Waste of Resources?

Congratulations to Craig Coulthard, who has won a £460K lottery funded commission for "Artists Taking The Lead", to chop down some trees to make way for a football pitch as one of 12 art projects commissioned to celebrate the London 2012 Olympics.

The "Forest Pitch" will be located in the Borders area; the trees will be used to create a stand, goalposts and shelter.

Two football matches will be played, the pitch will then be left to return to nature.

Errrm...call be a boring old accountant, but isn't this rather a waste of resources (both environmental and financial)?

Olympic Medals won during the Beijing 2008 Olympics

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An American in London

Doug Arnot has been appointed Director of Games Operations, by the London Organising Committee of the Olympic Games (LOCOG).

Arnot will be responsible for the overall planning, coordination and delivery of the 2012 London Olympics.

He was an executive vice president of the 1994 World Cup in the USA, then he went on to become managing director of venues and operations for the 1996 Atlanta Olympics. He was also managing director for event operations at the 2002 Winter Games in Salt Lake City.

Oddly enough, whilst working for the Salt Lake organising committee, Arnot pleaded guilty in 2000 to a minor assault charge for punching a pedestrian during a road rage incident.

He sprent 10 days in jail, was sentenced to 100 hours of community service, a fine, 12 months of probation and mandatory anger management counselling.

Olympic Medals won during the Beijing 2008 Olympics

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Boris's Massive Erection

Full marks to Boris Johnson, Mayor of London, for thinking big.

He has plans for a massive erection, to be erected for the London 2012 Olympics, that will rival the Eiffel Tower.

The 400ft tower (a cross between a Native American totem pole and a pylon) will be built at the Stratford Olympics site, and the £15M cost will be funded by Lakshmi Mittal the steel magnate.

At night "Boris's Erection" will be illuminated using power generated from solar panels.

Well, let's see how this goes then:)

Olympic Medals won during the Beijing 2008 Olympics

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The Black Hole

The London Development Agency (LDA) was given a well deserved drubbing in the London Assembly's Budget and Performance Committee Pre-Budget Report for its lamentable financial controls that caused a £159M financial black hole.

The shortfall has "not only damaged the Agency's reputation but has significantly reduced its resources".

"The financial prospects for the LDA in 2010/11 are bleak.

Together with clawbacks from central government of previously allocated grants, this shortfall will result in the LDA's available resources being over 20% less in 2010/11 than previously planned.

This comes in a period when the LDA will be trying to establish credibility with Londoners as the lead agency on economic development and regeneration in the capital in a challenging economic environment."

Committee chairman John Biggs said:

"The LDA must now demonstrate that lessons have been learned, controls improved and sufficient testing on budget areas carried out to ensure budgets going forward can be relied upon."

Quite!

Olympic Medals won during the Beijing 2008 Olympics

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Spectrum Is Green

With an estimated worldwide audience of 5BN, London Olympics organisers are keen to make sure the audience can actually see the games.

To this end Ofcom has announced that it will "borrow" spectrum from public bodies in order to deal with the demand for airwaves during the 2012 Olympic Games.

Ofcom intends to borrowing airwaves currently used by the Ministry of Defence and the Civil Aviation Authority to meet the short-term demand.

Ofcom emphasised that it would not endanger essential services by using publicly owned spectrum for the Olympics, and that the organisations had already agreed to make the resource available.

Olympic Medals won during the Beijing 2008 Olympics

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BBC Screws Up Again

The BBC seems not to have learned its lesson wrt rigging phone votes etc, as it was revealed that Florence Jackson the 9 year old girl who won the Olympics 50p coin is in fact the daughter of Andrew Jackson (the head of the BBC's Natural History Unit and a former BBC reporter).

The BBC said:

"We strongly refute any allegations of wrongdoing. The judging panel who short-listed the finalists was not given any indication of the name, sex or age of any of the entrants.

Their decision was based purely on the design of the coin.

Any suggestion that anyone at the BBC could have had undue influence on the selection of the winning entry is totally wrong and without any foundation whatsoever. The competition closed in March, before any discussions between the NHU and Andrew Jackson.

The eventual winner was selected as a finalist in March. Andrew is due to start at the NHU at the end of October".

I don't doubt the impartiality of the panel for one moment, nor the fact that Florence deserved to win. The trouble is the BBC is media organisation and should have seen how this would play out in the media, and would have known before Florence was announced as winner that Andrew was joining them again.

Olympic Medals won during the Beijing 2008 Olympics

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The "Real" Thing

As I have noted many times before, the Olympics is not about sport but about money and brand promotion.

Coca-Cola demonstrates this point admirably as reports indicate that it is less than happy with Locog's proposals for a £20M sponsorship deal with a major British supermarket chain.

Locog has been in talks with Sainsbury's and Marks & Spencer wrt a possible deal.

However, Coca-Cola feels that the deal would damage its own campaigns and as such has complained to the International Olympic Committee.

Olympic Medals won during the Beijing 2008 Olympics

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Cost Savings

Financial reality seems finally to be dawning on those organising the budget busting London Olympics 2012 (aka the "flat pack" Olympics).

Badminton and rhythmic gymnastics will be moved to Wembley Arena, saving £42M in budgeted costs for a temporary venue which would have been built for these events in Greenwich.

£42M saved, less than £12BN to go!

Olympic Medals won during the Beijing 2008 Olympics

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The Flat Pack Games

The London 2012 Olympics is rapidly morphing into the "flat-pack Olympics", as 17 sports will end up with zero bricks-and-mortar legacy at the end of the games.

Olympic Medals won during the Beijing 2008 Olympics

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NOGOE

NOGOE (No to Greenwich Olympic Equestrian Events) is a community action group whose members believe Greenwich Park is not a suitable venue for the 2012 Olympic equestrian events.

Olympic Medals won during the Beijing 2008 Olympics

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Irregular Betting

The International Olympic Committee (IOC), in an attempt to eliminate irregular betting, is to set up a new system to monitor corrupt betting practices linked to Olympic competitions.

International Sports Monitoring, based in Switzerland, will monitor the 2010 Vancouver winter games and then the London 2012 games.

Olympic Medals won during the Beijing 2008 Olympics

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Boris Battles IOC

I see that Boris Johnson is going into battle against the IOC et al, over plans to build a £40M temporary venue near the 02 in Greenwich.

According to Adrian Warner of the BBC:

"Expect plenty of rows on this for months yet. And also expect Johnson to dig in hard to get his way.

2012 has become very political. This row is so acrimonious that Johnson rushed in front of TV cameras this week without even telling 2012 he planned to do so.

Boris has stepped out of the Olympic tent. The 2012 consensus has been shattered. With the IOC also ready to play a hard game, we are in for some interesting days."

My money's on Boris winning this one!

Olympic Medals won during the Beijing 2008 Olympics

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