Iain Sinclair on the London Olympics

Iain Sinclair appeared on Start the Week (Radio 4) yesterday, holding forth entertainingly on the corporatised fuck-up which is the Stratford Olympic site - you can listen to it here (he is on second).

"It feels rather like the period after the American civil war when the carpetbaggers hit the south, this strange global regiment of weird money men and imagineers and promoters of every kind of scheme."

An obvious potential problem with cerebral commentary of such great, learned depth is that it can come across as too clever-clever, a bit smarty-pants - and, of course, as eloquent and effective a howl of outrage as it is, it could also come across as just that: an erudite whinge, lacking the prescription for an alternative. Mid-chat, Sinclair is asked pointedly by Richard Sennett: "Well, Iain, what would you have wanted instead?" .. and his response is reassuring, because he really has thought about what would have been better in the place of the alienation and sterility of the site as it is.

(Sinclair is also bang-on on the subject of the Gurkhas, hired to guard the site - I've passed by a few of them at the permanently-manned gates near the Greenway cycle path, and they seem perfectly chosen for the job.)