Faces in the crowd

A few shots from the Olympic Park on the final day of the 2012 Paralympic Games. We were there for the Seven-a-side Football final, good fun, but which after the boiling cauldron of the Olympic Stadium for the athletics a week ago, proved something of an anti-climax. The bronze medal went to Iran who drubbed Brazil 5-0, and the gold to Russia in a turgid affair versus the Ukraine that ended 1-0. We were unfortunately placed at the north of the arena, straight into the midday sun, effectively ending my hopes of capturing any sporting action. Instead I picked out faces in the crowd with my new favourite lens, a 300 f2.8 gem that I bought about three years ago and which I've barely used as it has been away paying for itself. While I've been sat in Wanstead, and latterly Canary Wharf, the lens has travelled the globe. Safaris, sporting events, airshows, birding trips, you name it it has probably been there and done it - I'm very jealous of where it has been, but it's back now, and will learn to love Wanstead Flats. It's a joy to use, and you can't really argue with 'free' either!

 

 

 

 

Olympic Convert

What can I say? Since I last wrote I've been to see Russia play Brazil in Basketball (for a fiver), New Zealand play Argentina in Women's Hockey (another fiver), and a session of Swimming heats (slightly more than a fiver, but I'm glossing over that). The Olympic Park is amazing. It's enormous, on a staggering scale. Once you get in the main gates it's a full 20 minute walk to the Velodrome, and I think there are bits beyond that.

I managed to get a couple of tickets to the go into the park, but not to watch any sport. No sport?! I wasn't having that! I was however in luck, as there is the concept of recycled tickets. When fans leave a venue whilst something is in progress, for instance after the first match of a two match session, their tickets are resold on the cheap to patient punters like Mrs L and I. Some fairly heavy-duty queueing was required, but my twitching genes made this fly by - I just pretended there was a Blyth's Reed Warbler in the kiosk, and patiently stuck it out. Oh hang on, the longest I've ever waited to see a Blyth's Reed Warbler is roughly four minutes, after which I got bored and wandered off - I've yet to see one in fact, and declined one on Shetland a couple years ago on the grounds I might have died of boredom. The queue wasn't as boring as a non-descript browny Acro, but it was longer. Still, for a fiver you can't really argue, and I even discovered that for reasons unknown I am a huge fan of Women's Hockey. Who knew?

Enuff said

A German fan buys tickets

This morning I went to the Swimming, courtesy of a lucky late-night website strike on one of those accredited tickets that are being released to the general public. Despite the somewhat eye-watering price, worse even than chlorine, I was astonished to get it, and couldn't type in my mastercard visa number fast enough. The Central Line failed yet again - the second time during the Olympics, and the fourth time in two weeks - and so once more I found myself on the way to Stratford via the failsafe method of putting one foot in front of the other and grinding it out. I know how these Olympians feel. Needless to say I made it, and what an amazing venue the Aquatics Centre is. After the games all that will remain is the core, but it's incredibly impressive. I might even take up swimming in addition to jogging. Talking of which, my latest average speed was a sensational 66mph. I discovered this at the halfway point in Leytonstone, my oh so wonderful running app had decided that my start point was somewhere near Watford, as opposed to my front door - a distance which I covered in approximately ten minutes. As such, I'm not really sure which field event I'm best suited to. All of them by the looks of things.

Delighted to see me

Birds? Errr, no. Sorry. I hope to go birding at some point this weekend, perhaps my newfound Olympic delirium will have worn off by then. Then again, my Olympic Park bird list stands at a lowly twelve, though includes Sand Martin, so maybe I need to go back. Or perhaps I need to concentrate my efforts elsewhere -  Black-tailed Godwit were seen over the Flats last week, and a Nuthatch is in the Park somewhere.

London 2012

My initial grumpiness is waning as my commute to work actually becomes easier now that the games have started. Why this should be I have little idea, but perhaps Londoners have departed the capital en masse in order to avoid the games, thus leaving the routes clear for grafters like me. It is busy, don't get me wrong, with Stratford in particular a seething mass of humanity, but it's not as bad as all the whinging pudits had predicted. And as a bonus, Boris got stuck on a zip-wire yesterday. And as an ever bigger bonus, I managed to jam one of those delegation tickets that got released to the general public - I'm going swimming tomorrow. Not sure what lane I'm in, but I'll let you know. I've also managed to get a pile of tickets for the Paralympics, so we're all off to watch various 7-a-side football matches and some athletics a bit later on. Because of the short notice, I had to go and pick the tickets up myself, so had a bit of a wander around Stratford while I was at it. This afternoon I'm actually going to have a wander in the Olympic Park, which should be fun. Particularly as I'm going to wear my Mastercard T-shirt and Burger King cap.

Busy busy

There are empty steps! Quick, resell them!



A great day for Britain

Greater Manchester Police having fun on holiday

"Er, Mummy?"

The Kiwis are in a relaxed mood for the cycling

Moaning for Britain

My job, as many will know from the Peanut Challenge, is at Canary Wharf, aka the Avian Desert. I live in Wanstead, and if you didn't know that then frankly there is no hope. Between these two cultural Meccas is a place called Stratford, and recently some funny white buildings have been popping up.

Yes, Britain is proud to be hosting the Olympic Games. We have spent years planning it, and it is almost upon us. We have chosen the most utterly pathetic mascots the world has ever seen, we have attempted to insult as many nations as possible before the games actually begin, we have more MacDonald's personnel than security, and the public transport system is crumbling around us. Yup, we're about as ready as we can be.

London 2012. A showcase for what makes Britain great.

Seeing as how I work in Canary Wharf and live in Wanstead, I have to go through Stratford to earn my crust. My normal commute is a shade over 40 minutes. So by Thursday evening I would have expected to have spent a very pleasurable five hours and 20 minutes on public transport. So far this week that number is closer to ten hours, including walking home from Stratford one evening as the problems were beyond resolution. And the Olympics haven't even started yet. People wonder why I've been moaning quite so much. There's one reason right there. No, I didn't get tickets.

Any other gripes? Well yes, thanks for asking, there are quite a few as it happens. The first is an enormous Police Base on Wanstead Flats that has eliminated a good proportion of the patch and cut my morning birding in half. It's been present for a month, and is planned to be present for about another two months. I can only imagine the state of the area once it's all gone. Then there are the missiles on the Fred Wigg Tower. The only reason I can't see them from my house is that a tree is in the way. I don't like missiles very much at the best of times, and having them that close in case some nutter decides he is going to make a statement to the the world makes me quite uncomfortable. I feel like I'm in the line of fire. Two more reasons why I'm not embracing the Olympics.

Anything else? Yes. Helicopters. There are helicopters everywhere. All day and all night there are helicopters buzzing around. Try to work, helipcopter. Try to sleep, helicopter. In my dreams all I can hear are helicopters. And sirens. And people. There are people everywhere. I know. It's London and there are always people everywhere. This is true, but there are more people everywhere. In my current frazzled state it doesn't take much.

Thankfully I have the perfect remedy. I'm going to Norfolk at the weekend to photograph waders. I think Titchwell will be perfect.

Hard work

The patch is hard work at the moment. After having been bracketed by Green Sands, I've been out at five in the morning two days on the trot. The rewards have been scant to say the least. I picked up what is probably a record count of Greylags, when a flock of 16 landed on the playing fields, and thus added themselves to the family of nine on Alexandra Lake, but the mere fact I am mentioning Greylags is an indication of the slimness of the pickings.

There has been little time for much else. Towards the end of the school year about a million and one events take place, so I have been to two sports days, one parents evening, two ballet classes, one cricket session and a lot more besides. Happy news today from the latest sporting extravaganza is that Muffin is officially the fastest kiddo in Year 2, or at least he was today. Fastest boy I should add, he didn't race against any of girls, but some of them looked pretty speedy. It's all down to me of course. Not the DNA I hasten to add, that wouldn't help him, but we have watched Chariots of Fire seven times in the last two days, and I've been giving him Mr Mussabini pep talks, including one right before the race about not looking at the other kids during the race. Not all of this is true by the way. He did win though, attaboy!

Here, have a Grasshopper. I once saw a totally amazing photo of a Grasshopper in this pose. I can't remember where, but I remember being dead impressed and wanting to try and recreate it. This does not come close to the perfection of the particular photo I have in mind, but it's a start, and seeing as Wanstead Flats is Grasshopper Central at the moment, I should have many opportunities to have another go.

Democracy in action

Well, the meeting wasn't as bad as I had feared. Yes there were a couple of women knitting at the front, yes there were a couple of loud-mouthed bigots, and yes there was some unaritcutale epxreshun. However on the whole it was pretty good, with frankly an enormous turn-out, probably over 200 people.

There was unsurprisingly no representation from anybody involved in the actual proposal. Nobody from the Corporation of London (who by the sound of it have a lot to answer for already), nobody from the Met, nobody from any local councils, no MPs, and nobody from the Olympic Development Authority. Getting these people out to answer questions will be key. The fact that it has been very difficult to get any information out of any of them is worrying. It suggests underhand non-public dealings. It suggests a lack of appetite for consultation.

And I can see why that might be. For starters, the Police wish to use 8 acres. That is vast! In addition to building a massive briefing centre and a command centre, they also want a large car-park, and also stabling for 80 horses. 80!! Jesus H Christ, we could get Yellow Wagtails back! Where do I sign?! And last but not least they want to build an unspecified number of holding cells for irate local birders who get too close to the compound. Oh and they also want to rename the whole area Guantanamo Flats.

Several people had several good ideas as to how we might go about fighting this, and there is going to be a steering committee. I offered my services between bouts of dusting, we shall see if they take me up on it. There seemed to be a core of people who already knew each other, so it may stay with them, and I'm sure they're capable enough.

And talk about the modern age, a lady had already set up a Facebook Page for the campaign, rather melodramatically called "Protect Wanstead Flats and Epping Forest". Although I barely use Facebook, and whilst I would normally sneer at such things, I joined immediately. Sometimes these things take on a life of their own, and a public groundswell of opinion is expressed in the form of how many thousands of people joined an internet group, and it's just possible that the people that count may take note. Or not, who knows. You, the long-suffering readers of this blog, can join it too, and so can your friends. It doesn't matter if you've never been to Wanstead Flats in your life, you have read this blog and you know about it, and that is enough. Think to yourself if you would like to see Jonathan turfed off his local patch? Think how unhappy he would be, and how miserable, depressing and moth-oriented his blog might become. If you can't bear the thought of that happening, sign up here. It takes five seconds and then you need never look at it again. You will be a number, that's all.

So all in all not too bad. A fund-raising bucket was passed around, and pleasingly, as we left the hall, there was a man distributing Socialist Worker magazine. Thanks but no thanks, Comrade! On the way back home I went birding on Fairground Flats and saw nothing. Er I mean I saw loads of endangered birds and vast herds of Great Crested Newts grazing on the lush brown grass.

Wanstead Politics

Roll on 2012, roll on the Olympics. Roll off Wanstead Flats. In a act of genius, the Metropolitan Police have realised that they need an operational base whilst the games are on. Evidently they forgot about this when the Olympic Park at Stratford was being planned, and in a venture that smacks of desperation, are proposing to construct a temporary base on Wanstead Flats. Can you tell that I am perhaps not a neutral?

They're proposing to use the area known as Fairground Flats (area 15 on my map). This is sandwiched between Jubilee Pond and the SSSI. It's where I took the photo of Skylarks feeding in the snow, and apart from when there is a funfair, is where many birds like to hang out. The structure will only be temporary of course. And only for three months. How long are the Games? Two weeks you say? That's odd. Oh well, maths was never my strong point. It will be used as a briefing centre. That means buildings and stuff. And car-parking. And presumably the police don't want people just walking up to it leaving bombs and such like, so there will also need to be a fence. A high, sharp fence. What about security lights and cameras? Almost certainly. An exclusion zone around the base perhaps? Probably.

How long will it take to build? A few months perhaps. What about taking it down and restoring the land. Another few months. I don't know any of the details, but I don't expect that anybody will be challenging themselves to get it up and down again in record time. So we're talking a probably nine months of some sort of disturbance to the Flats, and the real kick in the teeth is that my bloody council taxes went up to help pay it!

Wanstead Flats, and indeed the whole of Epping Forest, are protected by an act of Parliament - The Epping Forest Act 1878. Not a problem, the Home Office have been contacted, and the law will be changed. Yes, that's right, the 650 MPs in the House of Commons will need to vote to change the Act. How does that work exactly? Probably 645 of them have never been closer to Wanstead Flats than the Houses of Parliament, and yet they get to vote on what happens to my patch. Absurd, but factual.

But we can rely on the Corporation of London to just say no, right? Nope, 'fraid not. It's special, it's the Olympics. They're going to agree to it. Just like that. What about the Friends of Epping Forest, are they going to mount a campaign to fight it? Er, no, they're not. They're opposed to any development of the forest, but understand that the games are "one-off" event. Special. Any anyway, it's just the southern end of the forest, the scummy bit near Forest Gate. As long as the nice pretty wooded bits are left alone, they're not fussed. So that leaves me then.

Well, not quite. There is a local residents meeting tonight. Even the thought of a residents meeting has me vaguely shivering, but for the sake of the Skylarks that like to feed on Fairground Flats, I am going to go. Dreading it. Estimate of average age, 79. Estimate of ability to articulately express an opinion, dhje fwnlirriwg dwkwerfoo. It's tonight, at 6:30. I'm not even sure if the plans are in the public domain, but I expect that local residents will be able to blather on even if there is nothing to discuss. I'm going because I want to understand more about what is actually being proposed, rather than rely on scraps from the local newspaper.

I don't want to sound defeatist, but it's going to happen. If you mention the magic "O" word, everything becomes OK. It will get steamrollered through, I'm certain of it. The land stewards, the Corporation, are in the bag already, the biggest local interest group have effectively rolled over, and MPs from all over the country are just going to vote for it as it doesn't impact their constituencies in any way, and the five whose it does will probably vote for it too. It's the Olympics. It's special you know. So, retaining some pragmatism in the knowledge that it will happen whether I like it or not, it is probably best to approach the situation with a view to getting the best possible deal for the Flats. Fight for the shortest possible timeframe, for some kind of "over and above" restitution (like a totally awesome wader-scrape with a plush hide and one key-holder), and for whatever changes are made to the 1878 Act to be temporary or very very specific.

I'll let you know.