The Olympic Torch Relay

This morning the London Twenty Twelve Olympics 2012 Olympic Torch Relay hit town so The Wife and I, along with literally tens of others, lined the streets of Gillingham to watch the event:

OK, so this doesn’t quite show how many people there were, we had walked to find a slightly quieter bit. There were lots more people:

OK, so maybe ‘lots’ is a strong word. There were people, let’s just leave it at that! And don’t they all look happy?!

We hung around for a few minutes before the “Procession of the Sponsors” (my term ™) passed by. These were floats for Coca Cola, Samsung, Lloyds Bank, and they handed out a few freebies. The wife got a bottle of Coke, but there was no free TV from Samsung!

After a short while the torch bearer came into view and, accompanied by the security team, waved his way past us and down the street. I was hoping for a bit of drama, maybe a stumble, the flame going out, a mad woman (Gillingham has plenty of these) rushing into the street to tackle him, but there was nothing. Just some cheering from the crowd as he went on his merry way. It lasted all of about 20 seconds.

I didn’t realise that each torch bearer only got 300 metres each to run, which isn’t far. I reckon at a steady pace that it would last around a minute, maybe two if they’re slow.

On a side note, that Chinese take-away on the right, China Town, does the best sweet and sour chicken balls I’ve ever tasted!

So that was it. We stood around to watch a bloke jog slowly carrying a big metal candle. Cool, huh?