Welcome To London

The flight from Milwaukee via Atlanta to London went very well. Delta Air Lines flight 38 to the U.K. must have circled the city five times before touchdown, giving passengers great views of the city and Olympic venues.

The arrivals area at London Heathrow did not resemble Olympic flight arrivals of past Games. In Beijing, for instance, each and every gate and the airport control tower featured Look of the Games signage, and I suspect London's modest Olympic decoration (nothing visible until leaving the plane indoors) is tied back to austerity measures for the Games.

But inside the airport, Olympic arrivals are greeted with cheery pink London 2012 logos and signs for accreditation in the airport. I traded my first pin of the Games with a man from India dressed in the purple volunteer shirt and khakis. And only 10 minutes later I was already on the Underground to Paddington Station.

My hotel is near Paddington -- the Royal Eagle Hotel of London. Found a decent rate on Hotels.com just a couple of weeks ago, and my flat is not much bigger than my Volvo back home. Though cozy (the shower is smaller than a British phone booth and the bed-to-wall gap is about 12 inches), I enjoyed more than 100 channels and BBC updates via the Olympic Torch Relay channel and BBC 1, 2, 3, 4, etc.

But on Monday there was no time to hang at the room until evening! I spent the afternoon back on the Underground to Westminster Station, destination: London Media Centre (unaccredited media center) for my Olympic blog accreditation.

It amazed me to emerge from Westminster Station to find a cloudless blue sky and an enormous Union Jack flag waving atop one of the Central London buildings. As it turned out, the flag topped the Houses of Parliament, and my eyes met the Tower of London for the first time, just in time to hear the deep bells chiming 4 p.m. GST. A few minutes later I arrived at the London Media Centre and got set up for just about anything needed for the Games, including free rail pass, wi-fi, several event invitations and a new place to work for the next 22 days of Olympic adventure.

Around 6 p.m. it was my intention to grab some groceries and turn in early at the hotel, but a special media tour of the Houses of Parliament started and I joined the party walking a few blocks to the iconic building of more than 1,000 years. It was so cool to tour the building with a small entourage of international reporters, and I bit my tongue at the urge to mention Tod Margaret and his ill-fated visit to the same building on "The Increasingly Poor Decisions of Todd Margaret" during season one (no sign language was used on our tour).

Seated in a committee room facing the Thames during sunset, our media tour group learned several details of U.K.-Asia trade. For instance, there are now 110 direct flights from London to China per week, and of the 7,000+ journalists visiting the London Media Centre for the Games, more than 10 percent (700) are from China. Also, London will host more than 200 CEOs from around the world during the Games, reinforcing or establishing new trade ties for London for decades to come.

A guest panelist representing Harrod's explained that since 2008 the iconic department store increased its business from China by 900 percent, adding more than 150 Mandarin speakers to their employee base at the world's most famous department store.

I also learned there are more than 12,000 Chinese university students now in London, and some London officials estimate that East London recently completed 50 years of development in fewer than five years (it will be a sight to see the Olympic development on this side of town). Our hosts at the House of Commons also fêted us with fabulous salmon, lamb, prawn and grilled tomato treats.

Day one in London concluded with a tube ride back to Paddington and a few more pin exchanges in transit. I'm still on the hunt for an Opening Ceremony ticket and look forward to scoring one if good luck continues as it did with the easy arrival at the Olympic city.

Photos by Nicholas Wolaver

Back To Blogging!

Just in time for my arrival at the Team USA Olympic Summit in Dallas, my blog was hacked or otherwise "taken over" by an unknown force in the universe. For anyone who visited this site May 13 through today, you may have seen the home page quickly switch over to a crud site. For this technical glitch, likely caused by user error on my part, I apologize. It was an excruciating process to get it fixed.

Before jumping back to blogging, I'll take just a moment to thank the helpful Google/Blogger message board contact who did his best to help me navigate a fix. I must say, it would be greatly appreciated if the wizards at Google would create a phone help center as a backup to these boards and chat rooms.

OK, there's TONS of cool Olympic stuff in the news, on the Web and around the globe. The London Olympic Games are popping up everywhere. And there are several ways folks may win their way to the 2012 Olympics if they are willing to click and code their way through some sponsor and other sweepstakes sites:

• VISA encourages entries via several banks offering credit cards, or through the Go World contest
• Proctor & Gamble has several contests underway, including an EveryDay product sweepstakes, a Pampers entry option and a Pro-Health dental competition (the Duracell contest apparently ended)
• United Airlines has an easy to enter contest including (surprise) airfare and all the fixings
• BP will let you enter if you buy eat here and get gas at one of their U.S. service stations (on the drive back from Dallas to Atlanta I picked up game codes in several states)
• Cost Plus World Market is adding some red, white and blue unofficial Games marketing to a big event in the U.K.
• Mini Cooper apparently will give away a trip later in the summer (I could not yet find a link)
• Citi created the Every Step program and contest through which participants may cheer on several key athletes and their charities of choice (I met two of these athletes in Dallas and will profile them in another post)
• Macy's with Ralph Lauren are giving away an Olympic trip
• The UPS Store has an Olympic sweepstakes open with VISA
• Panasonic's got an Olympic contest, too
• I wear my sunglasses at night, and so does Oakley, official supplier with Take London contest
• Dow wants you to know about Great Stuff to enter their London Olympic giveaway
• Hilton Honors rounds out the Olympic giveaways for this post

Special thanks to Shreveport, La., resident and ISOH member Brian Carberry for methodically locating these and other recent five-ringed sweepstakes. Good luck!

Photo via this site

Remembering Leroy Walker

Sad to learn today that former U.S. Olympic Committee President Leroy Walker died Monday in North Carolina.

Walker led the USOC following the resignation of Robert Helmick during the early 1990s, in charge during three U.S. Olympic Festivals (San Antonio 1993, St. Louis 1994 and Denver-Boulder-Colorado Springs 1995) where I worked on staff or as a volunteer (we shook hands at least once at each event).

As one of the summer of 1995 U.S. Olympic Training Center interns  (we were a motley crew from coast to coast staying in former military barracks at the USOTC in Colorado Springs), I also saw Walker from time to time on campus. The following year, Walker was a "regular" in the Atlanta Committee for the Olympic Games (ACOG) offices in the INFORUM building where I worked.

A winner of the IOC's highest honor, the Olympic Order, Walker was a nice man and leader never too proud to stop and visit with a junior employee.

Reading Walker's obituary tonight, I was reminded he led several Olympic athletics teams, notably in 1976 when Bruce Jenner and Edwin Moses competed with success. I did not know, until today, that Walker was born here in Atlanta. After the Atlanta Games drew criticism for multiple, avoidable snafus, and the Salt Lake 2002 organization got caught in a bribery scandal, Walker aptly predicted it may be a long time before the U.S.A. could again host the Games. I'm often afraid it's going to be too long -- the USOC needs some more Coach Walkers at the helm.

It was/is also a surprise that as of 11:15 p.m. ET today, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution only posted an Associated Press version of an obituary to AJC.com. It's disappointing that after the AJC led some expansive coverage of the Atlanta Olympic bid, then preparation and finally the Centennial Olympic Games (including many archived reports including Walker) that the AJC did not yet craft its own report or remembrance for Walker. I tried to reach the sports assignment editor via email tonight for comment (no response as of this post).

Hopefully tomorrow the AJC will prove me wrong, or make things right by doing a follow up on Walker's influences in Georgia (Walker is a member of the Georgia Sports Hall of Fame, for instance).

Meanwhile, in the Chicago Tribune, veteran Olympic reporter Philip Hersh wrote a personal remembrance today that is a great summary of Walker's achievements.

Photo via this link (I believe this is a USOC handout photo from the 1990s)

London Olympic Stadium

Catching up on Olympic website reading lately, found an outstanding London 2012 photo gallery of aerial shots around the Olympic Stadium. Check this link for some amazing images.

Photos via LOCOG

Sticking It To The U.S. Postal Service

It's a bummer to research the upcoming 2012 postage stamp designs due for distribution by the U.S. Postal Service, which apparently is skipping London 2012 for a new Olympic stamp design.

I'm still learning about 2012 Olympic stamps and the Olympic philatelic traditions, but will just write briefly tonight that the U.S.P.S. is missing out on an opportunity to maintain several consecutive Olympiads of original and beautiful five-ringed designs (some of my personal favorites include Robert Peak's iconic Olympic stamps for 1984 in Los Angeles as well as Bart Forbes' designs for 1988 and 1992, the latter released during the 1990 U.S. Olympic Festival in Minneapolis/St. Paul).

What Olympic stamps are due out for other nations in 2012? I'm just starting to research this. If you see one you like, or loathe, please send me a link.

Olympic stamp images via links for dealers showcasing Athens 1896 and Los Angeles 1932 designs

Whitney Houston: One Moment In Time

Sad to read that one of the greatest singers ever, Whitney Houston, died today in Los Angeles.

I expect the following days, weeks and months -- starting with tonight's impromptu radio station memorials and tomorrow night's GRAMMY Awards broadcast -- will be filled with updates and tabloid details on Houston's career and demise. Fortunately most are remembering her beautiful music and celebrating it.

Like millions of other middle schoolers of the mid-1980s, I first heard Whitney Houston via "How Will I Know" on the radio and on MTV. We may not have known what "You Give Good Love" really meant, but we knew that lady could sing.

With my best friend Jason, we used to give his sister a hard time for crying to "Greatest Love Of All" and we can probably still sing all the lyrics to "Saving All My Love For You," All At Once," "Hold Me," "I Wanna Dance With Somebody (Who Loves Me)." Other greats of course include "Didn't We Almost Have It All," "So Emotional" and "Where Do Broken Hearts Go."

After shaking hands with Peter Ueberroth and Clay Bennett at a June 1988 fundraising party for the 1989 U.S. Olympic Festival in Oklahoma City, "Love Will Save The Day" was the song playing when I tried to dance (age 15) with a cute girl at the event (sadly, love did not save the day, but it's still a good song).

Then came Whitney Houston's "One Moment In Time" during the 1988 Seoul Olympics. Who could forget those iconic images of Korea's games, with NBC's montage of medallists including Florence Griffith Joyner, Carl Lewis, Phoebe Mills and others in slow motion while Whitney delivered the goods?

"One Moment In Time" remains the gold standard in Olympic theme songs.

Other favorites include "Run To You," "I Will Always Love You," "I Have Nothing," her Super Bowl rendition of "The Star-Spangled Banner" and "Do You Hear What I Hear."

It would have been so cool to see/hear Whitney Houston perform live. The closest I got was in Torino during the 2006 Winter Olympics, during which she performed at the nightly concert Live Site series (sadly, I heard it was a terrible concert, with U.S. media nearly banned from attending).

During all the time Houston lived in Atlanta, there was only one in-person sighting -- we thought we spotted Whitney in the backstage area of the Atlanta Olympic Village disco hall at Georgia Tech when Bobby Brown "performed" for the athletes (the concert was loud and a let-down, and still not sure why they could not entice Whitney on the stage to sing "One Moment In Time" for the Olympic athletes in attendance.

Her appearance on "Saturday Night Live" remains hilarious.

I must admit to cracking jokes about Whitney Houston's problems, and her clip on reality TV ("Kiss my ass!") still cracks me up. Just the other day (seriously, within the last week) I forwarded the Nancy Reagan anti-drug music video "Stop The Madness" to a colleague, and there Whitney was, the pre-diva, pre-GRAMMY, pre-"How Will I Know" Whitney Houston singing the lyrics "Everyone's a loser in this deadly game that's played." Interesting that Bobby Brown also appeared in the video as part of The New Edition (did they meet there as teens?).

If only she had followed the simple message of that Just Say No-themed production, "Stop The Madness."

Photo via Amazon, album cover photo by Garry Cross

A Description of London

Found a delightful poem posted on today's edition of "The Writer's Almanac" describing a potential preview of people to meet in London during the 2012 Olympics and on other trips to the famous metropolis.

Since it's a public domain item, posting here the full text for "A Description of London" by John Banks. Hope ye like it.

"A Description of London"

Houses, churches, mixed together,

Streets unpleasant in all weather;

Prisons, places contiguous,

Gates, a bridge, the Thames irriguous.

Gaudy things enough to tempt ye,

Showy outsides, insides empty,

Bubbles, trades, mechanic arts,

Coaches, wheelbarrows and carts.

Warrant, bailiffs, bills unpaid,

Lords of laundresses afraid;

Rogues that nightly rob and shoot men,

Hangmen, aldermen and footmen.

Lawyers, poets, priests, physicians,

Noble, simple, all conditions:

Worth beneath a threadbare cover,

Villainy bedaubed all over.

Women black, red, fair and grey,

Prudes and such as never pray,

Handsome, ugly, noisy, still,

Some that will not, some that will.

Many a beau without a shilling,

Many a widow not unwilling;

Many a bargain, if you strike it:

This is London! How d'ye like it?

Illustration of London via Mappery.com

London 2012 Olympic Torch Relay

The Associated Press gave a little love to the London 2012 Olympic Torch Relay with an international wire story updating readers on plans for next year's run.

The Olympic flame will trek about 8,000 miles but almost entirely on British soil during 70 days next summer, according to the article.

Additional details are available at the official site for the Olympic Torch Relay. Of course, part of the Torch tradition will also take place in Olympia, Greece.

The destination list for the flame looks good to me. It would really be something to see the flame at Stonehenge, for instance.

I did not yet look closely at the route yet, but in case they did not think of it already, consider this my Olympic blogger suggestion that the London 2012 Olympic Torch Relay Team at LOCOG, as well as Coca-Cola, Lloyds TSB and Samsung, recreate the "Chariots of Fire" opening sequence by carrying the Olympic torch down the beach made famous by the film's director, Hugh Hudson, and Vangelis (in case you missed it, Hudson answered questions about that famous scene during a film festival in Atlanta, and his comments are available via this post).

Photo via LOCOG

London 2012 Unveils Official Posters

Today the London Organizing Committee for the Olympic Games (LOCOG) unveiled the official posters for London 2012, including six Olympic and six Paralympic designs.

Check out the full press release (including artist bios) and links to the designs!
Building on an Olympic arts tradition spanning several decades, the LOCOG-commissioned works by 12 leading U.K. artists highlight competition and athletic themes of the London 2012 Olympic Games.

Looking at the collection, I am enthusiastically drawn to the work titled "Big Ben 2012" by Sarah Morris. The poster features a modernized view of the Clock Tower in a framework reminiscent of Frank Lloyd Wright windows. Beautiful! I want this poster in my apartment!

Another poster titled "Divers" -- created by Anthea Hamilton -- is also appealing with vivid color and silhouetted legs and Olympic rings in white.

The third and poster of note, however, sort of made me think, "Huh?!"

The work titled "Swimming" by Howard Hodgkin is described in LOCOG press materials with the following note: "The fluidity of the brushstrokes perfectly captures the movement of water and the sensation of swimming."

Not so much.

For this blogger, it sort of captures the movement of child's fingers dipped in finger paint.

Though to Hodgkin's credit, the painting did also remind me of a favorite R.E.M. song titled "Night Swimming" so I guess the poster is OK, just not for my walls.

Next!

Like Athens 2004's terrible selection of official posters, the rest of the London 2012 official poster series leave a bit to be desired. For instance, the illustration of two birds appearing under an inspiring message was to me, well, inspiring, yet better suited for the cartoon collections of The New Yorker magazine.

The other workz juzt make me zort of **yawn** zleepy ... ZZZZZZZZZZZzzzzzzzzz ...

I guess my Olympic official poster tastes are influenced by the dazzling array of memorable official works created for LA84, Barcelona 1992 and Atlanta 1996. LA's official works, including artists Roy Lichtenstein, Robert Rauschenberg and Martin Puryear, are just tough to beat. Javier Mariscal's 1992 designs, and the 1996 posters by Howard Finster and James Rizzi, stand out as exceptional.

Other favorites Olympic poster works include designs by Jacob Lawrence, David Hockney, Andy Warhol and (official or not) the works of Dallas artist Bart Forbes are personal favorites (his works for several U.S. Postal Service stamps are tops in my book).

I'm sure the London 2012 official posters will be quite popular in spite of my remarks. Would love to hear which London 2012 Olympic posters are most liked -- or disliked -- by readers of this blog, and I will send an official 1996 Atlanta Olympic Opening Ceremony postcard of Muhammad Ali lighting the Olympic cauldron to the person(s) who post the most colorful comment(s) during the next three days.

Disclosures: LOCOG and the IPC/Paralympics are clients of Edelman, the agency where I work. Photo credits: London 2012/LOCOG website.