2012

Philatelists, take note: to commemorate the impending handover of the Olympic flag from Beijing to London, a series of four special edition stamps has been issued. ‘Cause there’s nothing that says “Olympic handover” quite like, er, stamps. Anyway, the set of four, on sale in …

Barging through the throngs of camera-wielding tourists in Leicester square of a Saturday afternoon, it might not seem that London is in dire need of more visitors. But Visit London is aiming to do just that, by launching a £4m advertising campaign this weekend to …

Team GB’s dominance in the Olympic cycling events was consolidated yesterday with Victoria Pendleton’s women’s sprint victory and Chris Hoy’s third gold medal of the Games (fourth of his career) closely followed by team mate Jason Kenny with the silver in the men’s sprint. Come …

Must Britain take any more? We are so unfamiliar with the feeling of national sporting success that the past surprising fortnight has tested the nation’s cardiac capacity beyond reasonable limits. Now, we have more excitement in store on Sunday, at the handover ceremony in Beijing. …

Quick quiz – which Olympic sport, flouting the notion of gender equality, is the only one without a women’s programme? Boxing is the answer. Despite the male pugilists getting to pound eachother into the ground, women’s boxing (not to be confused with foxy boxing) remains …

To London House (well, not literally: us what blog from our garrets by a candle’s flicker don’t actually have a budget, let alone one which stretches to Beijing), where a programme of upbeat seminars and lectures on lovable London is underway. The installation has been …

Since time immemorial people have cried out – ‘what we really need is a 23,000 seat multi purpose arena somewhere near Woolwich’. Of course this dream was finally attained last year with the reopening of the Millennium Dome O2 – back in the day, however, …

If you, like the people above in Trafalgar Square, kicked back in front Olympic TV yesterday you will have enjoyed Saturday’s festival of British medal winning which included “Team London” adding significantly to Emma Pooley’s silver. Top of the bill was the men’s four who …

If you don’t already welcome Diamond Geezer into your RSS reader, stick him there now. One of the foremost chroniclers of our fair city, the Geezer should be permanently on the required-reading list of anyone who loves London. This month, he’s surpassing even his own …

We may not have a freaky medal machine like Michael Phelps up our sleeves, but there is one activity the English will never be bettered at: moaning. While China explodes in a really quite over-the-top performance of national pride, a new survey shows that Brits …