The torch relay starts it journey today (it's already gone out once so may be that's a sign!)

It was 2005 - and it was the year that London "won" the Olympics. David Beckham looked SO excited !

It was going to cost about £2billion (which sounded like a lot even then). Two years later it was upped to about £9bn and a year after that the bottom fell out of the world financial markets.This was of course no reason to scale back (even though banks were going bust), and today the costs are around £12bn with a strong likelihood that with police, security and transport costs the final total will be nearer £24bn.

To put that into perspective ........ it's 240 new hospitals (roughly) or 20 million extra nurses on a starting salary of £12,000.

It's more money than the total transport budget for the whole United Kingdom.

It's half the total education budget; and one fifth of the total cost of the ENTIRE National Health Service

.............. all so a few people can advance their own careers and a few more people in wheelchairs can pretend to be "athletes" !!!!!

It's going to do lots of good things, of course - like new transport links, lots of athletes fulfilling a lifetime ambition, world stage, regeneration, blah blah blah.

But it's also giving us surface-to-air missile sites in the East End, warships in the Thames, and a very tempting target for any fanatic with a chemistry book.
The MoD is supplying 13,500 troops for London (thats 4000 MORE than are currently in Afghanistan, and we are fighting a war there !!!). There are to be "aerial drones" (watch out any wedding parties !!) and police snipers on rooftops too. (I wonder just how many muggings, robberies, burglaries, rapes etc will take place nationwide, while the UK's limited police resources are all playing Robocop in London ? Let's be optymistic, shall we, and hope all criminals are sports fans and are glued to the telly ?!!!)

All this is still not enough for the Americans - they are sending their own security (inc 500 FBI agents).
ITK will definately NOT be travelling on the tube - or anywhere else in London - between July 27th and August 12th - I guarantee you that !!!

Of course, none of this was even mentioned in 2005. Then it was all about booming property prices, David Beckham being an "ambassador", and 10-year-old children saying they wanted to win a gold medal.

There are lots of things about the games that could be great. But there's no reason you can't do it alot cheaper - just like we did in 1948 (when we were even more broke than we are now).

It's not cheaper if you have it in 30-odd venues around the country which each need policing 24 hours a day (and maintaining for years / decades afterwards).
It's not cheaper if you lay on five-star accommodation for athletes who'll spend most of their time elsewhere; and BMWs for visiting dignitaries when you've made the transport system so swizzy (but not available - for security reasons - to the people of London !!!); or £40m on an opening ceremony when you could just screen a bit of Chariots of Fire, and set off a few fireworks whilest Paul McCartney played a set.
It's not cheaper with £300,000 sculptures, and cable cars across the Thames between two bits of London that aren't very nice.

Of course, YOU can take part ! I was forgetting that !!!! You can be in the "torch relay" !!!!!
Not only is London going to be so clogged up that we produce even less than we do now, but the entire country is to be brought to a standstill too. The "lucky" ones (who carry the torch) will have a day "they will never forget" - especially if they stump up the £240 they need to pay if they want to keep the torch (plus £40 for the stand)

I'll bet you anything you like the people who run the security firms, the building companies, the architects (and the Olympics committee !!!!) are ALL alot richer now than they were in 2005.
I'll further bet you the vast majority of them won't be Londoners, or even British (at least as far as their tax goes), and that the long-term legacy of the whole sorry shambles is going to be an even bigger debt (which we'll be still paying off after a further dozen Olympic Games have been staged elsewhere).

Of course, some will do very well out of it - like the corporate sponsors who stop people taking their homemade sandwiches or bottled water into the events (so they can charge £1.60 for water, £3 for a Coke and £5 for a hot dog).

It's not as if anyone actually wanted it. 2.6 million (out of 60 million Britons) "expressed" an interest in tickets. When details became available only 1.9 actually bought (and how many of them were touts etc ?) A tiny percentage of the population - and this does not even count the "millions" we are told will be coming from abroad. Where are these "millions" going? If its to an Olympic venue then the 1.9 million ticket sales will include them - which means that even fewer British people will have bought tickets.

I can't help thinking it would have been a lot more fun in the long term to put £24billion in used notes in a big pile and set light to it, but maybe I'm just being pessimistic. Maybe we should have used the £24 billion to reduce our debt - so we can start to expand again? That wouldn't have been half as much fun, would it? - but maybe a lot more sensible.

I'm sure David Beckham's still really excited ...... But then he'd be excited with a new pen.

People are flogging their Olympic torches already - according to BBC breakfast !!!!!

So much for "day of destine" etc LOL

I'll offer ten bob ....... Any advance ?

The flame has gone out again LOL !!!!!!!!!

In The Know wrote:
It's not as if anyone actually wanted it. 2.6 million (out of 60 million Britons) "expressed" an interest in tickets. When details became available only 1.9 actually bought (and how many of them were touts etc ?) A tiny percentage of the population.

BBC reveals that more than a million Olympic tickets remain unsold !

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The BBC has learned that nearly a third of the Olympics tickets which went on sale earlier this month remain unsold.

The London 2012 organisers had expected that the 928,000 tickets would all be snapped up quickly by eager buyers, but that has not proved to be the case.

In total there are nearly 300,000 tickets remaining on sale.

That is in addition to the more than one million football tickets which are left.

For the first time since London 2012 tickets went on sale last year there is now a genuine prospect of the Games not selling out.

www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/olympics/18209178

===

ITK is now even more convinced that the people who actually bought only wanted to see a quick profit by disposing of them asap !!

In The Know wrote:
ITK will definately NOT be travelling on the tube - or anywhere else in London - between July 27th and August 12th - I guarantee you that !!!

ITK's guide for surviving the Olympics !

1. switch OFF the TV / cancel newspapers

2. pack bags

3. leave the Country immediately !

ITK is off on his holidays !!!!!

I do hope you enjoy everything
(and if you enjoy enough, perhaps you'll pay off my share of the eternal debt as well as your own?)

stay safe !!!!

bye ITK

but we all know there'll be a running commentary

sadly...........