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Daily Photo 06/02/09: Snowy Greenwich Pictures Day Five

February 6, 2009 By Rob Powell

I wasn’t planning to run any more snow pictures this week, but then Stephen sent me a batch of gorgeous photos taken in Greenwich Park this week, so I thought I’d share a couple here and save the rest for when the snow is but a distant memory.

Greenwich Park under Snow 
Wow, stunning blue sky and that cold white floor below.


One of the best views in London, but with a dusting of snow added.

Thanks Stephen, for sharing your excellent pictures.

Filed Under: Magazine Tagged With: Daily Photo, Greenwich Park, National Maritime Museum, Old Royal Naval College, Snow

Daily Photo 03/02/09: More Snowy Greenwich Pics

February 3, 2009 By Rob Powell

Here’s a rather charming photo, taken in the courtyard of King William Court by Nick Davison from the University of Greenwich. The small snow animal in the foreground gives it certain Narnia-esque qualities?

And I’m dipping into DaveH48’s Flickr photostream with this one showing people trekking through a busy, but cold looking, Greenwich Park.

More snowy Greenwich pictures can be found here and here.

Filed Under: Magazine Tagged With: Daily Photo, Greenwich Park, Old Royal Naval College, Snow

Snowy Greenwich Videos from Youtube

February 2, 2009 By Rob Powell

With lots of workers and school children enjoying an extra day off thanks to the snowfall, families descended on Greenwich Park for sledding and other snow based fun. Here’s some videos captured today and posted on Youtube which give a flavour of a busy Greenwich Park.

Families sledding in Greenwich Park

“Kamikaze going down the hill” – watch out for someone falling over at about 23 seconds.

Snowman Destroyer – Take a good look at the snowman at the start of this video. Someone’s about to destroy it. See how many people are in the background!

Filed Under: Magazine Tagged With: Greenwich Park, Snow, Video

Daily Photo 02/02/09: Greenwich Under Snow Special Edition!

February 2, 2009 By Rob Powell

It’s apparently the best/worst (depending on how you see the cold, white stuff) snowfall we’ve had for years, and there’s some cracking pictures of Greenwich under snow on Flickr. So with kind permission, here’s a selection of pictures of snowy Greenwich today…


Greenwich Park, from Jim’s photo stream (EatYourGreens)


Here’s a gorgeous one of the park from Tracy’s photostream (TG&BB)


And this was the scene up Maze Hill as caught on Tamsin’sphotostream

UPDATED- DaveH48 captures the scene very nicely looking up Old Woolwich Road with the ORNC in the background.

Did you get a cool picture of Greenwich in the snow? Send it or a flickr link to rob@greenwich.co.uk or post a link in the comments below!

Filed Under: Magazine Tagged With: Daily Photo, Greenwich Park, Maze Hill, Snow

Daily Photo 14/01/09: Greenwich Park Rose Garden

January 14, 2009 By Rob Powell

Rose Garden in Greenwich Park

The Rose Garden in Greenwich Park. I’ll try and take the same photo from the same angle when there’s a bit more to see.

Filed Under: Magazine Tagged With: Daily Photo, Greenwich Park

Horse Manure

January 6, 2009 By Andrew Gilligan

THE report we’ve all been waiting for is out. Quietly, just before the holidays, the much-trumpeted KPMG review into the Olympic use of Greenwich Park was published on the London 2012 website. And my goodness, it’s convincing.

It’s twelve pages long, of which precisely one page is about the Park. Including the headings and titles, this page contains 215 words. I’ve read more detailed analyses on the back of the average cornflakes packet.

KPMG’s conclusion amounts to all of 45 words, which I quote in full: “Based on the documentation and high-level costings provided by LOCOG, the costs of providing an alternative Modern Pentathlon facility together with temporary accommodation mean that it is unlikely that an alternative location could be delivered for a lower cost than the Greenwich Park option.”

Note the first part of that sentence: “Based on the documentation and high-level costings provided by LOCOG.” According to the preface, this study lasted from 12 August to 9 December. Can it really be true that in all that time, all they have accomplished is to read and repeat the claims made by LOCOG, a party with a clear vested interest in the status quo?

Yes, it can. The preface continues: “In preparing the report, our primary source has been internal management information and representations made to us by management of the ODA, LOCOG and the Government Olympic Executive. We do not accept responsibility for such information, which remains the responsibility of the respective management…We have not…sought to establish the reliability of the sources by reference to other evidence.

“This engagement is not…conducted in accordance with any generally accepted [accounting] assurance standards and consequently no assurance opinion is expressed. We draw your attention to the limitations in the information available to us. We have had limited access to the management of the alternative venues considered or to other third parties.

“We must emphasise that the realisation of the forecasts prepared by the ODA and LOCOG is dependent on the continuing validity of the assumptions on which they are based…We accept no responsibility for the realisation of the projections…we do not accept responsibility for the underlying data.”

I can’t think of many other occasions where an official report has been preceded by a warning that its contents are essentially worthless – a warning that lasts, moreover, about four times longer than the conclusions it pre-emptively dismisses. In their tortured, self-exculpatory prose, one can sense KPMG’s entirely justified sensitivity to criticisms by me and others that their work has no real independent or analytic value at all.

Let us quote from the part where the methods of the study are described. “KPMG’s approach principally comprised… considering internal documentation made available by ODA…[and] LOCOG…discussions with key personnel from the ODA, LOCOG and the Department of Culture, Media and Sport…discussions with a small number of third parties approved by the ODA, LOCOG and/or the DCMS.”

Costings used in the report – both to support the existing venues and dismiss their potential alternatives – were derived from “high-level cost estimates…developed by the ODA.” Incredibly, “several of the operational costs were derived from the Bid Book costings, as the best available source of operational cost estimates, inflated to 2012 prices.”

The Bid Book, as its name suggests, is the document prepared in 2005 to convince the IOC to award us the Olympics. You may remember that at that stage we were being assured that the Games could be delivered for £2.4 billion – roughly a quarter of the present figure. It is quite extraordinary that KPMG is still working on the basis of numbers – even if only for the operational expenses of the Games – from that era.

Any and all actual figures themselves, by the way, are blanked out from the published version of the report for reasons of “commercial confidentiality” – as is even, hilariously, the inflation multiplier used by KPMG to bring them up to 2012 prices. Each venue has a section headed “Cost Issues” which consists, in each case, of a large blacked-out blob, brilliantly expressing the sheer infantilism of British secrecy.

The whole KPMG saga reminds me a little of that scene in Blackadder Goes Forth when General Melchett is harrumphing with pleasure over a two-foot square piece of mud on a table in his office, representing territory gained by Britain at the Battle of the Somme. “What’s the scale?” asks Blackadder. “One-to-one,” replies Captain Darling.

What I mean by this is that the exercise is such an obvious travesty as to be entirely pointless. If they’d hoped it would convince anyone, they should have tried a little harder to make it look like a serious piece of work.

The report may be short, but it could have been even shorter. Forget 45 words, LOCOG could have cut it down to just 16: “We don’t care what you think, and we’re going to do exactly what we always wanted.”

Filed Under: Andrew Gilligan Tagged With: 2012 Olympics, Greenwich Park

Daily Photo 05/01/09: Greenwich Park

January 5, 2009 By Rob Powell

Greenwich Park

Filed Under: Magazine Tagged With: Daily Photo, Greenwich Park

Daily Photo 02/01/09: Greenwich Park and Royal Observatory

January 2, 2009 By Rob Powell

Greenwich Park

Greenwich Park with Royal Observatory in the background.

Filed Under: Magazine Tagged With: Daily Photo, Greenwich Park

Daily Photo 22/12/08: Greenwich Park

December 22, 2008 By Rob Powell

Greenwich Park

Filed Under: Magazine Tagged With: Daily Photo, Greenwich Park

Park Shenanigans

December 16, 2008 By Andrew Gilligan

GREENWICH Council’s desperation to have the Olympics in Greenwich Park is well known. But has it been playing dirty tricks to fake the appearance of public support for the event? And did it try to rig the recent public consultation meeting on the plans?

The meeting took place at the O2 ten days ago. It was billed as allowing local residents to question Olympic chiefs and Lord Coe, chairman of Locog.

But dozens of residents near the park, many of them opposed to the 2012 plans, were banned from attending on the grounds that they live in the neighbouring borough of Lewisham – even though the borough boundary runs within feet of the park.

Other residents asking to come were told that the meeting was “full,” even as the council continued to urge its own employees to attend.

Dozens of organisations funded by Greenwich Council were given tickets to the meeting and encouraged to make “positive contributions.” Among the speakers at the meeting who apparently spontaneously praised the Games were representatives from the Greenwich Young People’s Council, which is the youth arm of Greenwich Council, and the Greenwich Starting Blocks Trust, a charity owned by the council.

We can reveal that the council has also hired an American PR firm, Vocus, one of whose specialities is creating the appearance of grassroots support for controversial policies. Its chief executive, Rick Rudman, told the Washington Post that “we help large companies and associations build grassroots advocacy groups and do calls to action.”

Vocus’s website says it creates “email campaigns” and “grassroots advocacy programmes… to influence public policy decisions that will affect the sponsoring organisation.” The on-line registration process for attending the Greenwich consultation meeting was routed via Vocus’s web servers.

One of those refused admission, Gillian Stewart, from Blackheath, wrote in a comment on the local 853 blog: “I was told I would not be given a ticket because residents get priority. I live within one mile of the park and I’m not considered a resident? I am not happy.”

Another resident, who asked to remain anonymous, told me: “I can actually see the park from my window. I use it every day and I am very concerned about the Olympic plans, but I am apparently not local enough to have a say at this meeting.”

A Greenwich Liberal Democrat councillor, Paul Webbewood, who attended the meeting, said: “I am not sure why residents were told the meeting was full. Several rows at the side were empty and the council’s internal website was still asking staff to come on the morning of the meeting.”

A spokeswoman for Greenwich Council confirmed that 44 people with addresses outside the borough were refused permission to attend. She said: “This meeting was about the benefits of the Olympics for Greenwich, not about Greenwich Park. I don’t see why my council tax money should be used to pay for people from Lewisham to come to our meetings.”

The spokeswoman said that as many tickets had been issued as there were seats, but admitted that no allowance had been made for ticketholders not turning up. She added that a wide variety of organisations, including some opposed to the council, had been invited to attend and described suggestions that Vocus was mounting a “grassroots advocacy” campaign as “pathetic” and “laughable.”

Michael Goldman, of Nogoe, which campaigns against the equestrian events in the park – and was allowed to attend the meeting – said he was “amazed” that Blackheath residents with a “clear interest” in the Park were kept out. “We don’t need an undercover organisation to get grassroots support,” he said. “We’ve got grassroots support.”

The struggle continues…

Filed Under: Andrew Gilligan Tagged With: 2012 Olympics, Add new tag, Greenwich Park

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