Olympics and Paralympics 2012 (and now the legacy-part one)

Thanks cherry1.......I did sleep through some of the show and admit there were parts I couldn't understand and as one of the commentators said , I
don't know what the rest of the World will make of this.

Anyway, the Guardian report I posted earlier is very informative so I sent a copy to my American friends.

AN MP HAS SAID THE OLYMPICS ARE A LOT OF LEFTIES STUFF.

I just got to say that opening ceremony was an extraordinary display of expertise,technically and artistically superb.Choreography was different class.The first hour of that show was the best i've ever seen,the prossession of athletes bored me to sleep but i suppose that was tradition and only God must know what Paul Mcartney was all about,that must be worth a conspiracy theory thread on its own.Who ever doubted that GB couldn't put on the best show ever ?

Apologies for digressing but the mention of Paul McCartney and conspiracy theories set me off. I didn't know until recently that that old myth that Paul died in 1966 (and was replaced by a lookalike) was still doing the rounds.

Here's just one website about it - http://digilander.libero.it/jamespaul/fc1.html

Enjoy!

Thats interesting, hadnt heard that before about Paul McCartney

Sorry, I don't go along with that theory, all I know is Paul is past his sell by date and has an amazing head of hair for a 70 odd year old. Also, the cream of British Football was held to a draw on their first match against Senegal !!!!!! It seems there were several seats available for the opening Ceremony,
in fact ticket allocation has been a shambles, but the Ceremony itself was awesome, although even I was wondering why so much was devoted to the NHS and Gosh.....seems Danny Boyle was trying to score a political point because of the way the NHS is being destroyed.

I wasn't expecting anyone to subscribe to that theory, Panda!

Not Born Yesterday wrote:I wasn't expecting anyone to subscribe to that theory, Panda!

Oh, that's OK then. Paul McCartney gets wheeled out for every Big event, I'm surprised Elton John wasn't there.

Panda wrote:

Not Born Yesterday wrote:I wasn't expecting anyone to subscribe to that theory, Panda!

Oh, that's OK then. Paul McCartney gets wheeled out for every Big event, I'm surprised Elton John wasn't there.

Can't for the life of me understand why the Arctic Monkeys were there

Didnt see you around last night jd! Were you the stuntman dressed up as the Queen
jumping from the helicopter!

jd16 wrote:

Panda wrote:

Not Born Yesterday wrote:I wasn't expecting anyone to subscribe to that theory, Panda!

Oh, that's OK then. Paul McCartney gets wheeled out for every Big event, I'm surprised Elton John wasn't there.

Can't for the life of me understand why the Arctic Monkeys were there

Hi jd16 , I don't understand why if they wanted to include music and dance, how about Riverdance for Ireland and the Treorchy male voice Choir for
Wales? Far more entertaining , although Riverdance hails from Southern Ireland, they are known all over the World.

I like the sound of Riverdance, I think these guys may have gone down well!

Panda wrote:

jd16 wrote:

Panda wrote:

Not Born Yesterday wrote:I wasn't expecting anyone to subscribe to that theory, Panda!

Oh, that's OK then. Paul McCartney gets wheeled out for every Big event, I'm surprised Elton John wasn't there.

Can't for the life of me understand why the Arctic Monkeys were there

Hi jd16 , I don't understand why if they wanted to include music and dance, how about Riverdance for Ireland and the Treorchy male voice Choir for
Wales? Far more entertaining , although Riverdance hails from Southern Ireland, they are known all over the World.

Hi Panda. I agree, Riverdance & the Treorchy male voice Choir for Wales too would have been better and as important part of the British Isles....It is Great Britain together not just England. I can understand Paul McCarthney but Arctic Monkeys really stuns me as they are well down the league of great bands we have produced

This is another riverdance spoof, don't know how to show the video. I was looking for the one where the dancers are all dying to go to the Loo,
Iv'e filed it somewhere but can't find it now.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CnjSfekf5sk

jd16 wrote:

Panda wrote:

jd16 wrote:

Panda wrote:

Not Born Yesterday wrote:I wasn't expecting anyone to subscribe to that theory, Panda!

Oh, that's OK then. Paul McCartney gets wheeled out for every Big event, I'm surprised Elton John wasn't there.

Can't for the life of me understand why the Arctic Monkeys were there

Hi jd16 , I don't understand why if they wanted to include music and dance, how about Riverdance for Ireland and the Treorchy male voice Choir for
Wales? Far more entertaining , although Riverdance hails from Southern Ireland, they are known all over the World.

Hi Panda. I agree, Riverdance & the Treorchy male voice Choir for Wales too would have been better and as important part of the British Isles....It is Great Britain together not just England. I can understand Paul McCarthney but Arctic Monkeys really stuns me as they are well down the league of great bands we have produced

Yes, I think Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales could have been represented , as you say, who would know about Arctic Monkeys and after all the
BRITISH taxpayer is sharing the cost.

cherry1 wrote:

Thanks cherry1.....see if you can find the one with real dancers all queuing up to go to the Loo, it's great.

There were hundreds of empty seats at yesterday's events and the Public are outraged since they had applied for tickets and not been successful.
At first it was said the seats were given to Sponsors, but this has not satisfied the Public that now Jeremy Hunt the Culture Secretary has ordered
an investigation. The tickets for Opening night, Tennis, Swimming Gymnastics and Volleyball could have been sold on the day if they had been
returned.

Why Britain doesn't love the OlympicsBy Timothy Stanley, Special to CNN
July 26, 2012 -- Updated 1249 GMT (2049 HKT)
Workers put final touches on the Mall near Buckingham Palace. The Mall closes to traffic during the Games, irritating many Britons.STORY HIGHLIGHTS
Timothy Stanley: The British are irritated by the inconveniences caused by Olympics
He says it's because recession has caused crisis in confidence since London first won the bid
He says the Games are plagued by overspending, infrastructure glitches, threat of rail strike
Stanley: Yes, Brits are pessimists but also masochists, and they may just pull off Games
Editor's note: Timothy Stanley is a historian at Oxford University and blogs for Britain's The Daily Telegraph. He is the author of "The Crusader: The Life and Times of Pat Buchanan."

(CNN) -- Last week, I tried to cross St. James' Park in London and found my path blocked by a uniformed soldier. I asked him what he was doing there and he replied, somewhat incredulously, that he was guarding the Olympics. That I had forgotten the park was being closed off for the event, or that I didn't much care, speaks volumes about my attitude toward the Games. I found a different exit and when I finally arrived at the pub -- jolly angry about being five minutes late -- I told everyone about the incident in the park as if it was the greatest civil rights infringement since Abu Ghraib. Never stand between an Englishman and his pint of beer.

My attitude toward London's hosting of the Olympic Games is not unusual; the mood among many Brits ranges from disinterest to hostility. In a recent article in The New York Times, Sarah Lyall put this down to the British obsession with "expecting the worst." She wrote, "Even in the best of times, whinging, as Britons call the persistent low-grade grousing that is their default response to life's challenges, is part of the national condition -- as integral to the country's character as its Eeyoreish attitude toward the weather."

There's some truth in Lyall's view (we are a nation of pessimists), but she didn't reach the heart of why the feeling is so acute this time. Beyond the constant threat of rain in summer, the British have a concrete reason for anxiety about the Games. Recession has plunged our country into a paralyzing crisis of confidence.


Timothy StanleyThe Britain that won the Olympic bid in 2005 was very different from the Britain of today. That Britain had experienced several years of sustained growth, with low unemployment and practically nonexistent inflation. Britain was booming and London was swinging. The Olympics offered the chance to transform the landscape of the remaining poor parts of the capital and showcase it to the world as a confident, modern metropolis.

The credit crunch ended the good times. The financial sector upon which the boom was built collapsed, and succeeding governments were forced to cut spending, bringing poverty and riots. A parliamentary expenses scandal that caught members of Parliament defrauding the taxpayers gave the impression that the recession was caused as much by greed as incompetence.

Overnight, the savvy bureaucrats who won us the Olympics became, in the eyes of many, the crooked fools who would surely run it into the ground. That popular misgiving was captured in a brilliant BBC comedy called "Twenty Twelve," which parodied the vacuity and incompetence of the Olympics staff in a series of farces that were re-enacted as tragedy in real life.


Catching the Olympic cheats
Athletes inspired by 'Chariots of Fire'
Follow the Olympic marathon route
Inside athletes' village during Games Many of the British complaints surrounding the Olympics reflect our understandable concern that our government just isn't up to managing it. At a staggering $15 billion, the cost of hosting the Games has already gone way over budget -- mostly because the government couldn't attract private firms to invest in the event. It is expected to pump $20 billion to $25 billion back into the economy, but only so much of that will be recouped by the taxman.

The odd thing is that even with the drastic overspend the event is full of infrastructure glitches. Traffic congestion from the airports to the capital is notoriously bad and several drivers have actually lost their way. (One team had to use an iPhone to guide the driver to its hotel). The UK's railways are performing no better. Some railway workers have responded to the challenge of congestion in fine patriotic fashion by threatening to go on strike. Nothing says "Welcome to the UK" like a picket line and a replacement bus service.

The event's private security contractor, G4S, was forced to admit that it was short of staff and asked the army to step in to help. The result: More than 18,200 army personnel have now been deployed to patrol the Games. Combined with the ubiquitous Olympics flags and the Nazi-inspired torch relay that has been touring the country, the presence of soldiers on the streets has created the atmosphere of an occupation. It's a psychological challenge to the UK's libertarian instincts. A 70-year old man in Scotland was questioned by police simply because he wrote to the local newspaper to threaten to protest the "fascist" character of the Olympics.

None of these problems is unique to the UK. But Britain happens to be the first Western nation to host the Games since the credit crunch, so it is we who are also the first to be tested. We won the bid during an age of optimism but must now see out our contract in an age of recession. These are austerity Olympics. There will probably be many more to come.

However, there is hope. Britain's unexpected win in the Tour de France has upped interest in our long-forgotten sporting prowess, and the nation is more in the mood for victory than we were a couple of weeks ago. Moreover, our latent cynicism can be deceptive.

It is balanced by what we call the "Dunkirk spirit," named after the heroic escape of thousands of British troops from France at the beginning of World War II. It's shorthand for the ability of our country to convert a loss into a win, to defy global expectations by pulling off a last-minute coup. We showed it during the recent Diamond Jubilee celebrations, when hours of pouring rain actually seemed to encourage the British crowd to have even more of a good time.

Yes, the British are pessimists. But we are also masochists, which is why we might yet rise to the challenge

Lioned wrote:I just got to say that opening ceremony was an extraordinary display of expertise,technically and artistically superb.Choreography was different class.The first hour of that show was the best i've ever seen,the prossession of athletes bored me to sleep but i suppose that was tradition and only God must know what Paul Mcartney was all about,that must be worth a conspiracy theory thread on its own.Who ever doubted that GB couldn't put on the best show ever ?

I second your description of the ceremony.
When is it you go to your events, Lioned?

Nice one AnnaEsse

The daft part is, there were photographs taken of the Soldiers stationed at the top of the Buildings.....any Terrorist could fly past and drop a bomb
on them ,!!

Panda wrote:

Nice one AnnaEsse

The daft part is, there were photographs taken of the Soldiers stationed at the top of the Buildings.....any Terrorist could fly past and drop a bomb
on them ,!!

They might as well have put an enormous X on top of those buildings!

GB's first Olympic Medal ..........a Silver in the Womens Cycle race won by Lizzie something who had to race under appalling conditions, torrential rain.
There were 3 racing in a small breakaway group and I think if Lizzie had made the sprint for the finish first, she would have won, that's how close it was.