I am not great on sports – I tend to like lonesome activities like hill walking but I thought the Olympics were a great success. From the stunning opening ceremony to the closing ‘party’ and all the activities in between it really did show all the strengths of the UK.
Few other countries could replicate such a celebration of our historic achievements like the industrial revolution, our modern entertainment industry and the founding of the World Wide Web. And what other country would have created an image of the head of state leaping out of a helicopter with film hero!? As for the volunteers – they all deserve medals!
We can and should be proud of the Olympics and our own sporting success in them.
I opine that Olympics should always be held in the same location. However it is a small world, so have five already existing Olympic stadi-ums chosen one on each continent.
Then rotate every 25 years.
Some of the profligate waste on footling activities like jumping over a bar, or women beating the living daylights out of each other, and spending ten years practising for it, would then be saved.
I am glad to say that I have not seen a single video or TV clip of any of the recent games, knowing 7 years in advance that it would be blatantly unfair to everybody except the Brits.
Roll back the Soviet Union and the two worlds
competition for medals!!!!!!Only that, I might add.
Sydney
Río
Beijing
Atlanta
Athens
That’s it.
When you “thought the Olympics were a great success*”
did you note whether you or any other commenter had addressed that essential evaluation-rule
“Success for Whom and for How-Many ?
And to what extents ?”
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I wish I could catch yup you on your “hill climbing”
but I am having great difficulty even breathing effectively in pujblic places or seated/standing in public-transport.
I need your (Governance’s) help:
please see my “Item” under Baroness Deech.s “Train Robbery” blog (above).
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* That now ‘old’ classic paperback
“The Success Factor” by Stanton
might be a good generic starting-yardstick in this matter.
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I still say “Give the Games permanently to Greece”
and provided we can watch any previous Games by DVD on our home-TV screens
let it remain four-yearly
or perhaps ‘double-dip-recessions-wise’
five-yearly
but then, why wouldn’t ten-yearly suffice ?
I’m certainly hoping they will send Mohamed Farah back to Somalia/land at the first opportunity. If a British army corporal can pull a crowd like that, he can pull a country too…. or even two, and even a Christian/Muslim mix.
I can’t say I usually have such negative feelings about Islam, but in his context I do.
Jerry Rawlings was an excellent example of useful cross culture leadership; was that Ghana? I can not quite remember, but he was a first rate politician, and the last I heard he was doing a Doctorate at a Mid/north
English University.
He is probably administering sensitively in the country of his choice, in a controlling back room.
hoping they will send Mohamed Farah back to Somalia/land at the first opportunit
In case anybody imagines this is a belated attempt to make a racist remark which was popular in the 60’s “send him back to where he came from” it is certainly no such thing.
If you look at the political problems of Somalia and Somaliland they have had chronic problems over the last 30 years, some of which have been resolved, but Somalia itself is still a “failed” state.
A man like Mhamed Farah with such a stupendous ability to pull a crowd of 80,000
and the rest of the tear jerked Olympic watching community worldwide, has surely got a skill that very few others have and it is not just running. It is the skill of politics….. all of them!
He should use it where it is needed. He is currently part of the Somali/land diaspora, but blood is thicker than water; he could do great and valuable work in the country of his ethnic origin!
Check wiki: Somalia and also Somaliland, both.
The Olympics are simply a blatant corporate exploitation. Heralded by those who are fanned by blinkered souls. And those kids in that round of commercialism reminded me of Michael Jackson.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2bwjT8wLenE&feature=related