Well it has to be said that Danny Boyle didn’t half pull one
out of the hat on Friday night. I don’t suppose we should be all that
surprised: the guy has class. And as a result the country seems have fallen
head over heels into a full on Olympic love in. And I don’t suppose we should
be all that surprised about that either. So it seems like the right time for an
old fashioned Olympic rant from the ever forgotten north.
Legacy! Christ if I hear one more uber earnest jumped up
civil servant wittering on about what a super duper legacy the Games will leave
for future youth I will put a brick through the tele. Well, I won’t. At least I
hope I don’t. Can’t afford to.
I did a sum a couple of years ago when the Olympics tab ran
over ten billion. Had we decided to do something to improve the lives of future
generations of youngsters that had a tad more legacy about it than a
fortnight’s worth of running, jumping, dressaging and beach volleyballing in
our beloved capital we might have done this. We could have built a £1 million
youth centre for every 10,000 of population. As in five in Dumfries .
Seventy in Liverpool . Christ, there would be
800 in London .
Pop quiz. Which would leave the greater legacy? Which would be more likely to
stop swarms of youngsters hitting the streets of the future to smash up shops
and brick lines of policemen?
It seems like the run up to the Olympics and the first
couple of days have very effectively showcased all that is utterly shite about
2012 Britain .
Time to rant. The BBC! Now let’s get something straight here. I am a monumental
fan of the BBC. I don’t begrudge a single penny of the licence fee. The Beeb is
there as a bulwark against Murdoch, a place where countless millions all across
the planet can tune in for the truth. And yet time after time in the run up to
the great event the BBC news would give over time to David bloody Beckham to
give his regal views on the coming festivities. David Beckham who has never
been an Olympian for so much as a second of his sporting career. David Beckham
who has never won so much as a single honour on any world stage. But never mind
all that. Saint David is the celeb to end all celebs. And getting David on the
news bumps up viewing figures. The thing is guys, this isn’t and never will be
news. If you were ITV it would be forgivable. They need adverts or they go bust
and sticking Saint David in front of the camera is always what the big
advertising boys like McDonalds and Nike demand and crave. But the BBC does not
need advertising. You take money off every one of us to ensure that when you do
news it is actually news, not pandering to bloody celebrities. Sure the great
British public would always prefer a cosy five minutes with Saint David to
being told how many toddlers have been blown to bits by high explosive
ordinance in the high rise blocks of Alleppo.
Then there was the quiet unbelievable security fiasco. No
point trolling all over old ground. I had loads of guys in at the Agency sick
as parrots about it. All over Britain
there are strapping lads chasing jobs in the full knowledge that they have
about a one in fifty chance of getting a result. And then some coiffeured prick
on a million year appears before a Select Committee to say he was sorry that
they couldn’t manage to recruit anyone to earn a tenner an hour in a nation
riddled by unemployment. But was he about to give up his £57 million management
fee? Not a chance. And will we pay him? Course we will. Once the dust has
settled and the lawyers have done their stuff.
Next it was time for a full on media panic about the
airports as the wicked, wicked, wicked unions planned their wicked, wicked
strike! My god, those wicked, wicked Muslim types will be swarming in with
backpacks filled with Semtex. Come on. Does the media really think that the
boys with the long beards living in Pakistani caves will suddenly jump to their
feet and punch the air when they tune into the World Service? Come on Abdul,
we’re in business here! Load up the bang, bang
and get onto lastminute.com quick. The way is clear! Mark Sewotka has
done a Moses job and opened a path. What utter nonsense. If Al Queda have
anything in mind they will have been planning it for years. It is what they do.
Or try to at least. They’ll already be here and will have been so for a while,
probably all their lives. They are not hanging around the Souk on the off
chance that Mark Sewotka will call his guys out on strike.
Opening ceremony. And yes, the bits I saw on the news were
great. But what did it show? Danny was tasked with showcasing what Britain is all
about with a particular emphasis on the Asian market. So what did we say to the
Chinamen with all the cash? Once we were rural. Then for a while we did
factories. Then we blew the country’s savings on two life or death tussles with
the Germans. And even when we were broke we produced the NHS out of the hat.
Fair enough. And the bit we can be proud about our Empire history is the fact
that we have become genuinely multi-cultural. Fair enough. But what do have now
that the rest of the world wants. Once upon a time it was ships and trains and
cars and clothes and cutlery. Now it is Mr Bean, Saint David, James Bond and
the Queen. The Chinese have all the money and they make all the stuff. We have
creative guys and a bunch of celebs. Forget the ship yards and steel mills. We
have Saint David. Football, celebs and the Royal Family. The last assets of
Great Britain Plc. Christ.
And then we had all those empty seats. Just like at the Cup
Final and every other sporting event where the best seats in the house are ear
marked for the corporations whilst the fans are kept out, made to queue and
overcharged. The Olympics have managed to become the ultimate showcase for the
rampant Corporations. We even passed a law through Parliament to ensure that
the chip shops of East London can only sell
chips with fish. The rest belongs to McDonalds. Like they say, what’s the
difference between the Olympics and a primary school? It is against the law to
sell McDonalds at a primary school. Coz it’s unhealthy.
And so it seems that the Olympics are completely symbolic of
everything we are. The little people are shoved to one side to ballot for
tickets and queue to get in and to get ripped blind once they get there. The
corporations are given carte blanche to bully any little business they like and
leave swathes of empty seats to rub it in. The celebs are pandered to, the
politician spout utter crap and Saint David is everywhere.
What a sad joke we have become.
Hiya Mark, good post. In the interests of full disclosure I work for the BBC (News archive), live in London (although I'm from North Wales) and have just come back from watching the Olympics Women's Road Race (which was amazing). Having said that, I don't disagree with anything you've said here. You've pretty much nailed everything I've been thinking about the Olympics over the past few years. If you add to everything you've said here the fact that a large chunk of my council tax has been going towards this, and I can't get tickets, then we're pretty much on the same page. HOWEVER - the opening ceremony was amazing. Yes it celebrated a bunch of stuff that has been under consistent attacks from successive governments for over 30 years, BUT it did celebrate them, and it do so in front of the whole world. And secondly, despite all the shit that it inevitably comes with, the fact is that about 14,000 people who have trained and worked harder than you or I could imagine are here, in the UK, to simple try their best at something they love.
ReplyDeleteThere will be major fallout from the empty seats fiasco - maybe it will change the IOC's attitude to Corporate sponsors for next time? Who knows? No, there won't be much of a legacy, there have been some great stories on BBC World recently showing some pretty shocking pics of the facilities built for Athens 2004 that are now crumbling and disused. And yes, the cost of it all is simply unjustifiable. But there is still something above and beyond all that mess, there is some Olympic ideal that exemplifies the best of humanity. I don't think that come from the IOC or their unapologetic fascism when it comes to their "brand", but it does come from thousands of athletes simply trying to do their best at something - the Olympics gives them a global stage to do it on, and gives us the opportunity to watch. It might not be worth the cost, but it's worth something.