London Calling - But who will heed the sirens?

Fans were not slow to voice their frustrations on Twitter. One wrote: 'Patience exhausted by initial failures to buy tickets. Bored now, have lost interest completely.' Another insisted the whole ticketing process had been a total disgrace "…right from the poorly managed ballot last year to the last minute selling now. When the Olympics is coming to your own country, one would expect that the majority of tickets should be available to the common person, easily accessible and priced fairly. Instead a ridiculous amount of high quality event tickets were given away to sponsors or priced so outrageously (£1000 for the ceremonies) that the vast majority of people were excluded from buying any. Any tickets that were priced fairly were dogged by systematic failures such as website crashes that prevented me from securing any even today. The taxpayer has already paid once for the Olympics; only idiots would pay for a ticket."

Others have chosen the issue of food to vent their pent up ire. McDonald's is reported to have paid upwards of $100 million to be the 'Official Sponsor, Retail Food Services' at the Games leading some to point out that as a result it is now forbidden by law (the London Olympic Games and Paralympic Games Act 2006) to bring in even a Burger King to the venue. "Burger me" said one netizen. "So it's to be the McOlympics? Doesn't it seem hugely ironic that a company famed for creating wildly unhealthy food has the contract for a sporting event? McDonalds sponsoring a sports event is in pretty poor taste (in more ways than one) but if they can get them to fork out $100 million - which is $100 million less for the taxpayer I assume - then great."

But once again, it is the issue of poor value for money that has everyone champing at the bit to add their comments to the blogosphere. 500ml bottle of water for £1.60 – yes, that's really RMB16! Small glass of wine – £5.20; Fresh orange juice – £2.80; Cup of coffee - £2.40; Hot dog - £5.90; 660ml Heineken - £6.80; 568ml draft British Bitter- £6.20; Crisps - £1.50 – not forgetting a McDonalds "Meal" for £7.40. Spectators will be charged more than twice the national average price for a beer and the only acceptable credit card will be VISA – another one of the sponsors.

In many ways, one of the saddest aspects of the Olympics is that they were supposed to be about showcasing the best of British. I'm not sure how McDonalds being the preferred "food" supplier backs up that premise; and the truth is that British food is actually not at all bad these days - a far cry from the well deserved dreadful reputation it had half a century ago.

With 31 competition venues, 955 sessions, 24,000 athletes and team officials, 21,000 media flunkies, and a workforce of 160,000, it is estimated that some 14 million meals will be prepared for those present during the Games. Someone has even calculated that they will need to ship in 25,000 loaves of bread, 232 tons of potatoes, 82 tons of seafood, 31 tons of poultry and a further 100 tons of meat, 75,000 liters of milk, 19 tons of eggs, 21 tons of cheese and more than 330 tons of fruit and vegetables. No wonder McDonalds was so happy to splurge out on winning its franchise!

But I wonder if that same someone realized that the 2012 London Olympics will clash with Ramadan, the holy month in the Islamic calendar? An anticipated 3,000 Muslim competitors are expected to fast from sunrise to sunset for the entire duration of the Games, not to mention the sizeable Muslim population that lives in England. Or will they? One Muslim cleric advised that "they don't have to observe Ramadan if they are doing sport and travelling but they will have to decide whether it is important to them." In other words, they apparently don't need to follow their religious strictures if it is inconvenient for them!

I have to wonder, however, why anyone should even think it preferable to bother going to the Games rather than watching wall-to-wall coverage on the TV. You'll see much, much more on TV, you'll be able to swig back a bottle of Tsingtao, or whatever your favorite tipple is, for a reasonable price; and you won't have to suffer rip-off Britain – let alone its quirky weather.

Or you could do like me – try and ignore it altogether on the basis that you just know that however much you bury your head in the sand, it will be very difficult to escape from endless reruns of the best bits for many weeks afterwards – and who wants to watch the boring bits anyway?

Now where did I put my copy of War and Peace?

 

Previous Page 1 2 Next Page

Previous Page 1 2 Next Page