Yes, I was aware of the Sally Gunnel advert for EasyJet falling foul of Locog's policies (more info here: http://www.marketingweek.co.uk/locog-polices-easyjets-sally-gunnell-photo-shoot/3028755.article) Paranoia is the default position of the IOC, LOGOC seem to cranking it up to a higher level.

Thank you for the comments. Interacter, I have never said that such brand control is unacceptable. Rather it is inevitable, given the money that companies pay to be official sponsors of events such as the Olympics and the World Cup. To what extent will the 'brand police' be able to distinguish between an ambush marketeer and someone who just happens to rock-up blinged to the max in Nike? What will they do if group of spectators shows up all wearing identical 'meme-of-the-day' slogan T-shirts? If I was a producer of an 'edgy' current affairs TV show it'd be an experiment I would set up.

Thanks Lewis. Who was it that said that civil liberties, once given up are impossible to win back again? I think that a very real 'legacy' of the games will be the extent to which brands (and thus their owning corporations) will be able to determine spatial freedom in the city, often at very short notice. In the same way that the threat of terrorism and guerrilla warfare have completely refigured military strategy, so the spectre of ambush marketing has redefined brand strategy and corporate sponsorship. And the approach is identical: restriction of movement, screening, paranoia.

Wow, that's pretty profound. But it's true, Buran and Suprematism are both examples of hubris, of dreams reaching beyond capabilities.

Wibo, thanks so much for adding some fascinating detail to the genesis of the Rotterdam identity. Please let us know more about Henrion's work for KLM. I guess you wanted to push the precedent further back, you could look at Marcel Breuer's hexagonal travertine tiles on the facade of De Bijenkorf ("The Beehive") department store, completed in 1957. With it's sealed box exterior, and Naum Gabo sculpture outside, it's a very avant-garde design. More info here BTW, here is a link to the book that Wibo has written:Droom van helderheid by the great 010 publishers. It's a shame that this is currently only available in Dutch at the moment, because there is a great resurgence of international interest in Dutch modernist graphic design, as the recent Wim Crouwel exhibition at the Design Museum proves. I keep claiming that Rotterdam is an urban laboratory, and I still can't believe that they are still planning to knock down De Lijnbaan.

Thanks for the comments Thisnorthernboy. I think the hexagon lens flare is caused by the camera lens rather than the shape of the cupola window, a six-bladed aperture gives the hexagon shaped flare.

By having a clearly defined boundary between the boroughs, it would make it clearer to know where you were, and get a sense of how far other parts of the city are. In John Leighton's plan, a lamppost on every street-corner would identify which borough one was in, constantly reinforcing the identity of the boroughs. At the moment the boroughs are merely administrative districts, and do nothing to imbue a sense of identity or belonging. This is reflected in the current sorry state of the existing borough logos. Where some may see "a beautifully diverse and contextual set of brands and iconography", I see a hideous melange of the crass and the bland, with no coherence or sense of part of a greater whole, ie London. The similar-but-different vibe of the Japanese municipal flags, where the stylistic restrictions provide the parameters for a rich graphic presence. It would be good to see if each borough could come up with a defining 'katakana' that could be represented in a more unified way (see further this news story) @Mark Hogan: It's interesting to see different boroughs approach to traffic calming and cyclists. Barnet may be painting over the cycle lanes, but they've also got rid of the speed bumps. In contrast, Islington is the speed bump capital of the world, including on bike lanes. But in some ways these differentiators are to be welcomed. I seem to recall that in Birmingham, when you crossed into Solihull the roads were made from a red tarmac.

Well I wouldn't criticise Kirstie for being posh, or titled, as that's hardly her fault. But to call her father an "antiques dealer" when he was actually the chairman of Christies is a step too far, rather like saying your dad works at a petrol station when actually he's the CEO of BP. Subsequent episodes of Kirstie's Homemade Home have confirmed my suspicions that there's nothing made by Kirstie in her 'homemade' home at all. The format seems to be: Kirstie pitches up at local artisan, gets a demo, tries herself for 5 minutes, declares it the best thing ever, then pisses off to the next link. Then at the end of the show, local artisan schleps it over to Meadow Gate, bringing finished article, for Kirstie to bemoan how bad her bit is compared to the expert craftspersons. I think my lingering disappointment with it all is how it exemplifies the extent to which Channel 4 has dumbed down. Everything is surface, no substance. All the C4 stylistic tropes are present - the fast-moving camera work, the fast switching between two camera positions, the low angled pieces to camera while walking along, the sweeping long-boom shots, the pieces to camera while driving, the carefully chosen background music. All of this, developed over years of making house hunting shows and cooking programmes, has made these videographic cliches triumph over content, depth or meaning. So Kirstie's Homemade Home becomes so banal, televisual wallpaper, that I'd bet it utterly fails to inspire anyone to take up the crafts that Kirstie tries to demonstrate. It's cheap, mindless, schedule-filling slop, the idiot tube in the corner of the room blaring the exact inane, unquestioning consumerism that Kirstie is trying to rail against. So the format defeats the subject.