Iain Sinclair: London 2012 Olympics development project provokes Welsh psychogeographer's rage

'The development seeks to emulate the much-loved planning of Maida Vale and other parts of Victorian west London,' writes Rowan Moore, 'where the interiors of blocks are given over to gardens shared by residents.' Photograph: PR

'Around the bottom of the blocks are bands of what are called “town houses” – three-storey units with further floors of flats stacked on top of them.' Photograph: PR

'There is a degree of calm to the buildings, compared to the frenzied gesticulations, the visual shouts of “buy me, buy me” that typify most works of regeneration'. Photograph: PR

'The village also features such radical ideas as balconies that are big enough for a table and chairs and it is all made of solid, enduring-looking stuff rather than the ticky-tacky cladding favoured by most urban home-builders.' Photograph: PR

'There are the attempts of different architects to liven up the basic formula – explorations of the expressive possibilities of rearranging windows, for instance – but they can only go so far.' Photograph: PR

'It has to be said that the look of the village is a tad forbidding, not indeed very villagey at all.' Photograph: PR

'The architects are all fine people, but they struggle to overcome the relentless order of the grid and the construction.' Photograph: PR

'Although the original masterplan had the best intentions to join up the village with nearby neighbourhoods, it has a disconnected feel. If you want to walk to the centre of Stratford, and the tube station, you must first cross the giant concrete trench of Stratford International station and then creep round the inhospitable edge of the Westfield shopping centre.' Photograph: PR

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Having viewed the pictures, I can quite understand Iain Sinclair's objections. I feel I'm looking at the sink estate of the future.

I wonder what the next generation of 'feral rats' will make of Anish Kapoor's Olympics sculpture, already visible on the Central Line between Mile End and Stratford?

Bumped as a reminder of the first post on this thread: a review of Iain Sinclair's "Ghost Milk", which I've now finished reading.

eddie wrote:'Around the bottom of the blocks are bands of what are called “town houses” – three-storey units with further floors of flats stacked on top of them.'

Just to clarify--townhouses look like this (and do not have additional units built on top of them).

Ben Jennings on security at the Olympics

Missiles are to be installed on flats during the Games and snipers will patrol the skies.

I wonder whether my block of flats is one of those selected to have all this military hardware on the roof.

Duckweed on the Limehouse Cut canal near my place.

When I posted another photo on another thread (can't remember which) of the Limehouse Cut duckweed, Pinz suggested that this might be caused by an excess of nitrates in the water.

I've subsequently learned from Iain Sinclair's book on the Olympics project ("Ghost Milk"- see first post on this thread) that the Olympics Park in Stratford was constructed on the site of many so-called "dirty industries", including the maufacture of fertilisers- which appear to have leeched into the water table of the surrounding area, if the photo above is any guide. So Pinz was correct.

The same Olympics Park site was once the home of a factory manufacturing watches with luminous (i.e. radioactive) dials. In the course of construction, dust containing high levels of radioactive Thorium has been blowing freely onto surrounding residential areas. Great.

Promoted as "The Greenest Olympics ever", it's also worth noting the bulldozing of local residents' allotments to make way for the Olympics Park and the air miles involved in printing the tickets for the games ABROAD.

At least part of Iain Sinclair's venom appears to be justified.