Re: Olympics

Hold on a minute. My uderstanding is that everyone who is a taxpayer in this country will be paying for the Olympic Games (not just Londoners) - to the tune of £24bn of taxpayer's money (as at Jan.2012) I think. So it is simply not true to say that London is paying for the games. Granted Londoners will be the ones most inconvenienced by the games but they do stand to benefit from the developments left behind after the games - unlike people in other parts of the country who have paid through their taxes and will see little material benefit left behind.

Re: Olympics

Good point Aerolor............I suppose we are all paying one way or another.

Re: Olympics

I for one am not at all certain how it all is paid for except I guess we the taxpayer foot the bill one way or another.
The building of the stadium alone has raised more than an eyebrow as to the lack of british workers employed there but that perhaps is for another debate.

Personally, I will support and watch more of the Paralympic Games on Channel Four after all the fuss of the other fiasco has abated.

I was glad to see that Derek Derenalagi has been selected for the discus. This lad is just one that embodies the true spirit of guts and determination.

Derek, was a soldier with the Mercian Regiment until he was blown up and pronounced dead in a anti-tank mine explosion in Afghanistan back in 2007.

On hearing of his selection he almost burst with pride.
He said: "Five years ago I lost my legs in Afghanistan, a terrible experience, not only losing my legs but I suffered multiple injuries, and now I am about to compete for Great Britain".
"To represent Britain in a home games and compete in that awesome stadium will be a dream come true".

"What a feeling. I'm over-the-moon and I'm so thankful. I'm thankful that I'm alive and I'm thankful that I can represent my country in the Paralympic Games. I've done it on the frontline and now to the start line."

With great respect and awe I watched Derek beam with unbridled happiness and contrasted that with the obsequious toad, Lord Snooty Coe, slithering round Windsor this afternoon.
Something not quite right about the way the cards are dealt sometimes.

Re: Olympics

Most people who work in London don't live there so we will get no benefits at all just the travel chaos while we are trying to get to work.

Re: Olympics

The Olympics have become an unsustainable dinosaur and should be either stopped or placed in a permanent location, Greece comes to mind, but they haven't got two ha'pennies to rub together. Maybe hold the bloody thing in Timbuktu with every corporate sponsor sharing the cost of the event, it would die within 10 years.

Re: Olympics

Each competing country should contribute to the Olympic games, not just the host. That is diabolical in today financial state.

This country is (we are told) in the middle of a recession so it doesn't bode well for the UK to have put in a bid for it in the first place.

It is costing us millions+ to host these events, and yet there are people in this 21st century living in cardboard boxes on the streets, folk living below the poverty level etc, and we're not classed as a third world country. Or are we?

Okay, for me personally, the bottom line is this. I'm 62 years old and receiving full state pension, but that's not enough to live on, so I have to continue to work part-time to keep me afloat. That's just me but, just imagine how much those millions could help people in this country alone. Hospital wards closing down through lack of funding, state pensions for people who have worked 45 - 50 years being a miserly £142 a week, etc. I know this is a "one off occasion" but surely that amount could be better distributed?

I feel very angry that the people who live and work in London have to put up with these surcharges and the people should not be financing these games.

I'm sorry if this offends anyone, but I find the spending on the Olympics not only an insult to the people of the British Isles, but an obscenity.

Re: Olympics

I guess there are not many olympic fans on here then.

I know its slightly off topic but I'm quite content with my basic state pension............just for the record. But then that's probably a whole different subject.

Re: Olympics

For goodness sake, you'd think you'd all been evicted from your homes and left with nothing.
Of course it will disrupt peoples lives ---BUT FOR HOW LONG ----- a few weeks of your lifetime, and of course they have to make sure the traffic flows freely, its the Olympic games for Gods sake, it comes around once every four years, its not "visited" England for fifty years, stop ruddy whinging, get behind your England team--- and when thats finished --- support the para-plegics games.

If youyr'e that worried about going to and coming from work, take your holidiay entitlement and sod off somewhere, and the fact it will be on T.V. almost soilidly for its duration, just think of the relief it will gives lot that detest the daily soap trash that we have to endure ---ALL THE RUDDY YEAR -----

COME ON GREAT BRITAIN

Re: Olympics

As you don't even live in the UK let alone in London then your position is very different to most of us. We are entitled to whinge all we like. You don't have either the cost or the disruption. I do agree with you about the soaps though. Awful rubbish.

Re: Olympics

I lived in England fo sixty six years of my life, where I choose to spend my retirement bears no relevence to the Olympic games. I may not LIVE in the U.K. but I am ENGLISH, and I think that if anything can bring people to England wo are going to spend a lot of cash here, not only in London but all over the U.K. when we allegedly are going throgh "hard times", then it can't be a bad thing, and most of the "disruption" is, I would suggest, media hype, don't "Londoners" go through "grid Lock" every morning and evening, only they call that ---the rush hour ----- Come on, lets get real about this, I bet, apart from one or two odd occasions you won't really notice any difference.