Brace of Gasometers

‘I come here to your beautiful country -’ Mr Raj saw through the window bare branches, coil after coil of dirty clouds, washing on neighbour lines, forlorn pecking birds, a distant brace of gasometers.

Regent's Canal, Haggerston, Tower Hamlets, E2

‘- your beautiful country, I say,’ he said defiantly.

Queenstown Road, Battersea, Wandsworth, SW8

‘…So far I have had mixed career. Fights and insults, complete lack of sexual sustenance – most necessary to men in prime of life – and inability to find accommodation commensurate with social position and academic attainments…’

Imperial Road, Hammersmith & Fulham, SW6

From Anthony Burgess’ The Right to an Answer (1960)

Lower Lea Legacy

I think that the proposed Olympic site will end up as something that isn’t used, just a ghost of the future.

Iain Sinclair (2004)

Sugarhouse Lane, Stratford, Newham E15

It’s important to recognise that the London Games are a catalyst for what will be the biggest regeneration project in Europe. We face a big challenge but also a big opportunity one that we want the whole of the region to benefit from.

David Higgins, CEO of the Olympic Delivery Authority (2006)

Stratford High Street, Stratford, Newham, E15

The Olympics will represent a drain on our purses, a waste of our time, a new nadir in our national prestige and a political debacle that will have public servants blaming each other, with the requisite and costly inquiries, for decades to come.

Will Self, The Observer (2006)

Wick Lane, Bow, Tower Hamlets, E3

The Lower Lea Valley is currently characterised by large areas of derelict industrial land and poor housing. Much of the land is fragmented, polluted and divided by waterways, overhead pylons, roads and railways. My aim is to build on the area’s unique network of waterways and islands to attract new investment and opportunities, and to transform the Valley into a new sustainable, mixed use city district, fully integrated into London’s existing urban fabric.

London Mayor Ken Livingstone (2007)

Stratford High Street, Stratford, Newham, E15

This eastern fringe, the capital’s last remaining wilderness, represents an unruly kind of beauty. The overgrown, tumbledown roughscape of pylons, dirty canals and industrial warehouses that it offers is the antithesis of the slicked-up, gentrified heritage city that boom-time London is in danger of becoming.

Sukhdev Sandhu’s Hymn to the East End, The Telegraph (2005)

White Post Lane, Hackney Wick, Tower Hamlets, E9

The Government is committed to delivering a sporting legacy for young people, and to bringing back a culture of competitive sport in schools. School sport is in a good position in this country – and we give thanks to the thousands of people in schools, and in communities, who make sport happen every day. However, levels of competitive sport are not as high as they should be.

Plans for the legacy from the 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games (2010)

Stratford High Street, Stratford, Newham, E15

Foreseeable requirements for public sector funding were excluded from the estimates at the time of the bid to host the Games, giving an unrealistic picture of the expected costs.

House of Commons Committee of Public Accounts, The budget for the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games (2008)

Wick Lane, Bow, Tower Hamlets, E3

I hope Britain shows the society and the country it is in an extraordinary setting. 205 nations, thousands of competitors, thousands of visitors, I just want Britain to be shown at its best, and I hope people feel proud of what we have delivered.

London 2012 chairman Lord Coe (2011)

Olympic Stadium, Stratford, Newham, E20

If there is going to be a legacy, we need to plan now. We see no evidence of that planning.

Michael de Giorgio, chairman of a report by the Centre for Social Justice titled More Than A Game: harnessing the power of sport to transform the lives of disadvantaged young people (2011)

A Season in Hell

A while back, if I remember right, my life was one long party where all hearts were open wide, where all wines kept flowing.

Marylebone Road, Westminster, NW1

One night, I sat Beauty down on my lap.—And I found her galling.—And I roughed her up.

Tontone Street, Folkestone, Kent, CT20

I armed myself against justice.

Queenstown Road, Wandsworth, SW8

I ran away. O witches, O misery, O hatred, my treasure’s been turned over to you!

Democracy Village, Parliament Square, Westminster, SW1P

I managed to make every trace of human hope vanish from my mind. I pounced on every joy like a ferocious animal eager to strangle it.

Gerry Judah's Auschwitz-Birkenau Model, The Holocaust Exhibition, Imperial War Museum, Lambeth, SE1

I called for executioners so that, while dying, I could bite the butts of their rifles. I called for plagues to choke me with sand, with blood. Bad luck was my god. I stretched out in the muck. I dried myself in the air of crime. And I played tricks on insanity.

From Arthur Rimbaud’s A Season in Hell (1873)