London’s Olympic legacy

Sat, 14 Jul 2012 15:00:00 +0000

On Sunday 6 April 2008, I set off to Stratford. We had been promised an Olympic taster,the procession of the torch through London. The elevated footpath is accessible through Wick Lane, as it passes beneath the A102. Here is the fault line where the virtual collides with the actual: a Second World War concrete pillbox, a stutter of built and half-built apartment blocks, a lock-keeper’s cottage converted into the set for a breakfast-time television show. Concrete-producing tubes cough and spew.

The blue of the perimeter fence is tactfully echoed by ribbons of fluttering plastic, convenience-store bags caught on razor wire. Beyond the fence is a sanctioned view of never-ceasing convoys, showered and scoured dunes of treated soil. Everything aspires to the grey-blue colour of drowned meat. White boxes have been attached to slender poles, but they are not cameras; further surveillance is unnecessary. The boxes are “Air Quality Monitors” produced at the Northwich Bus Centre by Turnkey Instruments Ltd. A contemporary version of the budgerigars taken down coal mines to provide advance warning of noxious gases. When the boxes begin to hum, it’s too late.

Salon.com > Iain Sinclair

London’s Olympic legacy