With all the misplaced excitement of Wimbledon over, I thought you'd all be interested in this documentary on the forthcoming Olympic extravaganza. http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b01kvdzn/Twenty_Twelve_Series_2_Catastrophisation/ Essential viewing.
I can't get excited about the Olympics at all. All I see is people in this country struggling to cope financially and then this extraveganza costing an absolute fortune. All to make more money for the participants who are becoming like footballers in their wealth accumulation. It used to be about amateurs who have struggled to get as good as they are and taking part for the adulation of the nation rather than their own finances. And they didn't do it taking drugs and cheating either. I lost a lot of interest in the Olympics when the drugs and money took over. I used to stay up till all hours watching it at one time. For me it's roll on the season starting.
I think once the thousands of official freebooters start sailing around the VIP traffic lanes in London in their free sponsored BMW's leaving the rest of the capital in gridlock, most of what goodwill there is for the Olympics will expire. The rest of it will go when the stadium starts to fall into disuse, unless or course Dagenham & Redbridge and the Walthamstow dog track do find a use for it! As Plymborn has pointed out elsewhere, it's not as corrupt as FIFA, but spending billions on minority sports which attract at best crowds of a few thousand outside the Olympics is a scandalous waste of resources.
Tut tut Lalala, you haven't been paying attention have you? West Ham won the bid to move into the stadium, having agreed to leave the running track in place, which I'm sure would have done the world of good to the traditionally passionate support they get at Upton Park. Spurs, who wouldn't have left the running track there, protested and the deal collapsed. Subsequently, there were allegations that Spurs' protest had in part been based on snooping on the Olympic organisers and it was revealed that one of the Olympic officials was on the West Ham payroll. And tut tut too that you haven't watched the fly-on-the-wall documentary I advised you to, which reveals that Dagenham & Redbridge are to move onto the Olympic football pitch with the presently defunct Walthamstow greyhound racing operation using the track.
I have to admit to glazing over a tad at the very mention of prem clubs so wasn't aware of the outcome. Documentries only get watched when tennis isn't being played so missed that too - sorry. That's my wrists well and truly slapped then!
I may have lied a little; it's rather more a mockumentary than a documentary...... Suffice it to say Hugh Bonneville of Downton Abbey fame plays the lead role. I think it's funny on two levels - firstly taking the mickey out of the totally sanctimonious Olympic set up & secondly of office life in general - the first scene in this one in which Hugh Bonneville tries to get a breakfast meeting off to a quick start when everyone else is only interested in the pastries and posh coffees is hilarious and completely true to life. http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-e...eville-the-lord-of-office-jargon-7594951.html
