Good morning and welcome to the Olympic Park in London.

Today is my first full day based at the Olympics. I've spent the past 6-8 months trying to balance my day-to-day commitments on the KM Group Sportsdesk with building-up to the Greatest Show on Earth TM.

Let me tell you, it's not as easy as you might think. The Olympic Games has become all-consuming over the past few months and I'm pretty sure we could have filled a paper with solely Olympic stuff these past few weeks, but it's important to continue to spread the word of cricket, bowls, football, rugby, bar billiards et al, because they're still going to be there in October... the Games of the 30th Olympiad will not.

So how come the KM has got a guy covering the Olympic Games? Good question. Just consider us (and me in particular) very lucky! I am one of only a dozen local  journalists across the UK who have been given accreditation to these Games. It basically allows me to concentrate on covering all our Kent athletes (I've been banned from using the word Kentlympians, sadly!) and should get me in to every session of every sport at which I'm needed. What happens when two local athletes are competing in different sports at the same time? We'll cross that bridge when we come to it!

Like many of you will be, I'm travelling up from Kent each day on public transport. I'll walk to the station then catch a train to Ashford, then hop on a high-speed service and, bingo, half an hour later I'll be emerging from Stratford International and into the centre of the world.

For that is what it feels like already. Before I left home this morning I flicked through the TV channels. Every breakfast TV show had an Olympic Studio, or an Olympic Park backdrop or some kind of Olympic feature. This is some kind of a very big deal. It was only just over an hour between me switching off the box and seeing the view for myself.

The Olympic Village is filling up nicely. I was here a few weeks back for a preview, and it already looks warmer and lived in, with colourful flags from all corners of the globe hung from balconies and windows flung open while all-around there's the hushed silence of supremely fit human beings treating their God-like bodies to a lie-in.

Now you may have heard about security issues at the Games, and the need for several thousand members of the British Army to be on site to help with security. Well, I saw them for myself this morning, and what a fine job they were doing, processing people through the airport-style security cordon.

I bantered a bit with them, asking if they were pleased to be here.... "I'd rather be on holiday," joked one, but they agreed that they were involved in something pretty special. It's important to remember that.

Just so you know, I'm up here every day, I'll be providing live text updates to www.kentonline.co.uk/olympics once the Games begin and am already tweeting non-stop using @kentonline2012 - I am also due to be providing Games previews and updates on kmfm every morning and during the lunchtime news bulletin. Phew.

Hooray for the business people who have called for the HS2 to go ahead.

At long last, a real-world case is made for a project that would - albeit belatedly - put the UK on the right track in the new era of international high-speed rail travel.

We know all too well in Kent about the disruption and damage that construction causes. It was horrible while it lasted. There were ugly scars on the landscape.

But engineers did a great job. The wounds have healed. For all the protests about HS1 many years ago - similar to those we hear along the proposed HS2 - Kent now has a superb high-speed service, even though some of the advantages have come at the expense of old-style train performance.

Okay, fares are high but increased prosperity brings more wealth.

High-speed rail is slowly transforming the economy, with house prices leaping in towns like Ashford, Gravesend and Folkestone which are well plugged into the service.

It’s not just about people travelling to London, it also encourages people to commute into Kent, adding to the county’s skill base.

The same scenario will apply to Thanet when Manston, for example, has a Parkway station and journey times to London fall to an hour.

As for the feared landscape damage, few people now complain about the environmental impact of high-speed trains. It now blends into the landscape.

Initial Kent protests succeeded, forcing the then Government to abandon the initial route through South Darenth in favour of a northerly route. But thank goodness the principle of high-speed to the Continent was retained.

No doubt there were protests from residents between Settle and Carlisle about a “damaging” new line in Victorian times, but it is now cherished as a scenic and engineering wonder.

HS2 to Birmingham and beyond promises economic growth on the back of faster journey times.  It should help bridge the widening North-South divide.

The Chilterns are a precious asset but skilful - and no expense spared - engineering can mitigate the impact.

The French have led the way on Les Grands Projets while the UK is usually late into the big idea, frightened off by cost or public protest.

HS2 is a bold initiative that should be welcomed. OK, there will be pain, and plenty of fury from affected locals. But as we have found in Kent, both are temporary. The longer-term economic gain for the UK will be immense – and it should not be just business people who can see this light at the end of the tunnel.

Many years ago in fact as far back as 1264 there was a town called Meregate, which later became known as Margate. Steeped in maritime history it also became a very popular holiday resort for both rich and poor.

Inventions such as the bathing machine a contraption that was wheeled out to sea for both men and women to change into their costumes, made the experience of swimming ‘proper’ and drew more and more holidaymakers.

Margate was on the rise and both the famous and not so famous made a beeline for the stunning beaches, warm sunshine and good old Kentish beer. Songs and poems and films were made about Margate and families enjoyed each other’s company. Life was good for Margate. Well, if we ignore the mods and rockers having a pop at each other in the 1960s…

But in a cruel twist of fate Margate fell out of vogue. Gone were the wealthy tourists, and instead, Margate became home to desperadoes’, and many economic migrants, as well as many disenchanted Londoners sent to Margate by the various councils of London to enjoy the town and live free. Well almost.

The Victorian pier was largely decimated by a storm in 1978, mysterious fires destroyed buildings, unemployment started to climb and property prices headed south.  The UK was in financial turmoil in the 1980s, and Margate began to suffer more than most.  One newspaper called Margate ‘Britain’s Top Ghost Town’ and they didn’t mean of the spooky kind.

But hey presto, a glimmer of hope was there in the Noughties. But some evil landowners, it was said, decided to offer ‘incentives’ or might have been ‘bribes’ to some land and estate agents and not to pass on offers from buyers to sellers.  It was so they could buy them on the cheap! Boo I hear you say, and you would be right. Allegedly.

Huge government grants became available and suddenly the money was gone and some evil people might have trousered the lot. Allegedly.

Humble shopkeepers were asked for more rent and when they could not pay, they were chased to the end of the globe for the funds. Allegedly.

A huge gallery then appeared in 2011 with much acclaim, and with the gallery came the crowds. Many coming down to Margate yet again in mechanically propelled vehicles, as well as something called HS1. 

With the crowds came the sunshine, but beneath Margate’s rebirth, a few of those who felt wronged and a few with morals decided to start to expose those people, which they thought were responsible. Their aim is to make Margate the great place it deserves to be, without the alleged corruption. Like all good stories, there is bound to be a happy ending…

There were some surprised looks on faces - not least among cabinet members - at the full Medway Council meeting.

Protestors were out in strength to protest about the toilets - or lack of them - in Chatham.

At the centre of their campaigning was the 20p to have a pee revelation from the Pentagon Shopping Centre management.

They have taken over the council's toilets, accepted a regeneration dowry of £200,000 to rebuild and run the toilets, and now plan to charge.

The fee is being introduced by the management in a bid to stop needle-pushing and other anti-social behaviour (including the occasional druggie death).

Meanwhile there could be hope for the desperate, the elderly and nursing mums: Cllr Alan Jarrett told me the toilets in the new bus station should be free.

At least, they were going to be free until the scale of the economic crisis called that into question.

***

Cllr Les Wicks did a startlingly good impression of General de Gaulle last night.

The councillor was facing a call - some would say a suggestion - that he should resign over the way the Schools Adjudicator recently ruled against some of his primary school closure and merger plans.

There was a very firm, if anglicised, "Non!" to the call.

Nor was there an apology.

Meanwhile the handful of mums from St John's certainly knew how to make their views known.

Cllr Wicks lives to fight another day.

So do the schools.

***

One would think that if you were in power for the first time for 80 years politicians would be queuing up to make a name for themselves.

But Andy Stamp - one-time deputy leader of Medway's Liberal Democrat councillors, defeated general election candidate and popular character in the community - suddenly announced he was no longer recognising his party whip.

He has, instead, joined the Independent councillors.

It's not so much a walk across the chamber, more, a slide across from one table to the adjacent one.

But it is significant, and comes hard on the heels of grouses that he wasn't getting the support he expected during the election campaign.

***

It costs £140 to buy a first class ticket from Rainham to Birmingham by train - and a similar sum to come back.

But if you chose an offpeak train it can cost almost the same just to go to London.

Comparing trains on June 28, a check of the website, Raileasy, shows a return ticket on the HS-1 service to St Pancras at 10.15am costs £17.80. It costs just £1.20 more to carry on by the tube and Virgin Trains to make the return trip Birmingham.... using the same trains.

Something is radically wrong with our rail system.