Looking back at London2012

Imagine is a song that evokes many memories of the past but after tonight's closing ceremony it will also be associated forever with London2012.

My best memories of the Olympics however include the amazement on Kate Copeland's face as it dawned on her that she and Sophie Hosking had won the gold medal in the lightweight double skulls,  the sheer joy of Laura Trott on winning gold in the women's Omnium at the velodrome and Bradley Wiggins riding a lap of honour outside Hampton Court palace after the men's time trials as he sought out his family in the crowd.

By tomorrow no doubt the Olympic park will be all but deserted, but what a Games to look back on.

Congratulations to everyone who brought the dream to life and may the legacy live on!

Hats wigs and facepaint

The fact that Germany beat Netherlands 2-1 in the Men's Olympic Hockey final yesterday has completely defeated my theory that the result was predetermined by the proportion of spectators turning out in national colours. Take the preliminary match I watched last week when Netherlands beat New Zealand. The stands were a sea of orange. Synthetic orange wigs and brightly coloured jackets were everywhere.

Supporters from the first match were still shouting Ozzie Ozzie Ozzie but black was nowhere to be seen other than on the pitch. The result? 5-1 to Netherlands. I was hopeful then when I saw plenty of red white and blue wigs as well as masses of facepaint in the union flag colours amongst the bronze medal match spectators yesterday. Sadly a result for TeamGB was not to be. Australia were the better team on the day winning 3-1. The green and gold hats, though definitely in the minority, were jubilant!

Netherlands 5 New Zealand 1

When I applied for tickets to the Olympics over a year ago it never occurred to me what an early start would be needed to get to the stadium by 8:30am. However the one pair of tickets I managed to get out of the ballot was to see the morning session of Hockey in the Olympic park itself and I wasn't about to turn down the opportunity. The feared security queues didn't materialize but it still took over 2 hours door to door from Surrey having left home a little before 6am. 

Bakker scores to make it 3:1

 By lunchtime we'd sat through 3 seasons of English weather, getting frozen, sunburnt and finally drenched, but we'd seen some superb hockey: Australia versus Argentina and New Zealand versus Netherlands.

Wiggins Wins Gold

Can there ever have been so many people lining the streets of Surrey as for this week's Olympic cycling events?

Bradley Wiggins (Gold)

Chris Froome and Bradley Wiggins were amongst the last few riders today and you could hear each of them approach by the roar going up from the crowd.

Chris Froome (Bronze)

Today's cycling time trials  had  brought out the crowds in their thousands at Hampton Court, and where I watched the race, teamGB's supporters were stretched along both sides of the road as far as the eye could see. There were flags being waved everywhere and a general mood of anticipation for Bradley's success, fed by onlookers with smartphones keeping us up to date with the unfolding action further on up the course.

After the last competitor had passed I  squeezed through the throng making their way on foot or by bike back home or to cars parked all along the road leading up to the A307. This quiet leafy lane was unrecognizable from its usual mostly tranquil self. I made it  in time to see the finish and  see Bradley Wiggins and Chris Froome collect their gold and bronze medals respectively.  What a day!

The dash home to see the finish

40 seconds from Gold

I watched the men's Olympic road race today and briefly glimpsed team GB as they raced through Oxshott, still leading the peloton.

They were still around 50 seconds behind the leaders at that point and the riders were all going so fast that it seemed an impossible dream that they could catch up in the remaining distance. The eventual 40 seconds between  Mark Cavendish and  the winner,  Kazakhstan's Alexander Vinokourov, sounds like nothing until you've stood on the street and experienced just how far they ride in that short space of time. I'm truly in awe!

Following the Torch

I've often whistled through the various stops en-route to Waterloo but  on day 66 of the torch relay  I found myself standing on the pavement not far from Earlsfield station, mingling with young families eagerly awaiting the torch's arrival. There was a carnival atmosphere as a steady procession of Samsung quad bikes, police motorcycles, the torch relay bus itself and a variety of open top buses belonging to various sponsors made its way South. There was waving of flags by those taking part in the procession, both in the street   and on top of the buses.

Onlookers waved miniature flags and photographers from the world's TV channels attempted to capture the sights with enormous camera equipment. Their efforts may have been more professional but the pictures from the onlookers will hold lasting memories.

Ticket Machine Blues

Yesterday I missed my train. I could blame myself for not leaving more time. I could blame my own meanness for not parking in the station car-park, still charging a flat  £5.30 at 3:30 in the afternoon when a town car park a 5 minute walk away charged £1 for the two hours I needed. I could even blame my own stupidity for not realising that the booking office was in fact open if I had entered the station from the opposite side. Most of all though I blame the fact that the platform-side ticket machine was in full sunlight. Its display could barely be read and the family in front of me wasted all the time remaining repeatedly having to start again when they pressed the wrong button. They gave up in the end but by that time it was too late. I could see what the problem was instantly when I made the same mistake. The button that appeared in the sunlight to be confirming the station selected was in fact asking you if you wanted to depart from a different station. No wonder they were confused.

Not only do ticket machines at out of town stations needed to be located better, they also need to be more plentiful. At my nearest station, not the one I used yesterday, there is only one, similarly sited with the same problems in the afternoon sunshine. I could have bought my ticket in advance and collected it from the machine but I'd still have had the same usability problem. We live outside the Oyster card zone so using such ticket machines for spur of the moment journeys is the only option when the booking office is closed.

I first looked at the usability problem of forecourt ticket machines a couple of years ago as part of a Human Computer interface project, so I'd be the first to admit that creating a more usable interface is not an easy task.  Smartcard ticketing may be the answer but not everyone will opt for this. A redesign of the machines to incorporate a barcode reader to read a mobile phone display so prepaid tickets could be collected with the press of one button would have solved yesterday's problem though.  Surely that can't be so difficult?