Paris 2012? Non...

Since the Brits learnt better from the Americans how to do last-minute lobbying than the French did, and because of Tony Blair willing to take three days off his packed schedule to travel a few thousand miles to do some personal lobbying, London will host the Olympics in 2012 instead of Paris.

Hopefully, this will mean improvements in the Tube, such as multilingual "Mind the Gap" signs.

I've found a couple of interesting quotes from newspapers describing the aftermath of the process.

I have been to London a number of times, and know that it will do an exceptional job as 2012's host city. King William will invite President Rodham Clinton and Vice President Obama to sit in his private box. The opening ceremony will feature very good music by Mick Jagger and Paul McCartney as their nurses push their wheelchairs into the stadium. --- Mike Downey, Chicago Tribune

"By late morning, Louis Troise was one New Yorker who did not realize his city had lost. He had to learn it in the worst way, from a reporter who simply blurted out the raw facts. He took the news well. It helped immeasurably that he had not yet heard that New York had submitted a bid for the Olympics. -- N.R.Kleinfeld, New York Times.

The Guardian reports on a Madrid-London, or more accurately, a Samaranch-Coe deal, that helped swing the vote. Note that both Madrid and London organizers had denied the existence of such a deal beforehand. Plenty of good stuff on how, to quote Daley Thompson's T-shirt (he has a history of interesting, and not always PC, t-shirts), "Seb and Co put the Great back in Britain".

The Guardian also reports in depth on London's superb presentation that stood out from all the others. You can find it on the BBC London 2012 site.

Meanwhile, Neil Chandler in the SF Chronicle writes that

In the normal course of events, we Brits would by now be indulging in our real favorite sport -- a grumbling, blame-seeking inquest. ... We prefer to retreat to the sidelines and moan how we never manage to get anything done.... But it dawned gradually that another time-honored British tradition did indeed fit the occasion: laughing at the French...

So how sweet to see the French president with oeuf on face. Even sweeter was the thought that his careless sideswipe at the blameless Finns -- that their grub's even worse than ours -- may have cost Paris the Games. London beat Paris by four votes. Two more votes for Paris would have meant a draw. Two of the International Olympic Committee voters are Finnish.