{"id":2673,"date":"2015-08-31T23:58:04","date_gmt":"2015-08-31T23:58:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.macnovel.org.uk\/?p=2673"},"modified":"2015-09-01T00:04:36","modified_gmt":"2015-09-01T00:04:36","slug":"three-years-later","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.macnovel.org.uk\/?p=2673","title":{"rendered":"Three Years Later"},"content":{"rendered":"

Around this time of year, back in\u00a02012, I wrote a number of blog posts that were tangentially-related to my writing, celebrated that London felt like it was the centre of the world due to hosting the Olympics and Paralympics. (Imho London carried this off so successfully that in the intervening three years, the city seems to have consolidated, if anything, its hold on the title of global capital.)<\/p>\n

One of the least successful aspects of the Olympics was the disastrous system of ticket allocation (something the coming Rugby World Cup appears not to have learned lessons from). Although I made it to the Olympic Park, I didn’t get inside the stadium itself.<\/p>\n

I’ve visited the local area many times since access to the Queen Elizabeth Park (as the old Olympic Park is\u00a0\u00a0now called) has allowed public access — mostly because it’s a pleasant walk between two excellent brewpubs, Tap East in the Westfield shopping centre and the Crate Brewing Company in the White Building by the Regent’s Canal in Hackney Wick.<\/p>\n

This weekend I finally managed to get inside — in one one of the first events since the stadium’s post-Olympic reconstruction.<\/p>\n

\"Olympic<\/a>
Olympic Stadium — 29th August 2015<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The occasion was a friendly rugby game between the Barbarians and Samoa (one of the latter’s warm-up games before the World Cup). We have to hope a few teething problems are ironed out before the start of the tournament — the sprinkling system was unexpectedly deployed during the match on my visit, much to the embarrassment of the ground staff.<\/p>\n

\"Sprinklers<\/a>
Sprinklers Make a Surprise Appearance<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The stadium has been remodelled for a smaller capacity, down from 80,000 to 54,000, and there have been some substantial changes, particularly in expanding the roof and retaining\u00a0the distinctive, original, triangular floodlight structures but inverting them below roof level.<\/p>\n

\"The<\/a>
The Famous Floodlights Turned Upside Down<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

I’ve visited most of the comparable new stadiums — Wembley, Old Trafford, the O2 — and the Olympic Stadium (or The Stadium, Queen Elizabeth Park as it’s officially known — are they waiting for sponsorship?) proved a more pleasant experience with less claustrophobic concrete and, because the pitch area is a sunken bowl, the access and hospitality areas seem lighter and less congested.<\/p>\n

\"The<\/a>
The Stadium from the Concourse<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

However, with West Ham going to make the stadium their home in under a year and the Rugby World Cup approaching, I wonder (as would James in my novel) where the fans are going to congregate around this area of idealistic, futuristic design when they want a few drinks. There are a couple of chain pubs in Westfield in addition to the marvellous (but small) Tap East — nothing likely to satiate up to 58,000 tribal drinkers.<\/p>\n

\"Plenty<\/a>
Plenty of Toilets but Not Many Pubs<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Around this time of year, back in\u00a02012, I wrote a number of blog posts that were tangentially-related to my writing, celebrated that London felt like it was the centre of the world due to hosting the Olympics and Paralympics. (Imho London carried this off so successfully that in the intervening three years, the city seems … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “Three Years Later”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[27,424],"tags":[890,1202,154,320,1206,1203,26,1201,1205,1204],"class_list":["post-2673","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general-life","category-influences-2","tag-890","tag-barbarians","tag-london","tag-olympics","tag-rugby-world-cup-2015","tag-samoa","tag-setting","tag-stadium","tag-stratford","tag-westfield"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.macnovel.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2673","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.macnovel.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.macnovel.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.macnovel.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.macnovel.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2673"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.macnovel.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2673\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2681,"href":"https:\/\/www.macnovel.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2673\/revisions\/2681"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.macnovel.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2673"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.macnovel.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2673"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.macnovel.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2673"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}