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| We relished the chance to sit on our free Union Jack plastic picnic mat. |
After this,
we explored the park and got some exorbitantly-priced sandwiches for lunch.
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| Across the Lee River is the Olympic Village athlete accommodation |
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| Adam in front of the Gloriana - the gilded boat which led the Queen's Jubilee Flotilla in June |
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| Some handsome people posing in front of the Olympic Stadium, designed by Buro Happold - the company Adam is working for in London. |
After posing for some photos, it was icecream time, and we joined the McDonald’s queue for a McFlurry (A sort of ice-cream sundae with chocolate pieces and sauce). The queue was epic – around three hundred (give or take a few) people were all waiting to get some McDonalds for lunch. We actually quite liked the architecture of the McDs, and its wildflower and green-roof surroundings. We found out afterwards that it was an “eco” structure, designed to be removed after the Olympics. The service indoors was very well-coordinated and the menu had been simplified, meaning that it didn't take anywhere as long as we thought it might to get served.
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| (Yes, the ice-creams were worth the wait) |
Then it was
time for our visit to the AcelorMittal Orbit.
In 2008,
the Mayor of London, Boris Johnson (remember him? You can laugh at him some
more at this webpage )
(And yes, yes we voted for him in last year’s election…), decided that London
needed “something extra” in the East London skyline that would “arouse the
curiosity and wonder of Londoners and visitors”.
The Mayor decided to hold a competition
to design an artistic structure that would serve as a reminder of the legacy of
the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games. In March 2010 it was announced
that the winners of the completion were Anish Kapoor and Cecil Balmond (of
engineering Group Arup) with their ‘Orbit’ tower design. The project was
expected to cost £19.1 million ($38 million NZD), with £16 million coming from
Britain's richest man, steel tycoon Lakshmi Mittal, chairman of the
ArcelorMittal steel company, and the balance of project costs to be paid by the
London Development Agency.
The Tower
was the source of some controversy, not least because Boris Johnson had
campaigned on a pledge to crack down on tall buildings that spoiled London’s
skyline…
An article in The Guardian from May this year points out that public
opinion at the time of the Orbit’s construction saw only 39% of local residents
in support of the structure, whereas the remainder (the majority) were
overwhelmingly negative about the design, seeing it as ugly, expensive, and
pointless. (This is an interesting article and so is this.)
Eventually,
the tower, by this stage referred to as a sculpture, was completed. It stands
115 m (377 ft) high, is 56 m taller than the Olympic Stadium, and is the largest
sculpture in the UK.
For the Engineers out there - the trunk has a base
diameter of 37 metres (121 ft), narrowing to 5 metres (16 ft) on the way up,
then widening again to 9.6 metres (31 ft) just under the observation deck. The
trunk is supported and stabilized by the tube, which gives a structural
character of a tripod to the entire construction. Further structural integrity
is given to the construction by octagonal steel rings that surround the tube
and trunk, spaced at 4 metres (13 ft) and cross-joined pairwise by sixteen
diagonally mounted steel connectors. A special part of the construction is the
canopy, the conic shape that hangs off the bottom of the trunk. Originally
planned as a fibreglass composite construction, costs forced the use of steel
for this section as well. Centraalstaal was approached as a special consultant
for the design of the steel cone and came up with a design for a cone built out
of 117 individually shaped steel panels with a total surface area of 586 square
metres. The entire cone weighs 84 tonnes.Yes, friends, that is a lot of steel.
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| Spotting the flaws in the steel... |
The
designers, Kapoor and Balmond, believe that Orbit represents “a radical advance
in the architectural field of combining sculpture and structural engineering,
and that it combines both stability and instability in a work that visitors can
engage with and experience via an incorporated spiral walkway.” Balmond envisaged
an electron cloud moving to create a structure that “appears unstable, propping
itself up, never centred, never quite vertical”. Both believe that the Orbit
represents “a new way of thinking, a radical new piece of structure and
architecture and art that uses non-linearity.” Yeah, what they said.
With grand
visions of the radical non-linearity of an electron cloud pulsing through our
heads, we booked tickets to go up the Orbit. We knew that it was now or never,
as post-Olympics the whole park is closed and the Tower won’t re-open until
Easter 2014. Thankfully, we were required to go up in the elevator, rather than
climbing up its 455 steps…
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| The Olympic Stadium |
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| A bit of London smog |
At the top
of the Orbit are two observation platforms, and while I could categorically say
that someone needed to hire a window cleaner, the views (around the finger and
nose-prints) were amazing.
We even
managed to spot the tall council-apartments near our house.
(Can anyone tell me
if that is a missile-launcher in the circular pit in the middle of the picture,
or just something mundane?)
After
taking copious pictures of London, we began to make our way back down the
Orbit. All 455 steps of it.
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| Ouch! Who even knew I had muscles in those parts of my feet and calves? |
After grabbing
some dinner, it was time for THE MAIN EVENT – some Paralympic swimming. We
joined the throng of people moving towards the Acquatics Centre (Time for a
quick British pronounciation lesson – it is not said /a-kwot-ik/ as in ‘kwot’ with
a vowel sound that rhymes with ‘pot’; but
/a-kwa-tik/ with a ‘kwa’ that sounds like the start of 'quack' - you know, the sound a duck makes.) (I have
to stop here and also point out that over here, shampoo pantene (“pan-teen”) is
pronounced “pan-ten” and maggi noodles are not said “mad-gee” but “mag-e”. And
on that note, ‘jif’ has become ‘cif’, and ‘rexona’ has become ‘sure’. And no, baked
beans and weet-a-bix don’t taste as good as they do at home. And “extra-lean”
beef mince is allowed to contain up to 14% fat, and sausage rolls are made from pork. Hmph!)
Er,I
digress…
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| Our seats were very high up in the stadium |
It was a
great evening of swimming, even if NZers Cameron Leslie and Rebecca Dubber didn’t
do as well as hoped.
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| Cameron Leslie prepares for his race |
Then came Sophie Pascoe.
The race was incredibly tense and we screamed ourselves raw willing her to hold on to her slim lead. And she did! GOLD, and a Paralympic record, TO NEW ZEALAND!
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| Sophie's slim lead |
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| On the home straight - can she hold on?!? |
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| YES SHE CAN! |
Our Anthem efforts were much improved on Eton, though a big Maori fella came and stood beside us and sung in Maori. I soldiered on in English, figuring it was only fair to everyone else to be able to hear the glorious words of our anthem in their own language, while Adam switched to Maori. Nevertheless, we were a proud little bunch of Kiwis.
We poked
around the stadium for a bit, and checked out the beautiful view. Just after
taking this picture there was an almighty ROAR from the Olympic Stadium - Johnnie
Peacock had won the gold medal in the 100m on home soil. It was an absolutely
spine-tingling, electric moment for us to hear the crowd’s ecstatic cheering. Another moment I’ll never forget.
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What a magnificent day!
