The number of hotels in the London pipeline is on par with Athens and Sydney.

• The Games generated little additional demand in Atlanta because they displaced much of the meetings, incentives, conference and exhibitions business the city usually attracts during the summer. Sydney saw a limited occupancy spike during the Games. Athens experienced a huge spike in demand because August generally is a slow month for the city’s hotel industry. Beijing had a decrease in demand, thanks in large part to the additional supply, tight control of visas and political protests. “Obviously, a lot of people come into the market, but a lot of times it’s displacement,” she said. “If you are lucky, it is displacement into another month.”

• Average daily rate in Atlanta and Sydney jumped nearly 80% and 90%, respectively, during the Olympics. Athens and Beijing had ADR increases in the 250% range. Auernheimer said one of the challenges for London is to avoid the negativity that comes with such large ADR increases.

Royal Wedding Dress Drawing Record Crowds

Daily Mail: Record number of visitors have flocked to Buckingham Palace this summer as a result of Kate's stunning £250,000 ($398,000) Royal Wedding gown going on display.

Over 354,000 people have walked through the palace doors since the special exhibition - featuring the Sarah Burton for Alexander McQueen dress - opened on July 23 and it is expected final ticket sales will total £8million ($12.7 million).

With entry up a remarkable 20 per cent up from last year, proceeds will be put towards William and Kate's wedding charity fund - which already tops £1million. Profits will also help with the maintenance and restoration of the Royal Collection which includes the palaces, residences and extensive art collections.

The Collection has seen profits surpass previous years, with tickets sales across its venues and sales of commemorative souvenirs boosting income from £7.3million to £41.7million in the year to April. A spokesperson for the Royal Collection said: 'This year has been our highest to date. The wedding dress has proved very popular.'

Adults have been paying £17.50 - and children under 17, £10 - to get a close-up view of Kate's intricate silk gown exhibited alongside a selection from the Royal Faberge collection.

Other items displayed include the magnificent 1936 Cartier 'Halo' tiara sporting 1,000 diamonds, lent by The Queen to Kate on her wedding day, the wedding shoes, also hand-made by the team at Alexander McQueen and the diamond earrings specially commissioned by Kate's parents, featuring the new Middleton family crest.

A total of 413,000 people visited Buckingham Palace last summer, only surpassed by the 420,000 in 1994.

The palace was first opened to the public in 1993, to help pay for the £40 million restoration costs of Windsor Castle, damaged by fire the previous year. It was agreed the venue would only be opened during the summer months when The Queen is at her Scottish residence, Balmoral.

A spokesperson added that visitor numbers at Windsor and the Palace of Holyroodhouse in Edinburgh were also 'very good.'

Buckingham Palace and the Royal Wedding Dress exhibition will close to the public on October 3 when final figures will be revealed.

BBC Considering 'Super Hi-Vision' TV for 2012 Olympics



Super Hi-Vision Camera

The Guardian: The BBC is considering plans to broadcast the 100 metres final of the London Olympics in 3D, as well as trying out a new technology that delivers picture quality said to be 16 times better than HDTV.

Roger Mosey, the BBC executive in charge of the corporation's London 2012 coverage, told reporters on the sidelines of the Edinburgh international television festival that 3D coverage for the 100m and other events was "certainly on the agenda", as part of a "limited experiment".

The event will see world record holder Usain Bolt seeking to restore some pride after being disqualified from the world championships on Sunday, following a false start.

The BBC will also test "super hi-vision", a new broadcasting technology so advanced it is not expected to be in homes for a decade. Three 15 metre (50ft) high screens will be erected around the country so that the public have a chance of seeing the imagery that Mosey said was so good it would match up with the experience of watching from the stands.

"When you sit and watch it you really get the experience of being in seat D5 in the stadium," he said. "Super hi-vision might be a better long-term prospect than 3D in some ways as it gives you the feel of being in the stadium. People are knocked out by it."

Super hi-vision screens will be erected at the BBC's Pacific Quay building in Glasgow, Broadcasting House in London and, subject to negotiations, the National Media Museum in Bradford.

The BBC is likely to broadcast the Olympic opening ceremony using the technology, which employs a single camera to capture a wide shot. It has already been tested on sports such as basketball and "big stadium events".

Mosey added that Sharp was working on an 215cm (85in) TV set using super hi-vision technology but that it was unlikely to be widely available until 2022.

The debut of super hi-vision is part of a tradition of trialing new TV technology at the Olympics. Mosey said that the BBC led the way, delivering the "first properly televised" Olympic Games when they were hosted in London in 1948.

The Los Angeles Olympics in 1984 was the first to use HDTV cameras. However, it was not until Beijing in 2008 that the BBC first broadcast in HD.

However, Mosey said that the first 3D Olympics would not amount to a "24/7 service" during the Games, partly because it would mean interrupting its HD programming.

"It is fair to say there is a trade-off between 3D and HD," he said. "We don't want to damage the mass audience that watches HD with [too much] 3D, which is viewed by a minority".

Earlier this year the BBC made its first 3D broadcast, televising the men's and women's Wimbledon tennis finals on BBC HD.

Olympic Super Brands Take Over London

This is London: London 2012 will be a new experience for one volunteer. Urvasi Naidu, who has been a volunteer for every Olympics since the 2002 Salt Lake City Games, always carries some masking tape in her handbag.

"What I am usually looking out for," says Urvais, a lawyer by profession, "are groups of people wearing T-shirts advertising rival products to the official sponsors. If they are, I first try to get them to wear the T-shirts inside out. If that doesn't work, I use masking tape to cover up the advertisement so it's not visible on television."

It may seem extreme but Urvasi, who has contributed to a book on the subject, says: "Sponsors pay a lot of money, they have a right to protect their investment - other brands are not entitled to advertise. When you buy an Olympic ticket you are entering into a contract with the organizing committee. If you look at the website, the conditions are all spelt out."

Clause 19.2.3 states that prohibited items are "objects bearing trademarks or other kinds of promotional signs or messages (such as hats, T-shirts, bags) which Locog [the London Organising Committee] believes are for promotional purposes".

However, the story of the masking tape is only one example of how London will change dramatically to welcome the world next year. At several hotels, particularly the so-called "Olympic family" ones, such as London's Hiltons and InterContinentals, as well as the Dorchester, where the top officials will be staying, Perrier, a rival product of official sponsor Coca-Cola, will not be served - customers will get Coke's bottled water, Schweppes Abbey Well, instead.

It is all part of making London a "clean city" and ensuring that sponsors get their money's worth.

Sport as business is hardly new. All major events have brand protection units to ensure sponsors are not ambushed by rivals seeking to latch on to the event without paying. Those who have bought Olympic tickets already know that the only credit card they could use was Visa, a major Olympic sponsor. Visa will also be the only card accepted at all Olympic venues.

Many other sporting bodies are proud to boast that they have got into bed with Mammon, but while the Olympic organizers need the money, they do not like to be seen consorting with it.

Winning athletes don't get a cheque, they get a medal; the athletes' clothes will carry limited sponsor advertisements and the venues will have none at all. It's nothing like Test cricket, where even umpires wear advertising, or Champions' League matches, where adverts on the sidelines change during the match as if to reflect the fluctuating fortunes of the two teams.

For Sir Craig Reedie, the Scot who sits on the all-powerful International Olympic Committee executive board, this is part of the unique Olympic experience. "We want an uncluttered view for the spectator or the viewer at home, nothing else but the performance of the athlete, nothing that would distract."

However, this Corinthian façade is only possible because the Olympic sponsors have free scope to advertise in the vicinity of the venues with no fear of competing advertisements - the essence of a clean city.

McDonald's is a main Olympic sponsor, so it is only its food that will be served at London 2012 venues - with one exception: Wimbledon will still have strawberries and cream as McDonald's has not taken up the rights. And, if previous Olympics are any guide, the sponsors will also make use of sporting icons. In Beijing, this led to a hilarious moment when nine-times gold medallist Carl Lewis, interviewed in a McDonald's restaurant, was asked what athletes could do about drugs. He kept repeating: "Eat French fries!"

London will not be just "cleaned up" but dressed up too, with a special Olympic look.

Reedie says: "In the host city contract that London signed, it guaranteed to control advertising across the city. The organising committee gets control of the sites and makes them available to the sponsors. London has been doing the same." In the past few months Locog has been booking billboard space and, if it is not taken up by sponsors, then it may be made available to charities.

Spectators are meant to experience the Olympic "feeling" all the way to the venues, with most of the advertisements they see being those of Olympic sponsors. Wimbledon will have to cover up its Rolex adverts and the O2 will be temporarily renamed the North Greenwich Arena, as BT is an Olympic sponsor.

Reedie says: "Of course, not all billboards are affected, not the permanent ones in Piccadilly Circus. Do not forget the clean city look we insist on can improve a city. Take Athens, for instance. Before the Olympics the city was disfigured with too many billboards - some of them illegal. We got the authorities to take some of them down, with the result that the entire look of the city was transformed - we left Athens a better looking place."

The IOC's clean-city concept was developed after the 1996 Atlanta Games. "The Atlanta Olympics," recalls Reedie, "provided us with clean stadiums but, within a few yards, they had street vendors selling rubbish: T-shirts, memorabilia and pins. It was like a bazaar and it ruined the Olympic experience."

One major problem for the London organizers is that the moment you land at Heathrow you see advertisements for HSBC, a rival of Lloyds TSB, which is a major 2012 sponsor. The organizers realize they cannot take those advertisements down but they are working with BAA to make sure there are advertisements for Olympic sponsors at London airports. And enough of the many billboards on the way into town will carry reminders of who funds the Olympics.

The IOC may present the Olympics as the last bastion of amateurism but next year Londoners will be in no doubt about the serious money driving the Games.

A Bizarre New Hotel for London

"A Room for London"

Daily Mail: Visitors to London's South Bank could soon be left feeling all at sea.

A bizarre new hotel - shaped like a boat - is to be placed on top of the Queen Elizabeth Concert hall peering out over the River Thames.

The nautical building, due to be hoisted into position in December, will be equipped with a mast and look-out station and guests will be expected to keep a detailed log and hoist a flag to indicate they are aboard.

The designers of the building, called A Room For London, are David Kohn Architects and artist Fiona Banner who said they set out to create something 'playful, beguiling and thought-provoking.'

The hotel, which is expected to be massively popular during next year's Olympic games, will have panoramic windows and an upper viewing deck affording some of the most spectacular views of the capital.

But those demanding a degree of privacy will be left very disappointed. The South bank is one of the busiest places in town and guests will have to get used to a constant stream of curious tourists.

Inside it will be fitted-out using real timber and the designers promise it will be full of 'nooks and crannies' for guests to explore

The design was chosen from 500 entries in a competition set up by cultural organisations Living Architecture, and Artangel, in association with Southbank Centre.

Tickets for night stays during the first half of 2012 will be available from next month and tickets for the rest of the year, covering the Olympics, will go on sale in January.

A spokesman for the architects said: 'It will appear to have come to rest there, grounded, perhaps, from the retreating waters of the Thames below.

'The idea evolved from narratives of travel and displacement in literature, in particular Joseph Conrad’s novella ‘Heart of Darkness,’'

To compliment the literary theme there will be a well stocked library containing books about London by authors such as William Thackery, Henry Mayhew and Iain Sinclair.