Fancy a swim at the Aquatic Centre with your kids? Need to use the car park? Better be sure in that case you’ve got cash to feed the machine because it won’t accept a card.

Friends took their two children aged 12 and 8 for what they said was an enjoyable swim. Enjoyable, that is, until they had to go home. They had overrun the free hour’s parking so had to pay £1.50, a perfectly reasonable charge. Only problem was the machine only took cash and they didn’t have any. In most cases you can pay a parking charge by card and they went round the different machines to see which one took a card. But none did.

Perfect casting for being hoist by his own petard. It's not everybody has their own Petard. The rich fat bastards have all the fun. That's not raw talent you know. They have the breeding you see. And the fagging. That and centuries of de Feffling about on a wet Saturday indoors with the croquet mallets.

Earlier reports of the closure of the London Fields Lido seem to have been exaggerated. According to Hackney an agreement was signed to allow the American Paralympic swimming team to use the pool 'for a few hours a day'. The website says the deal will mean 'local people can look forward to seeing Paralympic swimmers train and children of all abilities will receive coaching from top international athletes' and Hackney will receive various pieces of 'Olympic and Paralympic memorabilia' for its London 2012 archive.

London 2012 is claiming to be holding a consultation on its transport arrangements for the Olympics. Just to emphasise the vital importance of these arrangements, despite the enormous disruption this will cause, the webpage has Olympic athlete Karen Pickering saying 'Competing at a major event is stressful and nerve-racking enough for an athlete, we don’t want to have to think about transport and getting to our venues. Every little detail counts in an athlete’s preparations. When I was competing I knew exactly what time I needed to prepare, to get changed, to do my warm up, to get changed. Athletes need absolute confidence that the transport won’t let them down and impact on getting ready to perform at their best.'

Correction and apology, the Lido is not being taken over by the American Olympic team but by the Paralympic team - for a few hours a day, details not yet available - best to check with the Lido for times.

Let the Bejing Olympics of Global Re-branding and Marketing begin!

A talented young swimmer with dreams of winning gold at the 2012 Olympics died after pushing himself too hard in training.

Luke Jeffrey, 15, drowned after secretly getting back in the pool following his coaching session, an inquest heard. The county-standard swimmer, who was said to be pushing himself to the "absolute limit" to make it to the London Games, is believed to have blacked out while practising underwater lengths.

On the face of it, this should be a golden era for Britain's public swimming pools. The government is constantly urging us to do more exercise. And ministers have pledged to improve sporting facilities in the run up to the London Olympics in 2012. But despite that, hundreds of local pools are increasingly shabby and some are threatened with closure.