1765229523This weekend, Claire and I got to experience a rather unique thing: we got to fondle one of the Olympic Torch Relay torches. Our friend Becki is part of the Coca-cola organising team and she was allowed to bring one of the torches home for friends and family photos.

Claire and I certainly weren't going to miss out on this so arrived promptly at our allocated time slot. Before we could get our grubby paws on the torch, we were told we had to wear gloves to protect the gold plating, and we were given a nice factual run down about the torch, which in short is...

  • There are 8000 perforations, not holes, on the torch which represent the 8000 torch bearers carrying it across the country
  • The three sides to the torch represent the 3 previous occasions the UK has hosted the Olympics: 1908,1948 and 2012 and also the Olympic values of friendship, respect and excellence.
  • The torch will be on the road for 70 days and will visit over 1000 communities across the UK.
  • It will be lit by the rays of the sun in Greece on 10 May, before it does a week long tour round Greece, and then it'll be flown into RAF RNAS Culdrose (thanks Adrian) on 18 May in preparation for the start of the relay on 19 May.

Along with this we we told of photos were weren't allowed to take. I won't listing them all here, but suffice to say, if it's not legal, ethical, polite or is derogatory in anyway, you can't take the photo, and that includes treating it as a light sabre, lighter or huge fat joint.

Once all that was out of the way, I went wild and snapped tons of piccies. Here's me and the torch...

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I've whittled the number down to a sane 76 and have uploaded them to SmugMug here for all to see. Go on, have a look. You know you want to.