Better a 'white dish' than a 'white pachyderm'

Marcus Binney, in The Times, expresses his disappointment at the newly revealed plans for the London Olympic stadium.

Best venue on the planet? More like a blancmange

Here the motive force behind the whole design is fear. Fear of adventure, fear of overspend and fear of leaving behind a white elephant. At the presentation the word legacy featured far more than the word sport. The main point of the brief was to ensure that an 80,000-seat stadium for the Olympics could be reduced to a 25,000-seater for community use and the occasional elite event.

Fear of overspend and fear of leaving a white elephant? Sounds like some common-sense has infiltrated the planning of this extravagant two week hop, skip and jump festival. Leaving behind a venue which might be of some use for years to come to the people of London who paid for the bloody thing in the first place, sounds like a perfectly reasonable idea to me.

True, practical elements appear to have been properly considered. There is a roof protecting two thirds of the spectators from rain but a large enough space for the centre to be filled with sunlight all day. There is shelter from the fierce winds that bedevil the Thames Estuary ensuring that the opportunity to break records will not be lost.

Right, so the spectators won't find themselves sopping wet, clinging to their seats for dear life and unable to make out what's happening on the track? And what is happening on the track may well be the breaking of world records. Well, that does it, scrap the plans immediately and build something iconic!