Though in hindsight it seems almost obvious, ‘London 2012’ has been made present to Londoners not so much in things like transport chaos (which, despite expectations, doesn’t seem that bad so far) but in the layers of mediation related to the event which have descended on London in the past few weeks. Rather suddenly, around London a whole series of banners, pavement stickers, information kiosks, information panels, uniformed volunteer helpers and all manner of temporary signs, usually indicting either venue directions or access restrictions. In short, the city has been resurfaced with the London 2012 brand: which revolves around the logo, the official colours (pink, blue, green and orange) and the font (which is all pervasive – I even noticed they used it for the numbers on the archery target). As the London 2012 Organising Committee puts it in describing its brand, these elements are “how we identify the Games, how we communicate our ambition, and how we drive excitement and enthusiasm for the Games” both emotionally and commercially.

But I saw a curious pavement sticker today outside Euston which seemed to indicate ‘filming allowed’. It is (barely) visible in the bottom right of the above photo. It had me thinking back to my run-in with Talkback Thames when I attempted to film them (Talkback Thames) filming The Apprentice at this exact same location, which was met with an authoritative-seeming and certainly stern rebuke. Now I’m not only wondering who it is that controls filming at such a location, and on what authority. I’m also wondering if this somehow another interwoven layer of the mediation of London 2012. That is, to rearticulate Kurt Iveson‘s language from his book Publics and the City, that this site outside Euston Station is both a venue (all the London 2012 brand stuff) but also an object (it can be filmed for wider audiences) of mediated publicness. I’m quite prepared, of course, to hear it’s just something banal like National Rail saying ‘normally we’d issue licences for filming here, to people such as Talkback Thames, but for the time being you have our general okay’ – though that’d still be intriguing. I’ll have to do some (not too serious) investigating to figure out what’s going on.