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Liddle Britain

You get the Olympic logo you deserve

Rod Liddle

Wednesday, 6th June 2007

‘We’re fearless. We challenge everything, especially ourselves. We seek the truth relentlessly. We believe in we not me. And we mean it.’
Wolff-Olins mission statement

There’s been quite a fuss about the official new logo for the 2012 Olympic Games in London. People are aghast at the fact that it is a) hideous and b) cost £400,000. A child, a blind man, an ape let loose with a paintbrush could all have done better, the argument goes. Well yes, of course. The jarring amalgamation of irregular shapes does indeed bring to mind the sort of graffiti one finds on walls near a home for the educationally sub-normal — and there is the faint aftertaste of Adolf Hitler, too. Squint a little and the logo turns into a swastika; stare at it head on after a glass or two of schnapps and you can make out the bold letters SS. The logo is supposed to emphasise the ‘inclusive’ nature of the games. I suppose the Nazis were inclusive, in a fairly bad sense of the term.

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