London Mayor Boris Johnson got stuck on a zip wire during an Olympic party Wednesday.
The portly mayor was pictured in his trademark black suit and shoes, holding two Union Jack flags and calling for a ladder in the drizzle as he dangled from the high-wire attraction favoured by schoolchildren in London's Victoria Park, where the Games are being shown on big screens.
"Unlike Team GB, he won't be bagging any gold medals today," said a spokeswoman for the mayor after the incident.
The zip-wire incident earned Johnson a "trending" spot on Twitter.
But the eccentric mayor was not the Games' only viral offering.
Another contender was a Youtube movie of the "happiest Olympic worker."
That film, of a Games volunteer speaking through her megaphone to drum up excitement, has picked up nearly two million hits - more than the 1.1 million real world visitors expected in London as a result of the Games.
In it, a deadpan woman, apparently ignored by passers-by, says her mouth is dry with excitement at the Games.
"I believe we're all cheering on the inside," she drones.
Johnson's foray followed complaints from businesses that his exhortations to commuters to avoid Games-related hotspots on the London Underground may have been too effective. Some sites have said business is down by as much as 30 per cent.
Games organizers - who have said they expect visitors to spend an extra $366.33 million in London and the United Kingdom during the Games - played down suggestions that the mayor's travel warnings had prompted an Olympics-related mini-recession in the capital.
The flow of vehicles on roads in London has fallen since the Games began as people turn to rail services to move around the packed capital, officials said.
Tube journeys - the British subway system - are 7.5 per cent higher than usual, national rail services are up five per cent, and traffic on the Docklands rail service to east London is up 65 per cent at record levels. Road traffic in and around central London has fallen about 17 per cent.
