> ONE YEAR ON FROM LONDON 2012

Stratford, London
27 July 2013

The Open East Festival 2013 - One year on from the greatest Olympics ever, this festival gave us an opportunity to revisit the Olympic Park and relive some of those amazing experiences.

It was a treat to have the opportunity to step back into the Olympic Park! So many happy memories came flooding back... the tears, the cheers and the super human achievements that took our breath away! It all started exactly a year ago!

This two day festival allowed us to stroll around the Queen Elizabeth Park in Stratford and soak up the happy atmosphere. Pop-up restaurants, Art car boot sales, Promenade performances and live music were just a few of the activities that kept us entertained. A brilliant day!

Promenade Performance of War Horse

Open East - Sacrilege by Jeremy Deller

 Pop-up VW Camper van restaurant

The Stadium and Olympic Park - One year on!

The Lego Mini-figures - Limited edition Team GB set

They get a bit punchy!

10 out of 10!

>PARALYMPIC CLOSING CEREMONY

Olympic Stadium, Stratford, London
9 September 2012

The Paralympic Games Closing Ceremony - an eclectic evening of music and magic as the most wonderful summer comes to an end! We grab our tickets and go along to Stratford to join in the party!

We had an amazing time in the Olympic Stadium, the atmosphere was electric and the crowd was loving it! We also had a very nice surprise waiting for us when we came to having our £50 tickets checked on entry - a platform had been built and was going to obstruct our view - so!... we had our tickets upgraded! We went to the booth and got handed our new tickets... We went from row 72 to row 9, right down by the athletes... a snip at £350 each!!!! What an incredible bit of luck... we had a perfect view of all the action and enjoyed one of the best nights of our lives!

Called 'Festival of the Flame', the Closing Ceremony of the London 2012 Paralympic Games celebrated the energy of festivals and the changing of the seasons. Coldplay lead the evening's celebrations with a live concert and were joined by Rihanna and Jay-Z. The band worked closely with Artistic Director Kim Gavin and co-designer and Paralympic Games Closing Ceremony designer Misty Buckley to play a set of their most iconic music alongside a cast of almost 2,000. The Ceremony celebrated the achievements of the 4,200 athletes at the Paralympic Games, and included a very high-energy handover to Rio 2016 and the extinguishing of the Paralympic Flame, signalling the end of the Games and the end of a brilliant summer!

Dave and Alex get ready to party

 

Just 9 rows from front!

The Mutoid waste company ride in to the Stadium

The Festival of Fire begins...

Rhianna joins Coldplay

Alex can't keep his hands off the pixels!

Ellie Simmonds and Jonnie Peacock 

light their torches from the Paralympic Flame

Carlinhos Brown helps Rio get ready for 2016

The Sky lights up over Stratford

Alex captures the action

Alex thanks a Games-Maker - it's all over!

GAMES OVER - BACK TO WORK graffiti spotted close to the

O2 - North Greenwich by FAIL BETTER

10 out of 10!

>COCA-COLA LNDN 2012 LIMITED EDITION

Exclusive outlets, London
Summer 2012

Coca-Cola - helped to keep London cool during the summer of sporting action. The iconic bottles went aluminium and you had to hunt hard to find them!

We all love a collectible - and these Olympic themed fizzy gems really got London 2012 excited! Coca-cola knows how to get the crowd going and these hyper bright bottles have been exchanging hands for £££'s amongst the eBay generation!  

Several different bottles were released during the summer and you had to be in the right place at the right time to get hold of the really limited releases. The Torch Relay had it's own selection as did the uber cool Beatbox in the Olympic park - the VERY limited Gold bottles got released in two minute bursts every time one of team GB got awarded a gold medal. The 3 boxed editions hit the stores throughout London late July and additional Gold bottles adorned the exclusive shelves of Selfridges.

Coca-cola has been releasing limited edition bottles for many years now. The wonderful aluminium bottles have only recently started to ruffle the feathers f the collectors. You can read more here

The limited edition London 2012 boxed aluminium bottles

Each bottle had a theme - swimming, track and athletics

The Beatbox designed by Asif Khan and Pernilla Ohrstedt

10 out of 10!

>OLYMPIC GRAFFITI HITS THE SOUTHBANK

The Southbank skate park, London
Aug 2012

Paul Don Smith - the stencil graffiti master has been decorating the dull for over 25 years. His most recent works celebrate the achievements of Team GB.

I walk to work past the Southbank skate park every day and always look out for new and worthy graffiti. Paul's work has always stood out! He has created many highly detailed stencil spray studies - his latest collection is bang up to date and very good! - Make sure you catch his work before it gets covered up. Read a great interview here.

l

Jessica Ennis

Mo Farah

Andy Murray

8 out of 10!

>THE OLYMPIC CLOSING CEREMONY

The Olympic Stadium, Stratford, London
12 Aug 2012

The Olympic Games - London 2012 - We did it! The world came to London - and for two weeks, WE ROCKED! It had to come to an end and we showed the world what we do best... PARTY! The music, the smiles, the memories and friends.  London 2012 made us proud - and we loved it!

Artistic Director Kim Gavin brought together some of Britain’s biggest international stars and emerging talent to perform in the Ceremony. The London 2012 Olympic Games welcomed the finest athletes from more than 200 nations, a historic third time the capital has hosted the world’s biggest and most important sporting event and the catalyst for Team GB’s best performance at Games since 1908.

The Closing Ceremony featured more than 4,100 performers, including 3,500 adult volunteers and 380 schoolchildren from the six east London Host Boroughs. ‘A Symphony of British Music’ filled the Arena as the 'best of British' paraded around the heroes of the Games. It was the ultimate after party and the world was invited!

Here are just a few of my favourite bits... (above, the Damien Hirst Union Jack that formed the canvas for the celebrations)

Stomp get the party started

Pet Shop Boys do what they do best

Pet Shop Boys go for a ride!

Norman Cook rocks the house!

Annie Lennox sails into the arena - I love her!

Brazil show us what to expect in 2016

Rio will be the place to be

Eric Idle reminds us to always look on the bright side of life!

The flame will always be remembered

Darcey Bussell lights up the sky

...more spectacular fireworks

The athletes celebrate

The end - looking forward to the paralympics!

10 out of 10!

>A TRIP TO THE OLYMPIC PARK

The Olympic Park, Stratford, London
31 July 2012

The Olympic Park - we grab ourselves a couple of evening tickets and go explore the Olympic wonderland... The thrills, the spills - and everything in between! - it's all here in Stratford.

We go walk about around the beautiful 2.5 square kilometre site. Officially named the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park, this wonderful space is home to the Olympic Village and several venues including the spectacular Olympic Stadium. A mixture of state-of-the-art architecture and stunning natural planting really does help to make this a truly memorable experience.

The site covers parts of Stratford, Bow, Leyton and Homerton in East London, overlooking the A12 road. The site was previously a mixture of greenfield and brownfield land, including parts of Hackney Marshes. The Royal Mail has given the park and Stratford City the postcode E20, which was previously only used by the television soap opera EastEnders for the fictional suburb of Walford.

More info to be posted soon...

Dave enjoys the planting outside the Velodrome

The Orbit Tower behind some wonderful natural planting

Alex and the Olympic Stadium

The Coca-Cola Olympic Pavilion

Olympic style snacks - fit for an athlete??

10 out of 10!