… because maybe the sight of Mo Farah breaking free to win the 10,000 metres as if he’d just looked up and seen the last through train to Lewisham pulling into Pudding Mill Lane (and had temporarily forgotten that Pudding Mill Lane was closed for the duration of the Games in case people tried to use it) struck a chord and, if it did, we’d love to know. [read more…]
A wet back garden in Leyton on a Monday afternoon; all is still, before the roar. The plants wave their leaves to the wind, and the warmth of 80,000 cheers.
by Matt Haynes
They smile for photos;
Their shoulder-mounted rifles
Brush the toddler’s hair. [read more…]
Olympic Park, Hogwart’s Gate
by Jude Rogers
Girl: So which way do we go?
Boy: [lugging case behind him] Look! There’s signs further up.
Girl: Oh, yes, the big pink si… [steeplechases up to them] Oh.
[read more…]
In a trackside back garden grainy with dusk, somewhere between Dagenhams East and Heathway, a solitary fat boy steadies himself, uncloses his eyes, and shoots one final, match-winning basket.
by Matt Haynes
It’s hard to believe that it’s over ten years now since I first found myself gazing out wistfully over the Ethelred Estate from the top floor of a house just off Lambeth Walk still part-owned by Lambeth Council and wondering why there seemed to be so many helicopters around these days. [read more…]
“Put the change in the jar, love,” he says, adding: “see you next season.” Then, leaving the Royal Cafe, he heads out into Leyton High Road, red replica shirt stretched tight across a stomach that’s now a heaving last-match mess of sausage, beans and fear. Come on you O’s…
A disturbing investigation into the effects the Olympics has had on the speech of young women in the Walthamstow area. [read more…]
A rollicking Olympic-inspired fantasy in which George Osborne is pursued across Hackney Marshes by irate former council tenants from Stratford before being beaten to a pulp in the old Lea Bridge filter beds. [read more…]
