What is the difference between Hackney and hackneyed?

Hackney is an underprivileged east London borough which it is hoped will benefit greatly from new facilities, infrastructure and jobs created as London prepares for the 2012 Olympics.

Hackneyed are the dreadful “photo opportunities” devised by PR specialists in London, like this one intended to promote the 2012 Olympics.

Even with Lord Coe, two other Olympians, Tower Bridge, a double-decker bus, a cabinet minister and a chorus of Beefeaters, this was never going to set pulses racing. So why bother to send a photographer?

Well, with IOC inspectors in town to report on Londons progress there was a very good chance that the unveiling of the 2012 Olympics tour bus would reignite furious local controversy surrounding the official logo.

Tower Bridge was already there, but it must have taken considerable organisation to get bus, Olympians, politician and press in the same place at the same time, without the lure of free food and drink.

So what was supposed to happen? What was the concept behind it, the message they hoped to convey? Would everyone get a ride on the bus? Would the Olympians set it alight and dance round it. Would it be floated down the river with Lord Coe at the helm and the minister water-skiing behind or was the bus a cleverly fashioned hot air balloon which would, on cue, rise gracefully into the sky and float over the City of London carrying the Olympic message to the nation? 

Not a bit of it. The concept was, this is the 2012 Olympic tour bus. Not sparkling, but pictures might still have made the papers with a strong enough news hook to hang them on, except for one thing. At no stage during the planning of this coup de théâtre does any practical consideration appear to have been given to what the whole sorry shambles was supposed to look like through a camera.

Double-decker bus with Olympic logo, Tower Bridge, beloved British Olympians, head of the Olympic bid, cabinet minister and Beefeaters (sorry Beefeaters have cancelled, the Yeoman Warders are available); on paper it would have sounded like the picture on the lid of a souvenir biscuit tin, all it lacked was Mary Poppins.

Unfortunately the way things were staged it was impossible to make that picture or anything like it.

Would it have been so hard to seek the advice of a professional at the planning stage? There was a clue at the top of the e-mail sent by the PR team to all the picture desks it was a photocall.

They obviously know where we are, now to persuade them to talk to us.