Spiral Notebook: What is the point of a council, if not this?

Recently Mayor Lutfur Rahman blew tens of thousands of pounds on a longshot attempt to save himself from humiliation.

Despite a High Court judge telling him that his claim against communities secretary Eric Pickles was "hopeless" he still opted for a second hearing.

20 fascinating facts about east London

Recognise this? (See 17)

Working Mum: All dressed up with one particular place to go

GUEST BLOG

By Tabitha Ronson

It was a last-minute arrangement, and one that I had mixed feelings about, but MCM London Comic Con turned out to be an absolute blast.

I managed to get some tickets to the Sunday of the three-day event as I knew it would be Master A's Nirvana.

Spiral Notebook: Bridging the gap between now and the climate apocalypse

"Our greatest responsibility is to be good ancestors," said Jonas Salk, the polio vaccine pioneer.

Green: How east London keeps west London cool

What Shoreditch hipsters will tell you is confirmed by the environmentalists. It's east London that makes west London cool.

And that perennial role - as temperature regulator rather than fashion barometer - will become increasingly important as the capital comes to terms with the impact of climate change.

Spiral Notebook: After a flight of fancy, down to earth with a bump

Unless you have wealth, webbing or feathers, there is little glamour left in air travel.

The humiliation of the consumer is one that no other service would demand save perhaps Apple with an iOS upgrade or the NHS and its proctology (with whom, tellingly, air travel has a weird kinship).

Spiral Notebook: David, Goliath and the sickening politics of scorn in Tower Hamlets

You may believe that Tower Hamlets mayor Lutfur Rahman is right to challenge the Government's investigation into alleged financial malpractice at the Town Hall.

You may believe that the council's publicly funded bid for a judicial review is a necessary David-and-Goliath battle to protect a fragile branch of democracy from Eric Pickles' Communities Department.

Spiral Notebook: Lutfur Rahman - here comes the new boss, same as the old boss?

COMMENT

By Giles Broadbent

Racked by weariness and relief, the new Mayor of Tower Hamlets wept. He was hurt, he said, by accusation that he was racist, that he was a disciple of division.

Spiral Notebook: What's this? Cyclists are stopping at red traffic lights now

COMMENT

By Giles Broadbent

These are curious times.

If we were in a Shakespeare play, the Sudden Storm of Saturday and the current Opposition Of Jove would signal a cataclysmic disruption.

Spiral Notebook: A failure of tolerance

Tolerance has been taken hostage. Last week, three men were jailed for their actions as part of the east London "Muslim Patrol", a gang of extremists who tried to enforce Sharia law by bullying passers-by, first with megaphones and then with fists.

Purpose of the cable car is crystal clear

An advert now labels the cable car a legacy item. "Thanks to the Games," it reads, "you can now fly across the Thames and see London in a whole new light." This is part of a series of adverts branded "Gift of the Games."

Now, one could quibble, if one were so minded, over the direct correlation of the Emirates Air Line and the Olympic Games.

Obviously, traffic escalated over those summer weeks, although I suspect this was due to people killing time between events at Excel and The O2 rather than travelling between the two.

Besides, the Emirates Air Line was never touted as a piece of Games infrastructure and, through pricing and ticketing (and very nearly through its late launch) was excluded from routine travel plans.

However, my quibbling is muted. If someone wants to give the cable car an Olympic sheen I'm not going to get too vexed.

But, the truth is, the cable car never really made sense as an adjunct to the Olympics. However, it makes perfect sense as an adjunct to the Crystal.

Shamefully late for a resident of the area, I took my debut flight last week. Mostly because I got free tickets as part of the hoopla that surrounded the opening of the greenest building in the world, dedicated to innovative thinking about urbanisation.

Taking to the air, after a short walk from that squat, pointy building (the East Angular?), the Air Line made sense in a way it never did before.

From around the world, city mayors, digital thinkers and futurologists will convene at Siemens campus. The cable car (although disappointingly analogue) is a perfect mood music for their deliberations - dramatic, innovative, sexy, leftfield and a tiny bit bonkers. (Plus it opens up the lunching options for delegates.)

I should add that the journey over the Thames is London's latest must-do experience.

From a certain vantage point, with perspective foreshortened, when the loop of the river turns the Greenwich peninsula into an island and when the Royal Docks and river make a drowned archipelago of Silvertown, the notion of a Water City is as obvious as it is breathtaking.

PS The Crystal is reminiscent of the Millennium Dome - snazzy exterior but a purpose that is not entirely clear to the average passer-by. Fortunately, we're not picking up the bill for this one.

giles.broadbent@wharf.co.uk

Water Chariots slip past any problems

The voice of Boris - rapidly becoming the voice of doom - gave plentiful warning - the trip to the Olympic Park would be no cake walk.

Instead, expect jams, delays, armpits, fluster and confusion, he said. It might not have worked out quite like that (thus far) and the alarm, apparently, had its proper effect.

Water Chariots is riding the wave of congestion phobia with its unhurried, 40-minute, VIP jaunt up from Limehouse (or down from Tottenham Hale) to a private entrance direct to the park. Pre-bookings were healthy when I visited pre-Games.

For a ticket, £95 offers the VIP package, £45 for a slimmed down version and many thousands to hire out one of the smaller boats, aimed at corporate customers looking for a bespoke service.

A bit steep was the first reaction - "ridiculous" was the verdict of MP Jim Fitzpatrick - but the operator says this is not a water bus, it is an experience.

Founder Peter Coleman said: "Every day we hear about the potential for delays, disruption and unprecedented congestion. If you have paid for a once-in-a-lifetime experience why not take a stress-free, reliable and uncongested journey straight to the park."

Speaking before the Games and referring to the high end packages, CEO Bill Doughty, pictured, said: "Imagine you're in charge of corporate hospitality. Your worst fear is that you've taken two tables of 10 in a prestige suite.

"These are your nine best clients and you're looking at the two empty spaces at the table and you're thinking 'where are they' and someone rings up and says 'I'm stuck in Stratford in a queue at the station' or 'the DLR has broken and it's all gone wrong'. The stress is incredible.

"You just want the security of getting there and arriving."

Besides, this is no fly-by-night, here-today-gone-tomorrow operation, he said.

Water Chariots is part of the legacy with a contract to run the service for 15 years and with a self-imposed commitment to train up injured ex-servicemen. This was the dream of Mr Coleman whose son had done tours in Afghanistan and who is now working with veteran charities to make it a reality.

I took a preview trip to the Park in rare sunshine, up to the park on one of 17 smaller boats, which cater for 10, and back down on one of the 13 large boats, which take 70. It cost £3million to bring the fleet together.

The water is only three feet deep in most places so no cumbersome lifejackets are required ("stand up" would be the advice to the man overboard) and the sights of east London from the water are invigorating and informative.

From the delightfully named Bow Locks, the cottage where Zig and Zag ruled The Big Breakfast, the first glimpse of the Orbit, the old evocative warehouses with broken windows and fluorescent graffiti, the new converted warehouses, their balconies filled with pot plants.

Three Mills, where Danny Boyle was masterminding the celebrated Opening and Closing ceremonies and the eclectic gathering of riverside buildings. Tanks and armoured vehicles, we were assured, are just props from the studios but the soldiers pedalling the towpaths or under camouflage are unnervingly real.

On the tour, Mr Doughty told me the story. He said: "Originally, it was born out of an idea by Peter Coleman who is a passionate boaty type but has never been involved in any commercial boat operations.

"Two years after the Olympics were announced, he said to the ODA 'you've done nothing with the canals' and it said 'that's a good idea'. British Waterways said it would do a public tender to run a canal service exclusively down to the Olympic Park using the River Lea.

"He tendered. His was a whole romantic notion and he won. He played around with it for a bit - a nice idea, maybe a few boats, all very interesting.

"He didn't realise how interested people were, particularly event companies thinking 'we've got a completely unique experience now'.

"My background is in private equity and I have a philanthropic investment boutique that I run as well. I said if it's a partnership with British Waterways and if you can make 15 year legacy deal then I'm interested - I'll raise the money for you, I'll get you the boats, I'll do all of that, build you a team and bring the operation to life."

Expect it to be a hit. Especially in the second week once the horror stories of the first have filtered through and panic measures are deployed.

Go to water-chariots.co.uk

What's going to happen to the Olympic Park?

It's pouring down. We're sheltering in a food and drink concession in the shadow of the Orbit. The canvas roof is pounding with rain that puddles at our feet.

Tricky climate then for Andrew Altman to paint a picture of what's to come. Still, he gives it a go.

The chief executive of the London Legacy Development Corporation (a "government in exile") says: "You can imagine people will be able to sit out on the lawn, look at the Orbit, look at the stadium.

"There's going to be a permanent cafe, shop, a restaurant, you'll be able to sit out on the roof but in a public space. You think about the Serpentine gallery - we should want that in east London.

"In these landscaped rooms that we're going to create, each one is going to be very different - some will have an amphitheatre where there will be small concerts, some will be a kids' play area, one will be a splash pool. We want it to be fun for families."

But that's looking ahead to Easter 2014 when the retro-fitting has been complete, the temporary Olympic venues removed, the park transformed and transferred.

What he's keen to share with us is this: He and his team have taken a decision to set a tough deadline of a year after Games, July 2013, to begin re-opening the park in phases, North Park first.

He says: "Our programme is to get it open as quickly as we can, get it open from North to South, get it open from a year after the Games, from July 2013 till Easter 2014, phased re-opening, get people in the park so they can enjoy it.

"The easy decision would be to say you'll open the park in 2014, give yourself a lot of time, reopen the whole thing, when you've worked everything out but that's not really right.

"People are anxious to get on the park. We want to keep that memory, that excitement alive."

He doesn't want the park to slip from people's minds, become a thing over there to which they're not invited.

"You're not going to have the density of people to use the park right away, to make it active and feel alive. So we're going to have to do a lot to get people in here and feel like it's their park."

London Assembly member John Biggs agrees with the concern, if not the length of the entire project.

He said: "I understand they've got to take down a few bridges and structures but there's a risk the Olympic buzz will have faded away in two years' time. These engineers serve us and people should have a chance to enjoy the park. If the Olympics are to have a legacy, people need access to the park."

If Andrew Altman worries about anything, it is this. He said: "The first years of the park are key. If it's just a passive park, fine, it's nice, but it won't work.

"We've got to get people into this park. Truthfully, it's going to be through giving people stuff to do.

"We'll open up the North Park a year after Games, have people come out, have London's greatest picnic which will happen over that summer.

"The North Park is like a river valley. Quiet, beautifully landscaped, a place where people can sit out, have a picnic, kick a ball about."

If it's not raining.