While in London last weekend, I anticipated hearing and seeing much activity and excitement regarding the forthcoming Olympics which were then only two weeks away. There was certainly a good deal of activity with 30 miles of Soviet-style ZiL lanes being created to transport VIP's, "marketing partners" and oh yes, athletes to the various venues. Also there were numerous line closures on the London Underground while repairs were made and security tests were carried out to ensure that everything would be operational during the games themselves. None of this appeared to impress the Londoners I spoke with!
Frankly they seemed fed up with the whole thing. As one guy told me while travelling on the Northern Line, "We are being told where we can go and where we can't go and when."
When the announcement was made back in July 2005 that London had won the Olympics, I believed that ordinary Londoners and to a lesser extent British people, would benefit from this award. I believed, or was led to believe, that the influx of foreign tourists and spectators would bring welcome revenue to our businesses and trades. Not so it seems!
It is now becoming clear that the aforementioned "marketing partners" are the only ones who will benefit from this event. The exclusive rights bought up by the likes of Coca-Cola, McDonald's and Adidas are now being rigidly enforced by our own government to the extent that one small shopkeeper close to the Olympic Stadium has had his shop screened from view by a line of newly planted trees. One 81 year old grandmother created a doll bearing an Olympic torch and donated it to a church sale, but was forced to withdraw it because it infringed the laws created to protect these 'gods of capitalism'! The London Organising Committee of the Olympic Games (LOCOG) has 300 people enforcing the Olympic Act 2006 to ensure that people do not infringe the marketing rights and advertising rules of the London 2012 games. It seems they own the intellectual copyright to words such as "gold", "summer", "London", "games" or "2012". Heaven forbid you should use any of those words in the same sentence. You may find yourself £20,000 worse off.
Our government ministers who seem obsessed with security to the extent that they have moored an aircraft carrier on the Thames and installed missiles in tower blocks, also awarded the security contract to a company with a reputation for total incompetence. They then failed to realise that insufficient security personnel would be provided and have had to draft in 3,500 of our already overstretched troops to cover the shortfall. Nevertheless these same ministers appear capable of defending one thing. The profits of the fat and greedy corporate sponsors!
What a disgrace!
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