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Private Notes
Will Twenty Twelve website designer, Barney Lumsden learn to spell in time for the website re-launch on 1000 day day and the unveiling of the countdown clock?
A visiting group of dignitaries from Rio (Olympic hosts in 2016) is in London for the week. For Head of Deliverance Ian Fletcher and his team the mission is simple. All they have to do is to meet the Brazilian delegation and take them by coach to the Olympic Stadium where they will meet Head of LOCOG, Lord Sebastian Coe. What can possibly go wrong? As it turns out just about everything, from language difficulties through satellite navigation issues to burst water mains and phantom punctures. For the team it's a lesson in the importance of staying positive and focused even when you are literally travelling in completely the wrong direction.
It's another challenging week for Head of Deliverance, Ian Fletcher, and his team. Roman remains of potentially national significance have been discovered on the site of the aquatics centre, forcing them to contemplate radical last minute modifications to the design of the building. It's a matter of asking the tough questions. What would happen if they made the diving pool shallower? Will it matter if athletes have to go through the cafeteria to get from the changing rooms to the pool? Head of Brand, Siobhan Sharpe, has decided that the 2012 games should have their own unique audio logo. Head of Infrastructure, Graham Hitchins, is grappling with the sensitive issue of civil aviation flight paths during the period of the games, and Head of Sustainability, Kay Hope, is faced with recording her own video blog at the Olympic site itself.
Dave Wellbeck is an ex-athlete, double Olympic silver medallist and, in theory, a natural choice as brand ambassador for Raising the Bar - a scheme to get young people inspired by Olympic ideals. He's hard-working, conscientious and loyal, but the truth is that he has about as much charisma as a dimmer switch and his busy schedule of presentations in schools around the country is having the effect of switching young people off in their thousands. Ian and Siobhan have different views on how to deal with the problem. Head of Sustainability, Kay Hope, is forced to stand her ground in light of the discovery that there may not after all be enough wind to power the much-vaunted Olympic Park wind turbine.
There are only three applicants for the post of Curator of the Cultural Olympiad, so how difficult can it be to select the best candidate? As Ian Fletcher and his team find out, it's almost impossible. As if that wasn't enough, their ultimate boss, Sebastian Coe, has decided that it would be good for the profile of Twenty Twelve if members of the team entered the London Marathon. As the pressure on Ian as Head of Deliverance gradually increases, the cracks in his marriage are starting to get wider and wider. Could this possibly mean that the secret hopes of his ever-loyal PA Sally might one day move closer to fulfilment?
The decision to hold equestrian events in Greenwich Park is one of the most controversial choices made by the Olympic authorities. Among the many groups of people who are against it are local residents, led by self-styled maverick film director Tony Ward. Given that it's now over thirty years since he made his one and only successful film, Ward has had a lot of time on his hands to think about how angry he is and to plan his campaign of protest. It starts with the arrival of an enormous pile of horse manure on the pavement outside the Olympic Deliverance Commission offices and climaxes with a live head-to-head debate with Head of Deliverance Ian Fletcher on Radio 4's Today programme. Meanwhile in Ian's personal life, manure of a different kind finally hits the fan. Fortunately his ever-loyal PA Sally is on hand and completely ready to pick up the pieces.
This week the Algerian Olympic team threatens to boycott the Games after discovering that the Shared Belief Centre does not face Mecca.
It is the second half of a very long day. The Algerians issue a deadline of midnight for a solution to their demand for a Shared Belief Centre which faces Mecca, while the French threaten to pull out of the Games if a separate mosque is built. The team have to come up with an idea that will please everyone.
A decision must be made about the future of the Olympic Stadium, and Clarence House has asked the ODC to look at ways of linking the 2012 Olympics with the Queen's Diamond Jubilee - is 'Jubilympics' the perfect branding solution?
Siobhan's team design a major sexual health campaign, complete with a rap song "Get It On", which may upset the Catholic competitors.
Thirty two days to go, and with Head of Deliverance Ian Fletcher chairing the final ever meeting of the Twenty Twelve Security Committee's Special Catastrophisation Unit, it emerges that someone has been caught converting official Olympic starting pistols to fire live rounds. With the US Security Forward Team about to arrive to review security arrangements for the Games, the challenge is to find a way of handling this piece of news that doesn't involve shooting themselves in the foot. Meanwhile Kay Hope continues her one woman quest to find a Sustainable use for the Stadium post Games, and Siobhan Sharpe and her team at Perfect Curve take on the task of re-branding the Twenty Twelve Travel Advice Pack in such a way that no-one will ever have to read it.
Having been shot in the foot with a doctored starting pistol, head of deliverance Ian Fletcher discovers that he is also shortly to be without a PA as current PA Daniel Stroud has been offered another job. Back over at the offices of the ODC they try to work out how to launch Inclusivity Day in London on the same day that Seb Coe is launching Diversity Day in Oldham, when even though both Boris Johnson and Baroness Tanni Grey-Thompson have agreed to take part, no-one knows what Inclusivity Day is. Meanwhile over at PR company Perfect Curve, Siobhan Sharpe and her team devise a viral campaign designed to change the face of women's football without mentioning women's football following catastrophic ticket sales. The clock ticks on.
Ten days left to try to tie up loose ends before the Deliverance Team finally hands over to the Live Team. Issues include what to do when it's discovered that the fireworks planned for the Opening Ceremony will trigger all the ground to air missiles that are in place for the Games; how to respond when the environmentally sound charging stations installed for the official Olympic electric cars turn out to charge so slowly that the entire fleet will quickly become plugged in, unable to move; and how handle a much publicised competition to compose a special peal of church bells to ring in the dawn of the Opening Day but which so far has attracted only two entries. On a personal note, newly divorced and soon to be redundant Ian has some loose ends of his own, including what to do with the rest of his life and what to do about Sally.
