Olympic Torch in Brixton: On Saturday 26th June 2004 the official torch of the Athens 2004 Olympic Games, presented by Coca-Cola and Samsung came to London for a day and was ferried around by taxI from Wimbledon to Brixton, Peckham and elsewhere before a concert on the Mall in the evening.
Urban 75, a fantastic non-profit site about all things Brixton and surrounding areas of South London, running since 1995, gave information about the event and a discussion on its Forums, including this post from “Well-Known Member” Gramsci (I’ve taken the liberty of correcting a few typos – as I do with my own work) :
Like most sport this is something you cant avoid. At least England have lost in the Europe so wont get any more St Georges flag waving. Now its the Olympic torch. Its all so shallow and meaningless. We live in a world divided into a rich powerful West and a Third World dealing with IMF led “structural adjustment” and US military might etc.
Every few years a carefully staged fake coming together of the world as though we are all equal and happy with our lot. Parts of the Olympics remind me more of a Nuremburg rally. When its going on its like you have to know something about whose won or lost. If you don’t your not being patriotic or something.
Why is it that people who go on about sport eg football are quite often the most unfit people I meet?
My own post about the event on My London Diary also reflected a certain scepticism – here it is with the usual corrections.
Wimbledon can doubtless be blamed for the rain, and it fell relentlessly if not too heavily all Saturday morning as we waited around in Brixton for the precursor of the next example of sporting madness.
However it was an occasion for a little fun, with music and some attractive samba dancers from Quilombo do Samba, some athletic capoeira (a Latin American version of Morris dancing?) from Abada Capoeira and a little carnival from South Connections and Angell Town community group (and some drumming from Sandy Lamb) lifting the greyness.
Eventually the caravan arrived, although it was actually a black taxi, carrying an Olympic torch. I gave the photocall a miss so as to get in position to catch Frank Bruno ambling down the street with the torch, across the traffic lights and into Brixton’s high street [Brixton Road] where he passed it to a rather more attractive Davina Mccall, apparently a TV presenter (well, I don’t have a TV, so I wouldn’t know.)
It all seemed rather a sad non-event (thank goodness I missed the concert.) The whole Olympic bit seems little more than a commercial event now, publicity for the sponsors. Surely its time for a new Olympic Movement to pick up the old ideals again?
But in Brixton the carnival was bright and colourful and fun for those taking part and watching.
Looking back at it I think Gramsci was spot on, though I also fail to understand how anyone could design an Olympic torch to look like such an ordinary old bit of stainless pipe. People in Brixton are still rather short of bread and this was something of a crumby circus, but they made the most of it.
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