Don't spoil the surprise

The Mirror has leaked details of the handover ceremony from Beijing to London for 2012 which a colleague of mine has spent the last year creating.

I can't claim that I am in on anything although we chewed over lots of my own mad and probably bad ideas and I was asked to keep schtum for a long time before it became official.

From what I know, the Mirror has done some clever guessing but I think the official press releases give enough hints as to what is involved. You wouldn't, for example, commission a street dance group to perform a ballet numbers would you? (but mixing the two might be visually interesting).

The London organising committee are not going to employ someone untested or expect something totally untried. 'God save the Teen' and the 'Manchester Passion' should give you some confidence in what to expect. I don't think it will, or should be, as extravagant as the rest of the closing ceremony and thankfully we've been promised there will be no dancing Beefeaters.

Given that everyone's in Beijing now and so many people are involved, keeping a lid on it must be impossible but I think it would be nice if the tabloids didn't spoil it for everyone and build up false expectations.

I just hope a jetlagged David Beckham doesn't miss that free kick through the Olympic rings from the top of the double-decker bus....(just kidding) but they'd better have a prepared tape to run just in case.

Olympic Ugly?

The director of Lanternhouse in Cumbria Stephen Powell once gave me a residency as a photographer to devise what has emerged as 'Cumbria Ugly'.

I have heard he is now going to devise the handover ceremony for London at the end of the Beijing Olympics.

I'm really pleased for him as he is a top, top bloke. Maybe my project will get a push along now.

Cumbria Ugly emerged from conversations and reflections on what people consider to be beautiful or ugly about this part of the world, and from a desire to create participative, accessible, sustainable work that goes beyond the Beatrix Potter take on what makes Cumbria special and engaging. It is also an opportunity for local communities and individuals to re-engage with environments which they either take for granted or feel antagonistic towards. The project would result in a number of artefacts, physical and virtual, including a Cumbria Ugly tourist map/guide, digital video presentations, workshops in schools and colleges and performance as well as generating debate, interest and publicity. The process would begin with a countywide image audit where Cumbria residents send in photos/images of what they consider to be ugly in the county.