The UK Olympics .. what is your opinion?

By: Jack7
27 Jan 2012 at 12:53

3 like

I was asked what I of thought of the Olympic Games being held here this year by a SZ member.
Now, I am long in the tooth (watch out Methuselah), but as sharp as a button.
I can remember the last games held here (1948). I lived in a tenement block (Ruskin Buildings, Millbank) which was a stones throw from Big Ben and within spitting distance of the Tate (the original .. I could see it from my bedroom window). We still had rationing and I had never eaten a banana.
Times were austere compared to today’s easy living.
Imagine .. No TV , no central heating, no telephone, no instant hot water but we were all healthily slim (no fast food .. Our stomachs were healthily small) but it was SO cold in the winter.
I remember seeing lots of men wearing blazers. In those days the athletes were amateurs and NO ONE took drugs.
How times have changed. The very first games (held in Greece) had only one event. A short sprint over a stade (an ancient Greek unit of length) from where we get the word Stadium.
Sport is now a business. There is no such think as an amateur. It is about winning and the money that rolls in if you do.
I HATE competitions. I feel for the losers. I do not watch football or cricket. I do watch snooker on TV but even then feel sorry for the losers. One hero in a particular sport might hold the crown for a period but eventually he will lose it. It is all pointless vanity.
I do not look up to and admire those hero’s.
Sport is big business and the Olympics is the most expensive form of staging it.
What are those gold plated medals really worth. Admiration and glory for being able to run/jump/swim faster than anyone else.
We even admire animals that are faster than others.
Now I understand if you get pleasure from any of the previous. I do not begrudge you your pleasure but it is not for me. Winning for the contestants and those who watch them becomes an addiction.
Now let me deviate for a moment.
I read a article in Wednesdays Independent (i).
I will paraphrase ..
Around four and a half million elderly people in Britain are “making do” and going without the most basic household goods in order to pay rent and fuel bills, according to a charity survey.
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That is shameful and disgusting. I have heard it said many times that a society should be judged on how it treats its elderly members.
Does our millionaire PM and his millionaire DPM lose sleep over these real people?
Now back to the Olympics.
The cost of this years Olympic games is already over 12 billion pounds (£12,000,000,000). I am sceptical that they will get it back from the visitors that come here to watch events.
I see London grinding to a halt. I see marvellous opportunities for criminals. I see a wonderful opportunity for the terrorists and fellow travellers. I see opportunities for exploitation by hotels and other people who provide services. I see a dramatic escalation of the cost of living.
We are cutting back on our armed forces (they are treated so indifferently). We are cutting back on our police force.
We are cutting back on many other things (we have to).
I am not saying that we should not try to balance our books.
I am saying that to hold the 2012 games in the UK is to my mind an act of stupidity.
It will probably finally cost 15 billion pounds (£15,000,000,000) and for what?
Vanity and disruption.
Those four and a half million elderly people will not gain a penny and probably do not care about the games.
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If you love and like to watch we could have done so from our homes watching another country staging the games.
Realistically, the only country that can afford to stage them is China.
I suggest that China alone should stage them every four years from now on .
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I truly think that to stage the games here this year was a monumental idiot decision made by self interested people who are xxxxxxx.
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The original games were held in the honour of the god Zeus (L. Jupiter).
In which God should our current games be held in the honour of?
Jehovah, Allah or Commercialism?
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I do hope you all join in with your comments for and against.