I got a bit excited about it, then had to spend most of today sitting on a disrupted, broken down London Overground listening to announcements declaring no service between Canonbury and Stratford and no Central Line between White City and Stratford. There were American and Australian visitors on the trains, horrified about the horrendous service and the extortionate ticket prices and I felt mortally embarrassed. There is no way our transport system will hold up for the Voldesports (event that cannot be named).

I don’t care about sports or athletics of any kind (save, at a push, for Women’s tennis) but even I am faintly enthused. I passed through Stratford at the weekend, including Westfields, and there were loads of athletes and there teams about. It was all rather jolly. The Olympic Park itself is stunning, and will be a brilliant asset post-Olympics. Sadly, those of us without tickets won’t get to enter the park until this time next year!

I'm told no.  It will take ages to remove all the temporary structures.

Are any local pubs showing the opening ceremony?

I think you can buy day pass tickets into the olympic park for during the paralympics. even if not showing any now the trick is to keep trying every couple of days and you should be able to get in for a wander about and to see stuff on the big screens

Tickets are being released every day... This morning there were £20 tickets for the Opening Ceremony...

When you buy a ticket for an event, you get access to that site for the entire day (called a day pass). Not seen any day passes for sale...

I've been excited for seven years! Going to see the torch later I hope. Wish they were coming through Stroud Green. 

If you find that site again please let me know!

I'm very fond of the School of Athens, mostly for the portraits of Raphael's contemporaries. I particularly like Michelangelo, gives one a sense of how large and physically strong he was.

Tomorrow it will take me longer and cost me twice as much to get to work, because my bus route will be blocked by people re-enacting a ritual invented by the Nazis. I've been against the Olympics since the bid was first mentioned, so it amazes me that I'm still daily finding new depths to the horror. Even friends who are in the opening ceremony have been messed around so much they're now having second thoughts about the whole ghastly business. Even the allegedly central bit about astonishing achievements (which has in reality long been downgraded to a fig-leaf for the institutional profiteering) is rendered pointless by them being such authenticity bores about drugs &c. I might be interested in seeing the proving ground for the superhuman, but this is too dull to be that - while still encouraging hopelessly limited people to devote their whole lives to one repetitive task, thus messing them up as surely as any chemical cocktail, especially when they lose.  

Quite a few of my friends are involved in the opening ceremony, it's all very hush-hush of course but they all keep saying it's going to be amazing - I've also heard the same from several people who were at the rehearsal this evening.

At any rate, finding somewhere to watch it will beat fighting the crowds after work on Friday! :)

Watching sporting activities really is a nasty business isn't it. Good grief, some people really are quite miserable. If we question our purpose in life, then regretably most of us go to work to make money for other people. At the very least, an olympic athlete works towards being the best they can be. I know who has a better purpose, and who will feel fulfilled in life when they achieve or perhaps who will feel better if they don't.

Bring on the games, its going to be brilliant! And for all the people that aren't fans, it'll be over soon and you'll never have to put up with it again.

Thanks for the link, but those are tickets to the Orbit which require a separate park pass, of which none are on sale.

It is great cycling in the center hardly any traffic except for taxis and buses.  There is new cycle bus lane at St Martins in the fields  as you enter into Trafalger Square.  It is so much safer so I hope they keep it. £130 fines are making Taxi drivers behave themsleves for a change !  White hall is the same hardly any traffic, it just feels wierd but fantastic at the same time !