An official tour of the Olympic Park in London for the world’s media got off to an inauspicious start this morning when the buses taking journalists from the stadium to the athletes’ village managed to get lost.

Granted, the Olympic Park covers a vast area, more on the scale of an airport than a village, but the sight of two double-decker buses having to execute awkward three-point turns does not bode well with barely a fortnight to go to London 2012…

The Olympic Village, which will be home to 15,500 athletes during the Games, feels more like a small city, with swish apartment blocks that will no doubt become highly sought-after private flats when they are converted into affordable homes and sold off next year.

Lush, stripy green lawns between the blocks are dotted with fun sculptures, including a three-piece Chesterfield suite cast in solid plastic (less tacky than it sounds) and a life-size gorilla. There is even a wildflower meadow which the athletes can jog around.

Each of the 11 apartment blocks has a different theme; I am writing from the lobby of a seaside-themed residence, with deck chairs outside, pebble-print rugs and photographs taken by schoolchildren on British beaches cheering up the walls (Harry, 14, from Humphry Davy School in Penzance has done a particularly splendid job).

In a cupboard under a television in the lobby are the obligatory holiday games of Jenga, Monopoly, Trivial Pursuit, dominoes and chess, still shrink-wrapped ready for when boredom sets in.

Condoms?