Olympic Boredom !

The past few days I've been consumed with antipathy. Glad, however, I watched the ceremony, some very funny and dark moments. Love some of the less obvious traits: The ET moment when the cyclist seemed to fly through the air. All in all, including the music, a fabulous montage of Britain.

The only slight "oh dear" moment was Macca and 'Hey Jude'. Loved the Beatles and some of Macca's solo stuff but...

I'm a Beatles fan as well. but it really is time he gave it up.

Loved the rest of the show though.

My wife wondered 'why Hey Jude'?, to be fair everyone knows the song and does get everyone singing (especially in our house at the top of our voices )

Great opening ceremony

    Well mike oldfield should benefit. 

Watching womens' weightlifting.....Blimey!.....it's certainly the opposide end of the spectrum to womens' volleyball (and that's only the tiddlers)!!

i'm watching the women's fencing...they look like their wearing a kef 3000 on their heads....so cool how it flashes when they get stabed tho

It is really weird here in London. Shops and pubs are empty, there is very little traffic and lots of empty hotel rooms.

Who said the games would be a boost to the economy?

 

Not what was expected at all. But there have been so many warnings to stay away from London for fears of a snarl up. Looks like that has backfired.

Visited every shop/hotel and checked their P&L and visitor list.? Oh -and all those pieces of advice to avoid the roads in this period have obviously been heeded.

football should be really fun.  i think we will take gold on it.

The situation here in south east London is that the Olympic lanes are open to all traffic for most of the day despite having 3 venues close together. 

Restaurants and theatres are complaining that they have half their normal business, taxi drivers reckon their trade is considerably down, and hotels are having to slash prices to attract clientelle. It is obvious that the scaremongering has been overdone. It was forecast that London Bridge station would not be able to cope and have to be closed at certain times, but I went through it last Friday and apart from games volunteers, at the ready to help visitors, the general public was noticable by its absence. I boarded a train about 4.30, the train was faulty and refused to move so we were moved to the next one, and still there were seats. 

Apparently exactly the same happened in Sydney and it all picked up in the second week when people realised the city wasn't literally going to be wall to wall with people (as had been projected, just like they did in London). Let's see what happens over the weekend / next week.

EDIT - oh, pretty good day for Team GB! Have been really enjoying the BBC's coverage of our medal haul today.

 

Oh, interesting to see how your viewpoint has changed, Paul (well, I say "interesting"). Before the event, it was doom and gloom about the disruption, all the people etc. Now it's doom and gloom because there is no disruption and not enough people for local traders.

Hopefully next week, the Olympics team can arrange just the right number of people in London to meet your exacting demands of satisfying the economy without causing you disruption 

 

'EDIT - oh, pretty good day for Team GB! Have been really enjoying the BBC's coverage of our medal haul today.'

 

Couldn't agree more prof, been a great day. Have just been watching the highlights on the Beeb, fantastic action all round: cycling, shooting, rowing, canoeing, you name it. I've no truck with the doommongers, the Olympics are FANTASTIC. Worth every penny in my book. Even got to see the men's cycling time trials as Wiggo and co whizzed past our offices yesterday. Unbelievable.

I must admit that I don't watch sport at all, being Welsh it's difficult when you don't watch/like Rugby (trust me). So this has been a music and film fest for me, as I have played a host of stuff that I haven't heard for a while and am currently enjoying Sarah Mclaughlan - Power of Illusion to chillax. Also internet radio stations are getting further research and a listen.

However, I must also admit that the BBC have got the coverage well sorted from what I have seen. The opening ceremony was great, I don't care if others in the world didn't understand it, it was inclusive, fun, dark and required watching. Agreeing with Andy C about them being fantastic. Wiggo and Hoy are something special as are the other cyclists that we have. Not sure about the Olympics being worth every penny though, £14.9 billion could build quite a few schools to replace those that are falling down IMHO.

The economics of it all have to be viewed in the long term, I believe, because the eyes of the world are on the UK/london. It is the case that more visitors will come here, they may not stay in London, because of the prices etc, but they will come and spend, and the UK will benefit. On R4 today there was an interesting article about the downturn of tourism in the Lake District, where the Japanese have not visited this year, but then Londoners/Other English Toiurists had then travelled up taking up the offers, and one hotelier said that he was at 96% occupancy. What can you say!!!! There will always be economic winners and loosers on this one, I think that there always have been, it's just that the collection of data and reporting of the effects are clearer and reported faster in the media, these days.

At the end of the day, enjoy, it ain't coming back in our life time, even if you're like me and don't really get the sport thing.