London 2012 Olympics diary: Pamela Anderson coming to the Games?

Pamela Anderson could be lighting up London during the Games (Photo: REX FEATURES)

Pamela Anderson was brought up to date with all things Boris Johnson – and Olympics – when she attended the Vivienne Westwood catwalk show at London Fashion Week on Saturday night.

Her date for the evening was the Mayor of London's head of marketing Daniel Ritterband, who was overheard convincing her the athletic action at Stratford would be well worth returning for.

The breakdancing Business secretary

Boris was so upbeat about the economic impact of the London 2012 Olympics he said Business Secretary Vince Cable would not only be smiling, he would be breakdancing down Whitehall.

Johnson didn't give any hint as to which sectors would boom, but noted of previous Games: "In Beijing people made money out of the vast types of beers and in Sydney, I am told, they made money out of flat screen televisions and sales of condoms".

GREAT competition for Games sponsors

The government is looking to add four million tourists and £1 billion to the economy on the back of the Olympics, with Prime Minister David Cameron launching the GREAT Britain campaign this week.

But curiously no one has told the Government of their own strict Olympic advertising restrictions, banning non-Olympic sponsors from making an association of the Games to their business.

Technically the taxpayer is the biggest sponsor of all, with £9.3 billion spent on construction and Games activities, and of course the Government is going to promote the Games, but among the GREAT Britain campaign's supporters were five companies in direct competition to Olympic sponsors.

The ambush marketing people have raised their eyebrows.

From flat water to frozen water

While 11 sailors were the first of 570 Team GB athletes officially named this week, the Olympic sailing team manager Stephen Park has a few non-nautical duties, like barreling headfirst down a skeleton track in Austria later this month.

Park is consulting to the bob-skeleton winter Olympic team and he has insisted on at least one death-defying run.

Party starts now for modern pentathlon

A spiritual home of modern pentathlon – the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst – has started a 12-month celebration until the Olympic Games, with General Sir Peter Wall, head of the British Army, hosting Olympic champions, Jim Fox, Stephanie Cook and Heather Fell last week.

Wall was a former national junior champion, but the most famous modern pentathlete was George S Patton, the US army general who competed at the 1912 Stockholm Olympics.

Sandhurst will host a display of modern pentathlon artefacts, including the  King Helenos Shield, a priceless bronze shield weighing 30kg, which was first presented to the winning team at those Stockholm Games.

Crisis? What transport crisis?

Transport for London chief executive Peter Hendy has identified five critical hotspots of potential conmmuter chaos during the Olympic Games if 30 per cent of people don't change their travel habits, travel earlier, later or not at all, and has warned the gates to the stations of Canary Wharf, Canada Water, London Bridge, Bank and Monument could be closed at peak times during the Games.

Transport minister Theresa Villiers said the Olympic demands on transport would be "significant and severe" but an experiment at the Department of Transport showed 69 per cent of staff could still maintain their normal workloads despite changing their travel habits or working at home.