I am the Olympic Grinch
I am the Olympic Grinch. The Olympic Flame has arrived and the Olympic Torch is on its all inclusive strictly non elite politically correct 8,000 mile jog round Britain. I have been told again and again from every popular medium that this is it; this is when it gets REAL, when the Olympic Fever starts to grip!
There are things I like about the Olympics and to which I am looking forward.
I find the pursuit of excellence but honest young men and women commendable right and good. I particularly like the one’s that look healthy rather than just ultra fit or strong. The sailors are like that.
I am looking forward to the rowing and the cycling where Britain’s men and women excel.
I shall no doubt be charmed by a brilliantly conceived and choreographed opening and closing ceremony, thanks to Danny Boyle.
But there is a lot that I do not like.
I do not like the cheesy tracksuits the bearers of the Olympic Torch.
I do not like being told that I have to be excited and proud.
I do not like the £12 billion bill.
I do not like the “Olympic Family,” which is shorthand for the thousands of hangers on, free loaders and bribe acceptors from God-knows-what-land who appear to gorge themselves at the trough of junketing and corruption.
I do not like the non–executive directorships, and the kick backs.
I do not like the absurd sponsorship and product placement and the totalitarian policing of the same.
I do not like the Great Visa Rip Off.
I do not like Seb Coe. I don’t know why. Sorry, Seb.
I do not like the sinister sounding, all powerful LOCOG and its Big Brother overtones.
I do not like parts of London being turned into a militarized zone.
I do not like the drugs cheats.
I do not like the “Zil” lanes which will see the bloated “Olympic Family” whizzing about like KGB oligarchs of old, lording it over the humble little Brits who are paying for all this.
I am the Olympic Grinch.
This week I had to go to Middlesbrough. I was gripped as it happened not by Olympic Fever, but by another more immediate fever, namely flu. I was offered a morning’s work for good money so I took it despite the flu because like a lot of the inhabitants of this benighted land who are not senior civil servants or bankers, I am a bit broke and every single penny counts.
So I beetled up the A1, fortified by six pints of Lemsip and the Lord knows what else to spend a fitful night in a clean, functional and quite depressing Travelodge. My flu got worse and I spent the night by degrees coughing, sneezing, vomiting and fitfully sleeping. My throat closed up and it felt like I had drunk acid. I was running a serious temperature and when I did sleep I had wild, hallucinatory dreams.
I hauled myself out of bed at an early hour and dosed myself with more Lemsip and honey and throat tablets and went off to my allotted task, which was successfully completed by lunchtime, somehow. I then walked back to my car.
Middlesbrough is a very sad place. The people are almost universally charming and kind, but the town feel like it has had the life sucked, or beaten out of it. It is big, spacious and open with some fine old buildings, although blighted by the ubiquitous cancer of 1960’s Stalinist concrete.
But there is a funny atmosphere. It feels eerily quiet. There are not many people about, and those that there are look harassed and sad. And poor.
There is no life. It is a walking corpse of a town.
As I walked back to my car I felt exhausted. I saw a little town house. It was a sort of drop in centre run and there was a sign that said it was run by the Catholic Redemptorist order. It was called the John Paul Centre.
I don’t know a lot about that order. But it offered an open invitation to anyone to come in and find a moment’s peace in the little chapel. I felt the sudden urge to do so and went in. It was no more than a large old converted eighteenth century town house really, a bit shabby, but the front room was converted into a very simple, basic chapel. There were quite a few souls there, mostly elderly, mostly I should think battered by the cares of long lives of hardship and now loneliness. I spent some time in quiet personal reflection. I would have stayed for Mass, but I was too tired and ill and hungry. I had a cup coffee in the little tea room and shop which formed part of the house, and went on my way.
And then I drove home, utterly worn out, aching, and tired.
I am reliably informed that LOCOG is based in a rather fancy office 32 storey office block in Canary Wharf.
Middlesbrough on a wet Friday morning. The John Paul Centre, and the people who go there. This the reality of much of modern Britain. It is a world LOCOG, Seb Coe, David Cameron, Boris Johnson and Ed Miliband have never really seen, felt or touched.
So I remain the Olympic Grinch.
Gildas the Monk
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1
May 20, 2012 at 11:20 -
An apposite posting Gildas.
It probably reflects the views & opinions of the majority of citizens of this once-proud land.
Most of the extravagances I can ignore. Sadly not the £12 billion bill. (BTW was anybody ever sacked for so woefully & deliberately underestimating the original cost at only £2.37billion?
I just hope that certain rebels have the courage to sabotage the Zil Lanes. I really, really do.
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2
May 20, 2012 at 14:57 -
Yes, the bill going up “a bit” was one of the matters which I might have added….good point Joe
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3
May 20, 2012 at 15:55 -
Hope u feel better— Flu is Sh*te
I regret the 12 Billion pound cost. If people want to watch athletics and people running fast– they should pay for it or go to thier local town centre on a saturday night when the filth are chasing the neds ( very competitive)
For the life of me I cant understand why we spend so much on this flag waving— it f*cked Greece up financially.
The tax payer doesnt susbsidse Football, Rugby, Cricket, Motor Racing, Power Boat Racing or Drinking– so why should we put our hand in our pocket so a bunch of skinny little f&ckers and hangers on can have a party at taxpayers expenses
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4
May 21, 2012 at 08:53 -
It so happens that we’ve had a lot of excitement here in the lovely Kingdom of Northumbria about the travelling flame:
http://t.co/USX75qR2
We’re all in ecstasies! What’s for lunch..?
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6
May 20, 2012 at 11:21 -
Me too. I agree with everything you said about the Olympics. I have not watched any of it since the 80′s and I resent having to pay for the wretched affair and being told by everyone how wonderful it is. If they want to have a massive flag waving contest let people voluntarily contribute to it. I bet it would be a much smaller event. It is supposed to be about individual and amateur achievement. Well it has not been that for decades.
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8
May 20, 2012 at 11:47 -
Great post Gildas. I was one of those who welcomed the decision to have the Olympics in the UK/London (where I live).
Having watched the development of draconian laws and seeing the maps of how London will be split into zones for the elite, I realise I was mistaken.
Still, I am hoping for a successful event, both from the organisational point of view and from the sporting view, just to show the world we’re not a complete basket case.
But I’m not holding my breath on that one…
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9
May 20, 2012 at 11:52 -
A truly excellent post – so comprehensive that none of the rest of us need to elaborate on our feelings about the whole sorry business; we can just post a link.
Meanwhile, according to the Torch relay website…
“Middlesbrough is a vibrant, modern, forward-thinking town with fantastic green spaces, award-winning architecture and fantastic shopping facilities. “
Get me a pair of those rose-tinted spectacles, please….
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10
May 20, 2012 at 11:56 -
Thanks all. One pf the problems of not being a professional blogger is time – work takes priority. There is a whole piece to be written on the extremely worrying draconian measures being taken to suppress process, I did not have time to do justice to it. I would also like to say thank you to the John Paul Centre for giving me 15 minutes of peace in a mad world and for looking after these gentle, lonely people. There is an awful lot wrong with the Catholice Church at the moment. This place was one thing to be proud of.
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11
May 20, 2012 at 16:51 -
The Catholic Church – as with almost any other church – is an organisation of men and women. Some are ordinary, a few are extra-ordinary.
Unfortunately the good done by the extraordinary few and also by many of the ordinary, tends to be eclipsed by the misdeeds of a less than representative number.
No, I am not a Catholic – but I do recognise that any organisation consisting of people will reflect the whole gamut of humanity, from its failings to its triumphs.
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13
May 20, 2012 at 11:57 -
Nothing more to add to previous comments, except this: when Lord Coe (or just Seb as he was) won gold in Moscow I thought he was a wonderful person. Comparing the subsequent careers of him and Ovett I have revised my opinion somewhat. How dare he spend 12 billion of our money on a nonsense!
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14
May 20, 2012 at 12:08 -
When we were going for the right to hold the Olympics, I had my fingers crossed, hoping that we wouldn’t get it, because I thought that spending a couple of billion on a Sports Week was well over the top. At that time, I thought I was in the minority.
But not now.
As the full horror of the thing unfolded, I’ve been getting more and more appalled; I believe that 12 billion is a total underestimate, because it excludes the cost of all the security, the policing, a lot of other hidden costs that we aren’t being told about, and most of all the disruption to the UK economy as London is closed to business for a long time.
It is obscene that, at a time of “austerity”, we’re rubbing the faces of the poor and unemployed in a long, unwanted binge.
Gildas isn’t a Grinch, he’s expressing the view of almost everyone today.
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15
May 20, 2012 at 12:39 -
I completely agree.In my job as a PC in London we are being completely brain-washed into thinking this is the best ever thing to ever happen to this country.
The knock on effect of the games will last for years.Apart from the cost I mean the chasing around of all the “spectators” who decide not to go home afterwards.You would be surprised how many followers the Nigerian underwater bob-sleigh team are bringing!
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16
May 20, 2012 at 12:57 -
I expect we will see little change from twenty thousand million pounds when everything is totalled up several years after the event. It has to be several years after as jaded has said the cleanup will take ages and I doubt will ever be finished.
I just hope they are using the American financial billions and not real billions (scientific and engineering) in their pronouncements of cost.
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May 20, 2012 at 12:59 -
Corruption (and its cause) have been here as long as the human race.
Now that we have become so technologically brilliant the corrupt and the venal can at last get their hands well and truly on the levers of real power.
This event is but the beginning of the next phase.You are no grinch, Gildas. You are simply being real.
(Perhaps you could do with a bit more realistic acceptance of that with which you might claim to identify?) -
18
May 20, 2012 at 13:18 -
As macheath said, well done Gildas, you’ve saved us all a job.
By the way, I’ve heard they’ve built a massive detention centre at the Olympic site.
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May 21, 2012 at 08:28 -
I’ve been there a few times now – actually the whole place looks like a detention centre….12 ft high chain link fences forming lanes dictating where you can or can’t go, East European guards in black uniforms, concrete slab sided buildings (blank faces of Westfield shopping centres on one side, tower blocks on the other and on the park much of the pretty architecture can’t be seen from ground level – just the slab sides). Looming over it the Orbit – like the bastard offsping of an oil rig and a helterskelter designed by Dali. Add in the tight unsmiling impersonal security (20 min queue even cross the dual carriageway let alone get unto the park), the searches by people who care even less and are less well trained than the worst airport security….. Ghastly “customer experience “, a bit like arriving at a 21st century deathcamp – Sobibor in Stratford. Someone really needs to look at this from the perspective of someone who is after all is said and done going for a day out (and has paid a stiff price for doing so) – it really really sucks
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21
May 20, 2012 at 13:26 -
Here’s another who agrees wholeheartedly, Gildas. I don’t have a problem with the world’s finest athletes testing themselves against each other, and I don’t mind them doing so in Britain. After all, Britain had some of the world’s finest sporting venues before we blew vast sums of taxpayers’ money on building even more that we didn’t need, and probably won’t find a use for post shindig now that we have. If you want to regenerate an area, then fine – get on with it, especially if you do it by encouraging private investment rather than wasting the aforesaid taxpayers’ dosh.
I have great sympathy for ordinary Londoners who will have to try to go about their usual business during this overblown fandango, and cope with all the disruption and hype as well. I really don’t wish to sound smug, but I’m glad I’m well out of it.
I also look forward to the day when Lottery funds are once again used for the purposes they were originally intended for – our village’s Scout Hut is well overdue an overhaul, for example – and I’m quite sure there are countless other similar examples the length and breadth of the land.
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22
May 20, 2012 at 17:49 -
Great piece ( as usual) Gildas ! Think of the Olympics as sport for the un-sporting – how many people ever go and watch athletics normally ?
There are undoubtedly numerous individual scandals hidden in the costs – the one I am aware of, is the decision not to use Bisley for the shooting events.
Bisley is the most famous shooting venue in the world, it is every shooters aspiration to compete there and the facilities are naturally world class. So, against the advice of every shooting body, a one off venue is being constructed at vast cost , somewhere ‘with better access’. Presumably so people with no interest in shooting can watch without any inconvenience. You really couldn’t make it up.-
23
May 21, 2012 at 12:43 -
I gets better. We can’t have a “nasty” legacy shooting site in the capital so the whole lot, currently sited at Woolwich, has been sold to Brazil for a knockdown price and will be dismantled and shipped out after the “games”. This from staff members when I attended an ISSC skeet shooting event there as a pre-olympics trial. Also amusing was having my bag checked by Mohammed and Ahmed on Security, who wanted to confiscate my bottle of water ( I would be allowed to buy more inside).
If they can use Weymouth for Sailing, why not Bisley for Shooting ?A vast cake and arse party, I’ll be glad when its all over.
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24
May 20, 2012 at 15:39 -
I must say the British team seems to be keeping a very low profile. Whenever I see coverage of rowing or cycling or whatever it seems dominated by that German team from some region called Siemans. We don’t stand a chance.
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25
May 20, 2012 at 16:18 -
£12 billion and we are excluding one of the nations of the UK from the team name.
Team GB, corporate matey bollocks. -
26
May 20, 2012 at 16:23 -
I agree, from the sad towns with the soul removed, to bloated Olympic hangers-on. And the corrupt global gravy train.
We’re not hearing so much about the much hyped regeneration benefits any more, are we? -
28
May 20, 2012 at 18:00 -
The Olympian drug-fest is just another vanity project on a long list which includes High Speed 2, Heathrow (must have the biggest) etc.
Governments of all flavours are obsessed with them, partly for the gloss-by-association, partly for the kick-backs through ‘pals’ – which one is the bigger draw doesn’t seem to depend on the political party any more, they’re all into pocket-lining par excellence.
The period of the Olympics will be one where I catch up on all manner of domestic tasks, read a lot, meet up with like-minded friends, in fact anything which involves no interface whatsoever with that disgraceful waste of money.
I was supporting the French bid – they deserve each other.-
29
May 20, 2012 at 22:10 -
Vanity project says it all.
UK politicians (at our expense) score 1
UK citizens nil
Sorry to seem a grouch, had a nice roll up this afternoon, bowls club not in receipt of any subsidies or grants. Green quality entirely dependent on us volunteers mowing and rolling and members paying their dues.
Real sport.
Just a perspective.-
30
May 20, 2012 at 22:54 -
I’ll go out on a limb, and guess the white team won.
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31
May 21, 2012 at 00:28 -
Not quite sure of your angle Cascadian, but for the record, I willingly spent some rewarding years in RSA working for a company where black advancement was compulsory* and part of the culture. That was in the 80′s, while the witless bleeding hearts here were still unhelpfully boycotting Outspan oranges and knowing nothing of Wiehan. I think I recall the first black electrician and the first black toolmaker in the Transvaal coming from our apprentice school in ’86.
Sorry, hump now subsiding.
But fair do’s, West Sussex villages are fairly pale, especially after all the rain.
*as in ‘you will do this or leave’.-
32
May 21, 2012 at 06:53 -
My fault, I was trying to be funny. It never works. The allusion to white was the clothing colour.
I’ve played a few bowls games too, I was alluding to most groups insistence that players wear white, (hence everybody is on the white team) perhaps that has changed in the last couple of decades.
We had the same witless attempts at boycotts here (by union types) of your wines, I always made a point of buying a bottle every now again to piss off the government clerks in the liquor store.
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33
May 20, 2012 at 19:31 -
Oh! Now you are on my territory. Do not! And I mean do not! Slag off the Boro! This is my home town and it has been the butt of many a cheap shot from numerous TV shows. It is the archetypal target of the closet Thatcherites that find it an easy target. The people here are the best you will ever find, and I will defend them to whatever standard you care to define.
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34
May 20, 2012 at 20:10 -
Now I recognise Saul on the galloping white horse again
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36
May 20, 2012 at 22:21 -
Saul
Anna had a special place for you in her heart, so you get the same in mine. My intintion was not ever to slag off the Boro. whose people as I mentioned above are good and kind. But rarther to report, quite truthfully, that the place is a sad and poor place now. Because it is, and it saddens me.-
37
May 21, 2012 at 08:08 -
Sadness, is in the eye of the beholder.
Mind you, they say beauty is only skin deep……. but ugly goes right down to the bone!
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38
May 21, 2012 at 11:29 -
Many’s the time, as a boy, together with school pals I would travel across on the Transporter from Port Clarence to the ‘Boro (from memory, it was 2 (old) pence per trip or 1d if you walked across the top – which we did several times. Then it was a thriving industrial town, like the one on the other side of the Tees, but after the failure of several Governments to invest in the area, it started becoming a ghost town. The steel works, docks, ICI closed down and then that awful nuclear power plant at Seaton Carew more or less meant the end. Nowadays, Middlesbrough is on the ‘wrong’ side of the A19 so there is little commercial need to visit or to offer any form of tourism. A great shame and I’m still proud to be a Monkey Hanger.
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39
May 20, 2012 at 20:25 -
Jumped-up sports day, coercively financed with hugely understated costs to reinforce bogus national nonsense via drug-pumped athletes and utterly nasty corporatism with (worst of all) parasite governments trying to bask in false and wholly invented propaganda while policed by para-military thugs. If anyone didn’t get it after the 1936 Riefenstahl/Hitler Berlin Olympics then there is no hope for them.
Jumped-up sports day. Modern-day Panem et circenses just as the Panem maybe about to get scarce.
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40
May 20, 2012 at 22:14 -
Agree completely, but wasn’t the Riefenstahl film superb? Warped, but spellbinding?
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42
May 20, 2012 at 21:06 -
Excellent post, Gildas. Especially the suggestion that our politicians haven’t a clue about how the rest of us actually live.
There is huge apathy from a significant section of society, yet it’s almost heresy to report it or acknowledge its existence.
Can’t wait till the whole sorry thing is over and we can try to forget the almost Maoist control freakery and oppressive posturing it has created.
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44
May 20, 2012 at 22:52 -
The Brit sense of outrage at corporate sponsorship is truly amazing.
Everybody seems (correctly) outraged at the cost of these awful faux spectacles, but don’t seem to realise that the sponsorships and TV deals at least offset a portion of the expenses for staging the games. Every time I see photos of Brit sporting events (non-Olympic) the uniforms are plastered with a multitude of sponsor names-nobody seems to object, why the antipathy purely for the Olympics? And please don’t pretend that it is because the Olympics are amateur sport, that is certainly not the case.
I see no reason for the games, they do not foster excellence, friendship or anything really worthwhile, legacy projects are over-built boondoggles too expensive to operate, tourism suffers, host cities produce a cadre of over sensitive security monsters, only the sport monarchy (olympic employees and members) seem to benefit handsomely.
Judging by the “timetable” that the Olympic emperors adopt you have not yet been subjected to the revelation of all the free health benefits the host nation is required to provide for all the athletes (not just sports injuries), free dental, free condoms, preferential air travel (of course), requests for asylum(automatic). As others have mentioned the speculative budget of GBP15,000,000,000 is a low-ball number aimed to keep the natives docile. Another naff project from liebour with awful graphics, I fear the awfulness of the opening ceremony. You have my sympathies, especially the poor commuters from points east of London who will suffer intolerable inconvenience imposed by the security drama-queens who countenance zero-risk and shut down sections of the city on a whim.
The olympics are very much like foreign aid-a transfer of wealth from the poor of rich nations to the rich of poor nations and the well-connected.
Nevertheless I hope you can pull off a successful games without incident.
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45
May 21, 2012 at 13:02 -
Perhaps the outrage at the corporate sponsorship is that despite the supposed offset that these ought to provide, we’re *still* being screwed for £12bn so far?
The Olympics has nothing to do with sports – and I don’t know when it last did.
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46
May 21, 2012 at 17:47 -
Which makes my point.
Would you prefer an estimated cost of GBP12,000,000,000 or an estimated cost of GBP12,000,000,000+++++++? 12 billion, 15 billion it all rolls so easily off the tongue does it not? Yet we are talking about borrowed money and this waste could easily tip your economy over and cause a credit downgrade-more expense on your entire public debt (which presently stands at approx GBP1,050,200,000,000 one trillion and change)-well done liebour!
Note I called it an estimated cost, the Olympic estimates are always very suspect and never include losses due to disruption, rarely include armed forces security costs and over estimate sales of the Olympic village and temporary facilities.
You will be lucky if this fiasco costs you ONLY GBP20,000,000,000.
Do you remember how the Athens Olympics were to revive their economy-worked well did it not?
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47
May 22, 2012 at 16:05 -
Cascadian, Sorry for my pompous over the top response at #31, and thanks for your gracious response.
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48
May 22, 2012 at 17:19 -
No need to apologise Binao, my comment (poor joke) was unclear.
Bowling is a gentlemans game, you have proved that by your remark.
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49
May 23, 2012 at 15:49 -
I was unimpressed at the original cost of (if memory serves) £2.36bn. For £12bn we should have no need of corporate sponsorship at all (and everyone in the country should have a free ticket, and, and…).
Unfortunately, as so many public sector workers believe that the money they play with is both “theirs” by right and inexhaustible, imbeciles like LOCOG can submit invoices with impunity secure in the knowledge that like the banks, they’re deemed too big to fail – but unlike the banks, are under no obligation to demonstrate fiscal prudence – or even common sense.
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50
May 21, 2012 at 09:01 -
I don’t feel the need to add anything profound on any of the issues alluded to here.
Suffice to say, I shall be out of the country, on holiday, a week before the opening ceremony, only returning a week after. Joy unconfined.
Sniggers self-indulgently.
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51
May 22, 2012 at 08:09 -
I tried that, but was too late … all of the 7 hotels on my long list was booked up 13 months ahead of the event!
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53
May 21, 2012 at 09:34 -
The only pleasure to be had from this whole farce is is to thumb through a medical dictionary and hope that Blair and the others responsible for this monumental, tasteless waste of of our money, are struck down by the most embarrassing and painful ailments contained therein. Then to sit patiently until it is all over and hopefully forgotten.
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54
May 21, 2012 at 10:17 -
A Case for the Olympics
I am not an Olympic Grinch.
While I recognise only too well Gildas’ description of a ghost town, these towns have been in existence for the last 15 years. I have been on many business trips to these places. The arrival of the Olympic Circus on our doorstep presents a good contrast but we could have found that contrast with any celebration: The Royal Wedding, the Commonwealth Games in Manchester, Euro 96….
I am not a Grinch – I wouldn’t describe myself as a fan either. I see lots of positives and I don’t subscribe to the view that all money should be spent on fixing problems and not on frivolous things. Things I am pleased about are :
The construction work has been on-time, everytime – putting the noses of all thsoe who predicted a disaster of epic proportions right out of joint. ‘Oh, they’ll screw it up, we always screw these things up, it’ll be a joke, we’ll be a joke’ and so on. Something about knee-jerk cynicism offends me – cynicism is safer and cooler than enthusiasm but it’s also saying ‘don’t try’ like a twisted Eeyor. And as someone who has worked on projects I am delighted at this showcasing of British ability. Good for us.I am pleased that people have embraced it by and large – tickets are being sold and people are looking forward to it. Goodness knows we need something to look forward to. Am a bit hacked off that I didn’t get the tickets I wanted but hey-ho.
It looks like there are a bunch of no-messin-about UK competitors who are serious about winning – none of this self-deprecating ‘good to take part’ rubbish.
I have seen the ultimate expression of utilitarian public expenditure on the outskirts of Warsaw and Budapest and a few estates around the UK. We need frivolous things – like nice parks, decorative flourishes on train ostations, flowers in roundabouts – and stupid, pointless activities like Football (overpaid babies), Golf ( although I subscribe to the waste of a good walk camp), Netball (rubbish sport), F1 (spectator sport ??? I don’t think soooo). All sports I dislike but they make some people happy and lets face it – I like cricket so I think it evens out in the end. These things brighten our lives. They are irrational and a waste of public money – but human beings only kid themselves that they are driven by intelligence. We are not – we are driven by emotion and rationalise it with intelligence.
I hope the cermonies are great, I hope we win some medals, I really really really hope no-one tries to blow anything up or kill someone to get publicity for their political/cultural grievance. And I hope I understand some of the rules of the volley ball event I have tickets for!
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May 21, 2012 at 18:16 -
Thanks for the comments. I think you make valid points too. I find the costs and the hubris and the vanity too much for the return of good things; but here we debate and listen with open minds!
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56
May 21, 2012 at 18:24 -
You mean some people really try to understand the rules?
http://www.virginmedia.com/sport/galleries/beach-volley-babes.php
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58
May 21, 2012 at 10:47 -
At the moment, London is plastered with advertisements informing us plebs that we’ll probably need to make special arrangements to get to work on time etc. once the Olympic season starts. These ads have jokey cartoons on them showing Londoners being inconvenienced by, say, a rowing team trying to take a boat onto a tube, or a horse and rider on an escalator. Example here:
http://www.getaheadofthegames.com/documents/Get_Ahead_of_the_Games.PDF
The message here seems to be that not only are we plebs expected to keep working (in order to keep paying the taxes to pay for the whole show, to which most of us are indifferent), but we’re also expecting to view the inconvenience and discomfort as a bit of a lark.
To my mind, there could be no better illustration of the contempt that the political classes have for the lower orders, or of their vanity. And they wonder why we hate them so much.
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May 21, 2012 at 11:02
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60
May 21, 2012 at 11:04 -
Irregardless of whichever party is in power, we are doomed to be governed by a bunch of toffee nosed nancy boys and jolly hockey sticks gals.
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62
May 21, 2012 at 11:32 -
Gildas, you are far, far from the only Olympic Grinch! I’m sick and tired of it. July/August will be unbearable.
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63
May 21, 2012 at 11:58 -
Agree with all of the above, particularly the hope that someone manages to disrupt the “Zil” lanes. Why the hell should ordinary people who are having to pay for the damn thing be treated like second class citizens? And if (as M Barnes suggests) UK suppliers have done a world class job, why did the organisers use a fleet of BMW’s? Couldn’t Jaguar (for instance) have got the contract?
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64
May 21, 2012 at 15:30 -
I see there’s a report on the Olympic torch going out on the third day of its parade around the UK. Perhaps the old Greek gods are making their own subtle point.
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65
May 21, 2012 at 18:17 -
And now we have reports of these torches being flogged on e bay – some say for good causes, I know not the truth….
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66
May 21, 2012 at 23:18 -
The young lady who ran through our town auctioned her torch and raised approx £150, 000 for a charity she started following her brothers suicide.
btw there is a lovely train ride from Boro that goes through the N.Yorks moors and ends in Whitby. I joined up in Hartlepool, an area where I had a lot of relatives, and I have a mate at work whose ancestor designed the first lifeboat that I think is displayed there.
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May 22, 2012 at 23:19 -
It was a glorious day today, first warm and sunny one of the year. The wife and I and the bonkers dog decided to go for a walk along the Avon and Kennet canal in Bath. Lovely spot. Well there seemed to be rather a lot of people about for a Tuesday, and when we decided to cross a road over a bridge to get to the towpath the other side, we found the road full of flag waving cheering people, thousands of them.
Bugger me! it was the Glorified School sports day flame going past. Sod it I thought, I’m here now might as well take some pics, and got some good ones. But I had no idea that the event was even taking place. Normally I wouldn’t has crossed the road to blow the damn thing out (yes a Hitler invention this running in the flame nonsense).
But the crowd was very cheerful and enthusiastic. I’d like to think that was just down to the weather, but I actually think the brainwashing is working, it usually does, why else do we keep voting for those venal goons in Westminster?
Quite apart from all the sports being ones no-one will actually pay money to see in a normal week and have to be perpetually sponsored, there is also the Cultural Olympics, this is happening all over the country and is costing millions all on it’s own. The scale of mendacious fatuousness is truly mindboggling. There is the shell of a DC9 plane making it’s way round Wales as a sort of mobile arts lab come gallery. There’s a bloke importing a vast tonnage of Norwegian rock to make an island that makes some kind of point about global warming, then there’s the Scots bloke who is going to cut down a football pitch sized clearing in a forest and stage a football match for immigrants… and …and… is anyone else screaming, or is that noise I can hear just me?
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May 22, 2012 at 23:23 -
So… Your’e the Olympic Grinch eh? In an “I’m Spartacus” moment I thought I was!
I will watch the events as I admire the dedication of the sportsmen and the drama but… I utterly loathe and detest the circus that is so much part and parcel of the whole edifice these days. I dislike the elitist ‘have and ‘ave not’ treatment of the public, some of whom will be treated like kings and the great majority who won’t. Just why is it necessary to have so many ‘other parties’ involved, who are not sportsmen or women, but will doubtless bask in the general opulence, reserved solely for those who are ‘connected’ in some or other dubious fashion. The bidding process was a farce and the cost of the whole shebang will haunt us long after the circus has pulled down its tents and moved to the next town.
And don’t get me started on the ‘legacy’ that these games will bring… just don’t go there.
An excellent post Gildas.
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