signifiers
I love when Brits get het up about something:
What is it about these Games which seems to drive the organisers into the embrace of this kind of patronising, cretinous infantilism? Why can’t we have something that makes us sing with pride, instead of these appalling computerised Smurfs for the iPhone generation?
CRETINOUS INFANTILISM! APPALLING COMPUTERIZED SMURFS! FRIVOLOUS POPPYCOCK! Absolutely glorious in their wrath, these Brits.
He’s got a point, though:

And let’s not forget the last stroke of marketing genius to come out of the 2012 games, the logo:

..which was promptly branded
a puerile mess, an artistic flop and a commercial scandal
This was made all the more ridiculous and sad by the variety of perfectly good alternate logos to choose from. I like this one (and I didn’t even create it):

See, that actually means something. Big Ben, the Union Jack...London! But no, they went with the logo that looks, at best, like a jumbled abstract pile of crap, and at worst, well...let’s just say that when you’re deliberately vague, you leave far too much open to interpretation.
