Cobblers to the Olympics!!!!!!!

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** SUSPENDED ** Joined: 06 Mar 2012 Posts: 173

Am I one of the people who can barely summon the energy to give a toss about the whole Olympic shindig?

I shall be very glad when the whole bloody business is over and done with!!!

Posted: Sun Jul 15, 2012 7:45 am

Same here. For one thing, I'm not much of a sports freak, and when I am, I usually just watch ice hockey championships, hardly any athletics and the like...

At least I don't live in London or anywhere nearby, so I can peacefully not give a damn.

** SUSPENDED ** Joined: 06 Mar 2012 Posts: 173

I work for a company near the Ricoh Arena in Coventry. The arena is holding some of the football tournament games. These begin BEFORE the official opening ceremony and only last week there were huge signs put up on the road (A444) near the arena telling drivers to avoid the areas from the 12th of July to the 9th of August. Nobody at the Olympics seems to understand (or care) that people have to go to work in the geographical areas near the arena or use the A444 to get to and from work in other places.

Furthermore, I saw signs on the M1 motorway, telling people to plan ahead for travel disruption the games would cause. I saw those signs in May, a whole 10 weeks before the games open.

Posted: Sun Jul 15, 2012 8:08 am

Ah sorry to hear that.

Well, I can totally picture this feeling and why you just want it to end already.
Like I said, thank god, they'll probably never have Olympics in here. Very Happy

I mean, even if I loved watching olympics, after having to deal with traffic jams on daily basis, I'd probably hate it by that point too.

Posted: Sun Jul 15, 2012 8:50 am

You lot are lucky, try living over here in the east, we are about 70 miles north of Stratford, we have updates on our local television news each night, teams are based here locally, and events are taking place in the region, one team even had the torch relay, visit the venue where they are training, they will have to use our roads as well as the spectators, to get to and from the various venue's as well as Stratford.
Our roads and rail lines all lead up to London and there is no way around for the regular travellers, they are going to have to put up with it.

Has anybody else had this feeling for the Olympics, locally there seems to be a feeling that something horrible is going to happen, they don't know what is going to happen, its just a feeling.

Posted: Sun Jul 15, 2012 9:18 am

^^^

Well, I myself have read lot of stuff online, regarding huge olympic bombings by Illuminati and who-knows-what, you know conspiracy theories and whatnot....

If you enter that in the Google, I'm sure you gonna get plenty of stuff.
So that might be the source of the local fear/paranoia, I think.

Posted: Sun Jul 15, 2012 9:49 am

2 things spring to mind about the Olympics.

1st it will do nothing for my area (east central scotland), no legacy whatsoever, all it seems to have done is drained monetary resources from the lottery fund, which could have gone to (I think) more deserving endeavours.

and

2nd if they do have to bring a plane down with one of their fast jets or missile launchers, what kind of carnage is that going to cause in London?

Posted: Sun Jul 15, 2012 11:17 am

Can't say I've heard anything untoward about the games, other than the usual conspiracy theory alarmism that any such event can (unfortunately) expect to attract. But then i've not really been paying attention to Olympic news. Laughing

We had the torch relay come to us a few weeks back. Whoopee. Road closures and traffic jams at hometime when roads are busy anyway. What a bunch of hooey.

I'm aware that Londoners are peed off with the road planning and closures of lanes specifically for Olympians. JClarkson made a good point on Twitter - 1 lane of a dual carriageway given over to several thousand olympians. Several million Londoners have to make do with the other. Rolling Eyes

I just hope all the investment leads to something positive, and not the biggest money-pit of the century. It did good things for Barcelona didn't it? Maybe we need a hologram Freddie Mercury at the opening ceremony. I'd watch that. Very Happy

Quote:

if they do have to bring a plane down with one of their fast jets or missile launchers, what kind of carnage is that going to cause in London?

Where does British airspace begin? Would hope they could intercede before it hits London area. Or if not, 'powers that be' may be forced to decide it would cause less damage not to intercede... then deal with the aftermath and international furore... Sad

Posted: Sun Jul 15, 2012 1:02 pm

Quote:

Would hope they could intercede before it hits London area. Or if not, 'powers that be' may be forced to decide it would cause less damage not to intercede... then deal with the aftermath and international furore...

As far as I can make out the inner restricted airspace is about 30 square miles of central London and the outer restricted area is most of south east England.

However the rapier and starstreak missiles deployed only have a range of around 7 miles. The maths don't add up Confused

Posted: Sun Jul 15, 2012 1:20 pm

conga22 wrote:

However the rapier and starstreak missiles deployed only have a range of around 7 miles. The maths don't add up Confused

It's worse than you think... the actual range is not seven miles but seven kilometres.

Posted: Mon Jul 16, 2012 6:55 am

^^ not too much of a problem. If they do shoot down a plane and it crashes into Hackney or Tower Hamlets it'll make millions of pounds worth of improvements.

My real beef with the whole olympics is this sort of nonsense:

http://www.independent.co.uk/sport/olympics/news/britain-flooded-with-brand-police-to-protect-sponsors-7945436.html

Quote:

Wearing purple caps and tops, the experts in trading and advertising working for the Olympic Delivery Authority (ODA) are heading the biggest brand protection operation staged in the UK. Under legislation specially introduced for the London Games, they have the right to enter shops and offices and bring court action with fines of up to £20,000.

Olympics organisers have warned businesses that during London 2012 their advertising should not include a list of banned words, including "gold", "silver" and "bronze", "summer", "sponsors" and "London".

Publicans have been advised that blackboards advertising live TV coverage must not refer to beer brands or brewers without an Olympics deal, while caterers and restaurateurs have been told not to advertise dishes that could be construed as having an association with the event.

At the 40 Olympics venues, 800 retailers have been banned from serving chips to avoid infringing fast-food rights secured by McDonald's.

Posted: Mon Jul 16, 2012 8:04 am

^ Oh ffs, that's just stupid. Since when do McCrap's have the monopoly on chips? Actually that's wrong, they don't make chips, they only do 'fries'. I guess if you want proper chips, don't go to the olympics. And how can they ban words? Bronze, gold, summer - I can see a few tanning salons being annoyed!

Speaking of advertising, I really hate the fact that Proctor & Gamble (P&G) were chosen as the main sponsor. I personally boycott their products, as they have one of the WORST track records for uneccesary/unethical animal testing, and unfortunately show no signs of changing their ways.

Posted: Mon Jul 16, 2012 11:59 am

I'd love to see the enforcement of some of those restricted words.

Get your new shiney 24Ct yellowish coloured soft metal ring. Also available in a grey but shiny metal that's a little harder and less expensive.

What are you planning for your new warmer month when school is out between spring and autumn holiday?

On a plus note I guess retailers will also be forbidden from serving inedible crap to avoid infringing on Mcdonalds monopoly on that. Should be some good eats around! Very Happy

Posted: Mon Jul 16, 2012 12:09 pm

Guess one of our local restauranteurs will have to change the name of the dish he has prepared for the Olympians which will feature our local wild seafood.

Many things related to the Olympics are causing problems.

In our country it is the Ralph Lauren styled American uniforms. It has been uncovered that they were made in China.

Complaints have been made and senators are introducing legislation requiring all future Olympic uniforms be made in the USA. The Senate Majority Leader wants new uniforms made quickly in the US for the Summer Games. Ralph Lauren has promised American-made uniforms for the 2014 Winter games.

The China piled on calling the US hypocritical about the US complaining about the Made in China uniforms.

Posted: Mon Jul 16, 2012 2:07 pm

^^ THAT'S IT: OLYMPICS CANCELLED: ALL OF YOU JUST GO BACK HOME NOW. Rolling Eyes

I try my hardest to brighten up your otherwise dull lives with the glamour of the Olympic Spectacular and all you can do is whine and moan. SHAME ON YOU ALL.

Lord Sebastian Coe

Posted: Mon Jul 16, 2012 3:20 pm

Around here the biggest problem seems to be that the olympic volunteers are having too much sex amongst themselves, and becoming impatient for the arrival of media representatives, athletes and support crews in order to widen the, ahem, action pool. Grindr in particular is going crazy (or so I've heard).

I've also seen quite a few of the official olympic vehicles taking wrong turns into residential areas with complicated one-way systems, then taking a while to get out while the neighbourhood youths jeer.

and unfortunately the schmaltzy coverage of our UK Olympic Heroes (TM) is beginning to rival coverage I recall from my youth in the U!S!A! Not sure if this is because the oh-lympics are on home soil, or just because we are setting ourselves up for failure even more than usual.

Anyway I am looking forward to any travel misery, increase in confused tourist crowds, increase in petty crime, olympic administrative problems, outrageous sponsor monopolies etc as this all will create a welcome change in conversational topics which are 100% about the poor weather so far this summer.

Posted: Mon Jul 16, 2012 3:55 pm

firehouse5 wrote:

Anyway I am looking forward to any travel misery, increase in confused tourist crowds, increase in petty crime

you moving to Liverpool then?

Posted: Mon Jul 16, 2012 5:00 pm

Grindr says "no"

Posted: Mon Jul 16, 2012 6:17 pm

Rather watch PAINT DRY.............. Laughing

Posted: Tue Jul 17, 2012 2:27 am

Screw all of you whiners...Olympics RULE!! Laughing

Posted: Tue Jul 17, 2012 7:28 am

I only watch big events on the off-chance that there will be a major terrorist attack.

If at least 4 planes aren't shot down during the 100 metres final, I shall be really disappointed.

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