Hello and welcome to London 2012 Blog (www.london2012 blog.co.uk).
As you may know, if you followed my Athens 2004 Blog, I'm a London-based chap who went out to Athens for the entire Olympics last year - watching 18 different sports over three weeks and making a minor star out of my friend Robin the Robin (read about our Olympics experiences and Robin's continuing adventures at www.robintherobin.com).
So, obviously, having had a whale of a time in Athens, I was pretty darn pleased when London was awarded the games on July 6. I took this photo down at Trafalgar Square in London, about an hour after the announcement. It was amazing the atmosphere in London that day, it's not often that Londoners (myself included) aren't grumbling about the city but there was a definite feeling of pride and pleasure that evening that we'd won the games against all expectations.
Of course, the following morning London was united again - but this time in shock, horror and grief as suicide bombers came to our city, killing more than 50 people.
But we're a stoic bunch, and while those of us in London on the morning of July 7 won't forget about it in a hurry, I think we're pretty determined to look forward to an amazing Olympic Games in 2012.
So that's the point of this blog really. To keep folks across the world up to date with the latest happenings (but in a fun sort of way) and to let you know how London's preparing for this amazing festival of sport in 2012.
If you're reading this, you're probably one of the first visitors we've had. Hopefully we'll see you again soon. And over the next seven (count 'em!) years...
Kit
