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Hey, I'm no Mod but do you fellers want to get a room? This one is about bitching off the sports day.
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Olympics 100 days to go
- Thread starter Tin basher
- Start date
propersplitbrainme
Warrant Officer
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So, Great Britain has been the focus of the world for two whole days now and already we've had...
Wrong flag faff
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-glasgow-west-18995657
What does, 'non-ticketed' event mean? Organisers not making themselves clear, or public being dumb?
http://www.itv.com/news/update/2012-07-27/archery-always-been-a-non-ticketed-event/
And finally, Jeremy Hunt's bell end flies off....
http://www.guardian.co.uk/sport/video/2012/jul/27/jeremy-hunt-olympic-bell-video?newsfeed=true
Wrong flag faff
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-glasgow-west-18995657
What does, 'non-ticketed' event mean? Organisers not making themselves clear, or public being dumb?
http://www.itv.com/news/update/2012-07-27/archery-always-been-a-non-ticketed-event/
And finally, Jeremy Hunt's bell end flies off....
http://www.guardian.co.uk/sport/video/2012/jul/27/jeremy-hunt-olympic-bell-video?newsfeed=true
PraiseBacon
Sergeant
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The arguments being made about the Olympics are not entirely fair as they assume all money spent is a write off.
The costs must be balanced against the income from TV rights, sponsorship, visitor income for hotels etc , and to an extent, the residual income from ongoing use of the facilities (Manchester’s commonwealth games being a good example of getting that right!).
Once netted out – some games make a profit for the host nation, and some a loss. Canada is associated with a financial disaster from a badly organized games in Montreal , on which the countries taxpayers had to take a huge hit.
Many of the US ones, due to massively overt sponsorship, have actually resulted in a net profit. (Source = http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cost_of_the_Olympic_Games )
Also, you are forgetting how many people have been employed on building the facilities for a number of years. An ex-RAF fireman friend of mine has a London concrete franchise, and has been in a decent stream of work for the games for the last 2-3 years, and will be busy with it for a year afterwards as the redevelopment to its ongoing use is completed.
With the positives done – lets consider the other side of the coin:
Facetube posting over the last couple of years from above mentioned former fireman have regularly commented on how few ‘British’ accents there were on the building site – and how many were living in huts in a sort of reverse ‘auf wiedersain pet’ scenario (with Poles coming here, rather than Brits going to Germany, of course). All in all, have to chalk it up to an opportunity partly wasted, but a number of Brits did get decent contracts along the way.
The G4s private security debacle – the organizers should have seen that one coming. (esp, after asking G4S to pay under the going rate). Kudos to the military (and police) for stepping up – but it should not have been needed and we looked like a bunch of ass clowns while overseas comedy programs had a field day on us about it.
UK has been in a slump, and the Banking scandals have caused people to lose a bit of faith in London, and UK generally. The Olympics was a chance to showcase UK to the world, to demonstrate our organizational skiils – to show overseas companies why they should invest in UK with their factories etc.
However, all we demonstrated was lazy workers wanting something for nothing (Olympic bonuses do to their day jobs etc), Unions that made it clear they wanted to assert their power while they had the Govt by the Olympic balls, a Govt that was weak enough to give into the Trotskyites who damn near ruined the country in the 70’s and seem determined to do it now. All of which gives the impression that we, as a country, are past it – the Unions are in control again, the workforce has turned lazy and they may as well take they money and invest it in continental Europe instead.
Can I back up that this is the impression – yes, Mitt Romney may have been unsubtle and undiplomatic – but he did say what he thinks of the games we organized and the organizational skills of the country they are in.
Read the translated online overseas news – the world is laughing at us over this!
So overall, will it be a good or bad thing. To me, regardless of whether it makes a profit or not, it will be a bad thing as it has caused the country to be a laughing stock and the credibility of our workforce to be seriously tarnished – which will take years to recover from….
We could have pulled together and put on something great to showcase our country to the world, but we blew it and became joke…(So thanks ASLEF, etc, you wankers!)
As always, just my 2p worth..
The costs must be balanced against the income from TV rights, sponsorship, visitor income for hotels etc , and to an extent, the residual income from ongoing use of the facilities (Manchester’s commonwealth games being a good example of getting that right!).
Once netted out – some games make a profit for the host nation, and some a loss. Canada is associated with a financial disaster from a badly organized games in Montreal , on which the countries taxpayers had to take a huge hit.
Many of the US ones, due to massively overt sponsorship, have actually resulted in a net profit. (Source = http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cost_of_the_Olympic_Games )
Also, you are forgetting how many people have been employed on building the facilities for a number of years. An ex-RAF fireman friend of mine has a London concrete franchise, and has been in a decent stream of work for the games for the last 2-3 years, and will be busy with it for a year afterwards as the redevelopment to its ongoing use is completed.
With the positives done – lets consider the other side of the coin:
Facetube posting over the last couple of years from above mentioned former fireman have regularly commented on how few ‘British’ accents there were on the building site – and how many were living in huts in a sort of reverse ‘auf wiedersain pet’ scenario (with Poles coming here, rather than Brits going to Germany, of course). All in all, have to chalk it up to an opportunity partly wasted, but a number of Brits did get decent contracts along the way.
The G4s private security debacle – the organizers should have seen that one coming. (esp, after asking G4S to pay under the going rate). Kudos to the military (and police) for stepping up – but it should not have been needed and we looked like a bunch of ass clowns while overseas comedy programs had a field day on us about it.
UK has been in a slump, and the Banking scandals have caused people to lose a bit of faith in London, and UK generally. The Olympics was a chance to showcase UK to the world, to demonstrate our organizational skiils – to show overseas companies why they should invest in UK with their factories etc.
However, all we demonstrated was lazy workers wanting something for nothing (Olympic bonuses do to their day jobs etc), Unions that made it clear they wanted to assert their power while they had the Govt by the Olympic balls, a Govt that was weak enough to give into the Trotskyites who damn near ruined the country in the 70’s and seem determined to do it now. All of which gives the impression that we, as a country, are past it – the Unions are in control again, the workforce has turned lazy and they may as well take they money and invest it in continental Europe instead.
Can I back up that this is the impression – yes, Mitt Romney may have been unsubtle and undiplomatic – but he did say what he thinks of the games we organized and the organizational skills of the country they are in.
Read the translated online overseas news – the world is laughing at us over this!
So overall, will it be a good or bad thing. To me, regardless of whether it makes a profit or not, it will be a bad thing as it has caused the country to be a laughing stock and the credibility of our workforce to be seriously tarnished – which will take years to recover from….
We could have pulled together and put on something great to showcase our country to the world, but we blew it and became joke…(So thanks ASLEF, etc, you wankers!)
As always, just my 2p worth..
propersplitbrainme
Warrant Officer
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Well, modern day Britain is not a country in which people are generally galvanised towards a common goal or even feel naturally patriotic enough towards to put aside grievances and differences to reach a common end result. There are always dissenting voices regardless of what the issue or occaision is and self-interest has a nasty habit of coming to the fore with no concern as to the consequences or how it makes the country look. And yes, petty officialdom over things like bakers making the olympic symbol out of donuts, and the banning of Pepsi logos does sum up the place up, or more to the point the lack of intelligence of the officials who try to enforce such rubbish.
But, that said, I think it had the potential to be a lot worse and once the events have started all that will be forgotten (I hope). There are times when I loathe certain aspects of this country, but I still feel strongly enough about it to hope the next two weeks or so pass off successfully. Its a better attitude to adopt than sit hunched up over a pint of warm bitter, top lip curled up in a permanent sneer hoping for a disaster so you can go 'nyer, told ya so, waste of money, nyer'.