zerochampion: Olympic Fright

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There's a gargantuan (8,000) word dissertation on the Olympics by Iain Sinclair in this week's London Review of Books. It's a typically hazy and impressionistic offering by the author of London Orbital, entitled 'The Razing of East London, the Olympics Scam.' It's too big and hard to follow and tiring to read.

It's disappointing to have names dropped all over you when you want some straight reporting of the perceived destruction of the East End. There is much hinting at illegal activities - squatters in a Georgian (presumably listed) terrace being advised to get out before their home was burnt down; whispers heading around the money community that London had 'won the Olympics' before the IOC announced the result. But it's all a bit hazy and paranoic and short on details.
He's down on Westfield's shopping centre plans which he (I think unfairly, but I'm no expert) equates with the sole legacy offering. But, as a resident of next-town-along-to-Stratford, Mile End (Bow, actually) and no snob, I avoid the current shopping area like the plague. It's ugly and depressing and full of pound shops and absolutely ruined by the awful, awful A11 (laughably called the 'High Street') whose endless cars just chew up and spit out any attempts to improve the area. Surely Iain could not object to my popping up to Stratford to go to the new Marks & Spencers and Waitrose rather than my steering clear of the place altogether? I have my sympathies with people like Paul Kingsnorth who have issues with the sameification of England, but no one in their right mind could defend the current landscape, Wilkinson Eyre's station and interchange, Theatre Royal and hidden gems asides. Also, employment. The area is knee deep in poverty, depression and unemployment with many houses containing families none of whom has worked for generations (so I was told by the UK head of the evil Westfield recently)
More constructively (or not, depending on whether you believe Sinclair's theory about an Axis of Evil comprising LDA, ODA, Newham Council and big money) Fluid have been paid by the councils for consulting local residents (me included) about what they want to see happen for the High Street from Aldgate up to Stratford. They are organising - among other things - two architectural tours of the Street meeting 10.30 and 14.30 - going down to Aldgate and up to Stratford respectively - at 'Mile End Waste,' which is apparently at the junction of Cambridge Heath Road.
Returning to the 'razing' of the East End to build the Olympic site, as it happens, a friend and I went around the soon-to-be Olympic site taking some photos before they put the hoardings around it. I will leave you to judge whether what's gone is worth missing. Certainly it had a wild beauty and plenty of nature. But I didn't see Mother Kelly or Pearly Kings on my sojourn.