alex_t wrote:
Well known for causing extra financial commitments for the host
country the UK cannot afford to buy the games so it shouldn't.
End of story.

Well, actually - to be completely fair I'm slowly drifting to the
same point of view:

1. The games could be managed much better (reusing existing venues,
spreading venues around the country, etc).
2. There could be much more commercial sponsorship (as far as I
remember last Olympics in the US were finances without any
tax-payers money used). One could imagine banks with their
super-profits participating in that.
3. And of course ability of New Labour to mess everything hardly
adds any optimism.

But still - Olympics are fun and interesting event. I was actually
conceived during 1980 Olympics in Moscow ;-D

For some reason this conjures up in my mind the image of a couple in
Cricklewood. "Nothing on the telly except the bloody Olympics from
Moscow", and they retire upstairs for something "fun and interesting"
....
;-)

--
Richard J.
(to e-mail me, swap uk and yon in address)

On Fri, 16 Mar 2007 07:40:04 +0000, Marc Brett
wrote:

On Thu, 15 Mar 2007 22:18:15 +0000, wrote:

On 15 Mar 2007 14:17:59 -0700, "alex_t"
wrote:


Its probable that a certain amount of tourist income will be generated,
but experience shows that it usually falls well short of the estimates
(remember those thousands of empty seats in the broadcasts from
Athens?).

There are many other ways that the money will be returned - one of the
major is cost of broadcast rights. Plus selling the new flats in
Olympic village, etc.
And what may I ask are these things going to do for the poor and
homeless of London .

They will generate a great deal more homeless and poor, if history is any guide.

Salt Lake City promised 2500 units of low-cost houing; only 150 were delivered,
and prices for residential hotels increased 300%. The year before the Sydney
Olympics, tenant evictions increased by 400%. In Atlanta, Project Homeward
Bound gave the homeless a one-way ticket out of town before the Olympics began.
In Calgary, none of the promised low-cost housing units were delivered, only a
few university dorms. (Not Olympic-related, but Habitat 67, a low cost housing
project for the 1967 World Fail in Montreal, became luxury condominiums.)

Being a bit blunt I doubt we would be as crass as North America / Canada
in how we deal with any similar issues.

And how will London's £600 million security budget be spent? In racist
repressions, most likely. In Los Angeles, 1984, the black communities
surrounding the olympic sites were cordoned off and police required IDs from
everyone entering or leaving the areas. Similar arrangements for Atlanta, 1996.
Muslims in Athens, 2004, were subjected to increased surveillance in their
mosques, and mass document checks. Amnesty International said "security for the
2004 Olympics is used in Greece as a pretext to systematically break
international treaties on the right to refugees". Laws were passed in Sydney to
allow increased surveillance, search and seizure, and military involvement in
law enforcement, just for the Olympics, but, surprise!, they are still in force.

I expect we've already got all the repressive legislation already
courtesy of having people blow themselves up on our Tube network. You
cannot ignore the facts that the Olympics are a huge and attractive
target for terrorists and also that London and the UK are also a target.
While I take the point about repression and would be against racist and
disproportionate action we still have to recognise that money has to be
spent to control, mitigate or remove the risk of such attacks.

I lived in Montreal for the 1976 Olympics - great party, but the bill was only
finally paid off in 2002. I lived in Calgary for the 1988 Olympics - great
party but a $910 million debt, and no measurable long-term economic benefit.
Sydney was proud to host a "self-financing" Olympics in 2000 but still got
burdened with a $2.3 billion debt.

I don't doubt there will be a debt post the Olympics but I expect it
will take less time to pay off than for a number of other cities given
the strength of London's economy and its projected growth well beyond
2012. Assuming Ken is still around as Mayor I think the requirement to
secure proper regeneration will be followed through. There are other
important factors like CTRL at Stratford and the effect of Docklands and
Thames Gateway expansion / regeneration that mean that regeneration at
the Olympic sites are more likely to succeed than other cities. I
recognise there is a risk that it may not be so we'll have to wait and
see and one of us can say to other "I told you so".

And now London's TfL budget is being raided to finance construction costs, but
they also have to deliver better public transportation for the games? WTF?

Complete and utter speculation by journalists. For reasons I have
outlined elsewhere in the thread there are too many risks to TfL's
continued capital funding for people to play "fast and loose" with TfL's
budgets and reserves.

I can see the PR spin now -- "Complaints have been raised that cash fares are
far in excess of Oyster fares. To make the system fairer for everyone, Oyster
fares, as of next week, will rise to the level of cash fares, which are also
going up by an amount only modestly higher than inflation. This will help make
the Olympic experience the best that it can be for residents and tourists alike.
This is a temporary measure, and will last only as long as we are paying off the
Olympic debt."

The Mayor has said the exact opposite of this both prior to and after
the £9bn cost announcement. The Mayor would also be unable to weather
the political storm that would follow if he was mad enough to take such
a step. Ken is many things but politically stupid / suicidal he is not.
--
Paul C


Admits to working for London Underground!

On Thu, 15 Mar 2007 23:32:54 +0000, wrote:

On 15 Mar 2007 14:25:21 -0700, "alex_t"
wrote:


As a born and bred Londoner I think it's absolutely great
that it's coming to London, and it seems that the various
announcements today regarding decisions on the funding of the games
should mean that the resulting turbulence is by and large dealt with
now rather than later.

Well, I live in London only for a year (and 15 days), but I totally
support the Olympics ;-)
Put you money where your mouth is then and get you wallet out then and
go and see Coe .
You know up here in Lancashire we got all this claptrap about some
big games and athletics fiasco that was being held in Manchester maybe
a couple of years or so ago ,was it the commonwealth games or
something ? . Oh yes the fiasco was going to do wonders for the city
of Manchester and would place no burden on the tax payers of
Manchester in the event the fiasco did bugger all for Manchester
except cause a lot of traffic congestion cost a mint in police
resources and also put up the council tax for the people of Greater
Manchester and two of the built venues are now unoccupied and dropping
to pieces .
Besides, something *must* be done with local wastelands...
WHY ?????? .
We have wastelands in my city always have had far back has I can
remember oh yes the town council ( before it got city status ) did has
you say did something with them they built two spanking new large
housing estates on them and filled the houses with scumbags who
totally wrecked most of the housing stock within ten years now the
estates are full of drug takers and pushers .

Do you freelance as the part time editor of the Daily Mail and Sunday
Express? You appear to hold the same abhorrent views of our country,
society and residents as those erstwhile journals.

Is it really necessary to be making reference to scumbags in some
Northern City on a group about transport in London? Sure we go off topic
at times but I am failing to see the relevance of your rantings about
the Olympics.
--
Paul C


Admits to working for London Underground!

On Fri, 16 Mar 2007 16:15:14 +0000, wrote:

On 16 Mar 2007 05:29:58 -0700, "alex_t"
wrote:


So... can I get a refund of all my National Insurance contributions?
(as a migrant on work permit I cannot get any benefits, so why should
I pay NI?) Also I'd like to get some of my taxes back, especially the
part spent on roads (as I don't have a car), trains (as I don't use
them), buses (don't use 'em either), child support benefits (as I
don't have a family).

To you and all people like you I have only one thing to say
if you do not like the way you are treated in this country because no
one asked you to come here .

I have one thing to say to you - such remarks are not relevant or
appropriate to the subject matter of this group. There is no need
whatsoever for such comments - especially to people who are showing an
interest in London and participating in the group.

And while we are an unmoderated group you can obviously choose to ignore
my comments but equally I am entitled to make such comment as I choose.

--
Paul C


Admits to working for London Underground!

In article ,
wrote:

To you and all people like you I have only one thing to say
if you do not like the way you are treated in this country because no
one asked you to come here .

What - purely theoretically speaking of course - would you say to those
of us whose mothers were resident in the UK at our birth, but who still
disagree with paying for the Big O's ?

I just hope they really do manage to bring more into the country than
they are costing, in which case we will indeed have a net national win.
But we won't know until afterwards.

Nick, uncharacteristically lenient in the use of the K key tonight
--
http://www.leverton.org/blosxom ... So express yourself

For some reason this conjures up in my mind the image of a couple in
Cricklewood. "Nothing on the telly except the bloody Olympics from
Moscow", and they retire upstairs for something "fun and interesting"
...
;-)

LOL

Re using exiting venues yes but spreading around the country no would
you wish a cancer to be spread around your body eating away all your
flesh no course you wouldn't and of course do what surgeons do and cut
the damn thing out where ever possible .

Cancer? Come on! It is just a sport event.


Please yourself )))))) .

And to reiterate once again - my original message was a not-so-good
attempt at sarcasm
I guess I should react less to trolls :-/

None of them IMO.

I hope that you're right.

On Fri, Mar 16, 2007 at 01:25:15PM +0000, James Farrar wrote:
On Fri, 16 Mar 2007 11:37:13 +0000, David Cantrell
wrote:
Until you and like-minded people do that, I will vote for *any* political
party that promises to cancel the games.
You will vote for a political party that promises to do something
that, legally, it can't?

Why can't it?

--
David Cantrell | A machine for turning tea into grumpiness

What is the difference between hearing aliens through the
fillings in your teeth and hearing Jesus in your heart?