Olympic Flop?

[threegee]

Interesting that Beijing is attracting less visitors than last year at this time. Is their huge spend to attract tourists actually being counter-productive?

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/7477873.stm

Where does that leave all the cash we are splurging for 2012? Costs are spiralling out of control; well, would you expect anything else from a project we've been sold by UK big government? A forthcoming world-wide recession; travel becoming more and more expensive, and the huge tab for "security". I honestly think we should have left this one to the French, and that they might well have the last laugh.

Not - of course - that our Town could ever expect to see any benefit for its taxes that get used in this folly. Had the games been held in the NE then there might have been some point, and some (almost) believable excuse for the vast spend.

[Malcolm Robinson]

It could have been worse GGG, you could have been a London ratepayer............

[threegee]

At least London ratepayers will see some tangible benefit from the overspend - however small. Here we get sweet FA for our central government contribution.

Maybe the only small mercy is that Gordo has figured out a way to tax even this! http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/london/6098830.stm Bet the French would have found a way around the EU rubbish!

BTW I just found this BBC vote on the matter. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/6393501.stm The result is interesting, and Gordo would like us to believe that he's now listening. Really?

[Malcolm Robinson]

Maybe the only small mercy is that Gordo has figured out a way to tax even this! http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/london/6098830.stm Bet the French would have found a way around the EU rubbish!

Anything anti the 'French way of doing things' is completley disregarded in France! Might be a lesson there for the UK before every UK small business is drown in EU regulation!!!!!!!

[threegee]

"Had we known what we know now, would we have bid for the Olympics? Almost certainly not,"

-- Tessa Jowell

That was in an honest moment this week in front of an audience of fourty or so business chiefs, and not intended for public consumption.

Well Ms. Jowell... lots of people told you so and you refused to listen! That's the only reason you didn't know then what you know now. Quite a few bright people are now telling you how to make the best of a bad job, but will you listen this time either? It seems not!

This is the current politico tactic when they seriously mess up: "we've made a mistake but we will learn from it". Really! I see no evidence that any politician ever learned anything from anything other than a big No More! from their electorate. Unfortunately saying No More! takes an age in our archaic system!

[Malcolm Robinson]

Hang on GGG, doesn't this fit exactly with Gordon's Kensyan economic model? The one he is using to save us all from a recession, spend generations of future tax receipts on current public works.

[threegee]

Hang on GGG, doesn't this fit exactly with Gordon's Kensyan economic model? The one he is using to save us all from a recession, spend generations of future tax receipts on current public works.

Looks like the spin doctors at The Department of Squaring Circles and National Delusion are hours ahead of you on this one Malc!

But surely... rather than erect and dismantle twenty uneccessary large and expensive buildings it's more green to erect and dismantle the same unecessary large and expensive building twenty times? The end result will be the same (B.A.), and it will create just as many hours of employment. Also it will be simpler to manage (those pesky cost over-runs) , create a more "on-going work experience", leave only one "brown field" site, and save the tax payer a bundle in material costs. With the resultant savings you might even be able to erect it and dismantle it a few more times, thus delivering even more benefit to the economy? A lack of imagination and business skills from those holding the public purse strings I think!

[Malcolm Robinson]

Looking at other sites which have had massive public funding to build the infrastrucure needed to hold the games it is not hard to see what tax payers are going to 'own' after the games have had their short lives. Did no one learn anything with the Millenium Dome fiasco?

It was nice to actually win the bid but I felt it was like winning an all expenses paid cruise on the Titanic!

[Symptoms]

And what about the so called 'Olympic Legacy'? The Olympic Stadium will be ripped apart to reduce its capacity for athletics & footy - but no footy club wants to have a running track around the pitch so none have signed-up. We've all seen how lifeless/dull/lacking in atmosphere those foreign grounds are (Champ League tv games) ... goodness, it might even become as empty as the Smoggies tip or as grim as that darkplace in mackemland.

The donkey riding & jumping in Greenwich park will consist of temporary stands and other facilities, all to be ripped-out at the end, no doubt causing long-term damage to this beautiful park (& Heritage Site). The shooting, just along the road at Woolwich Barracks – new ranges constructed, new seating, and all the rest – this is all coming out when the curtain comes down. This is a particular waste of dosh as just down the road, near Dartford, there’s already a shooting complex where the money could have been better spent on an up-grade ... that would have left an Olympic Legacy.

They reckon we’ll all be paying for this for decades to come through taxation. The poor saps in Greater London will have to pay even more via a Council Tax Surcharge, although some on the Forum may say that “it serves them right for being Cockneys”.

As to the Dome (or the O² as we now have to call it) - a great building but what a missed opportunity. I visited the place shortly after it opened and thought the structure was brilliant but the contents was so naff I couldn't believe it. The Faith Zone (an empty white space), fast-food concessions everywhere, the biggest diamond in the World (actually, it was just a glass fake), the Body Zone (a giant plastic dolly which you walked through) ... Oh dear! the place looked cheap and nasty. I had better times at the Miners Picnic! They should have built the National Stadium (Wembley) there instead of Dome.

[Denzel]

And what about the so called 'Olympic Legacy'? The Olympic Stadium will be ripped apart to reduce its capacity for athletics & footy - but no footy club wants to have a running track around the pitch so none have signed-up. We've all seen how lifeless/dull/lacking in atmosphere those foreign grounds are (Champ League tv games) ... goodness, it might even become as empty as the Smoggies tip or as grim as that darkplace in mackemland.

The donkey riding & jumping in Greenwich park will consist of temporary stands and other facilities, all to be ripped-out at the end, no doubt causing long-term damage to this beautiful park (& Heritage Site). The shooting, just along the road at Woolwich Barracks – new ranges constructed, new seating, and all the rest – this is all coming out when the curtain comes down. This is a particular waste of dosh as just down the road, near Dartford, there’s already a shooting complex where the money could have been better spent on an up-grade ... that would have left an Olympic Legacy.

They reckon we’ll all be paying for this for decades to come through taxation. The poor saps in Greater London will have to pay even more via a Council Tax Surcharge, although some on the Forum may say that “it serves them right for being Cockneys”.

As to the Dome (or the O² as we now have to call it) - a great building but what a missed opportunity. I visited the place shortly after it opened and thought the structure was brilliant but the contents was so naff I couldn't believe it. The Faith Zone (an empty white space), fast-food concessions everywhere, the biggest diamond in the World (actually, it was just a glass fake), the Body Zone (a giant plastic dolly which you walked through) ... Oh dear! the place looked cheap and nasty. I had better times at the Miners Picnic! They should have built the National Stadium (Wembley) there instead of Dome.

Aye, they're not a patch on the snarling bearpit that is St James Park.

[Malcolm Robinson]

That was in an honest moment this week in front of an audience of fourty or so business chiefs, and not intended for public consumption.

Well Ms. Jowell... lots of people told you so and you refused to listen! That's the only reason you didn't know then what you know now. Quite a few bright people are now telling you how to make the best of a bad job, but will you listen this time either? It seems not!

This is the current politico tactic when they seriously mess up: "we've made a mistake but we will learn from it". Really! I see no evidence that any politician ever learned anything from anything other than a big No More! from their electorate. Unfortunately saying No More! takes an age in our archaic system!

Seems they were told beforehand!

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/sport/oly...EMC-Bltn=E9MCX9

[Symptoms]

The Board of UK Sport meet today to divi-up the funding for the various sports for 2012. All the usual suspects are likely to get whacking great shares of the dosh but other (deserving) groups will probably fare badly. Watch out for piles of dosh being heaped onto rowing, sailing, equestrian, fencing, etc. - mostly the stuff the born-rich or upper-middle class do. Elite athletics (read drug cheats) will be rewarded for their crap performance in China (4 medals only 1 gold) with loads of our money.

The problem with raising the required dosh from sponsorship is that the firm (Fast Track) tasked with this can't allow those Companies who wish to donate permission to use the Olympic Rings logo. So what Company is going to give-up tons of dosh if it can't display the Rings and other Olympic logos. I don't think they can even use the word Olympic as it's copyright rests elsewhere.

[Denzel]

The Board of UK Sport meet today to divi-up the funding for the various sports for 2012. All the usual suspects are likely to get whacking great shares of the dosh but other (deserving) groups will probably fare badly. Watch out for piles of dosh being heaped onto rowing, sailing, equestrian, fencing, etc. - mostly the stuff the born-rich or upper-middle class do. Elite athletics (read drug cheats) will be rewarded for their crap performance in China (4 medals only 1 gold) with loads of our money.

The problem with raising the required dosh from sponsorship is that the firm (Fast Track) tasked with this can't allow those Companies who wish to donate permission to use the Olympic Rings logo. So what Company is going to give-up tons of dosh if it can't display the Rings and other Olympic logos. I don't think they can even use the word Olympic as it's copyright rests elsewhere.

Quite right too.

[Symptoms]

And today the Government has waded in with an extra 20 odd million of our money to meet the shortfall from sponsorship. When's it going to end?

[Hamburger Pimp]

2012?

Twenty million is pretty small potatoes, no? The US track and field team probably spend that much on sticking plasters in a year.

[Denzel]

2012?

Twenty million is pretty small potatoes, no? The US track and field team probably spend that much on sticking plasters in a year.

I just hope it doesn't go to working class oiks in track and field disciplines; the real funding is needed elsewhere.