What did you do when the Olympic Torch passed by?

[another_richard]

Any road up the Torch went through where I live last night (Hastings). I stood there with baby another_richard and it was all over as quick as it took someone to run past with a flaming torch.

Two things I thought I was not too enamoured with were:

Motorcycle police and their attempts to whip the crowd up into a frenzy.

And, as has already been said:

The corporate sponsorship b0ll1x tarnishing it.

What next the sugary soft drink bottle with flames coming out of the top to replace the torch?

Five doughnuts / cookies / mobile phones [insert other food stuffs] to replace the Olympic rings?

You were offered free sugary drinks, the bank did not offer free money nor the phone sponsors free phones just tomorrows land fill. Have people no shame knowing they are being manipulated into walking advertisements?

Am I getting old?

Our Olympic ancestors look on in bewilderment at such a spectacle.

 

[Lime]

Am I getting old?

Unfortunately we all are.
However your views coincide with mine.
It is satisfying to know that many people still hold on to the values and standards that precluded advertising from spoiling events... and spoil and soil they do.
The money god obviously makes many people blind to it all.

 

[skier-hughes]

isn't window making a business to get richer by?

No, not at the prices I charge.

This says that you do not get one penny richer by making your windows, sorry, but I just don't believe you. Why do you spend all that time and effort when you could sit down, read books, enjoy the wildlife and be in exactly the same position?

 

[wobs]

Sponsorship is an intersting one.
A good starting point is the book No Logo, which deals with how corporate identify has infultrated so much of our lives, with major events not just being sponsored, but actually being created by these companies (eg. a certain vodka company).

Sport has "needed" sponsorship for decades now, and we have seen how Olympics of the past have cost a country dearly that lacks it. I think this could be used as an example how how much entertainment sport actually porvides.

We go to a couple of festivals during the summer, and neither have any sponsership. One is a reasonable size, with about 15,000 people (Beautiful Days). These offer value for money for families and adults in general.

I appreciate that football for example pays its players stupid money, so they can compete on a major sporting stage, but such things do leave a nasty taste in the mouth when we can go for decent entertainment with such things. Very few arts events have sponsorship, and those that do are often lambasted for it, such as mainstream acts. Some festivals (such as Leeds/Reading) has sponsorship, and it really spoils it.

I guess I come from the Bill Hicks school of views on sponsorship http://www.endevil.com/billhickslines.html (although slightly less hardcore and with less swearing). The less corporate sponsorship I am exposed to the better. This also helps the environment, as the more we are exposed to advertising, the more we consume. No matter how much we tell ourselves we are not taken in by adverts.

I appreciate that many people are more into sports than me, but it always amazes me how sport needs this level of cash injection. It clearly cannot be sustained without it and yet it seems more popular than anything I watch.

 

[Penners]

isn't window making a business to get richer by?

No, not at the prices I charge.

This says that you do not get one penny richer by making your windows, sorry, but I just don't believe you. Why do you spend all that time and effort when you could sit down, read books, enjoy the wildlife and be in exactly the same position?

I think you're being rather aggressive on this topic, Graham

I think the answer lies in how you define the word "richer". If Biff is charging enough for his windows to support a modest lifestyle, put bread on the table and a roof over the head (which I believe he is) then that is not - in my book - becoming "richer". It is simply making enough money to live on.

If, however, he is charging enough to fund a new Jaguar or two, holidays in St Lucia and a Fortnum's hamper per month, then clearly he is a plutocrat.

Own up, Biff!

 

[Johnboy]

Getting back on topic, I was working when the torch went by, it did actually pass by our premises but at speed! I gather my Grand-kids enjoyed the spectacle and we were lucky that the sun shone for them. They later showed me a video they had taken and I was amazed at the amount of Police.
This was particularly irksome considering the fact that I had approx 2K's worth of vintage fishing tackle stolen from my garage earlier this year and to date haven't seen hide nor hair of a bobby. All I had was a phone call from them giving me a crime reference number to pass on to my insurance company.
Incidentally, I am still trying to get something from them but so far we are at a stalemate as I cannot produce receipts for the tackle some of which was bought by my late Father in the 1930's!!

 

[Lime]

I don't think the use of the word "liar" is ever acceptable by anyone on this forum no matter how self-important they think they are.

 

[Lime]

Getting back on topic, I was working when the torch went by, it did actually pass by our premises but at speed! I gather my Grand-kids enjoyed the spectacle and we were lucky that the sun shone for them. They later showed me a video they had taken and I was amazed at the amount of Police.
This was particularly irksome considering the fact that I had approx 2K's worth of vintage fishing tackle stolen from my garage earlier this year and to date haven't seen hide nor hair of a bobby. All I had was a phone call from them giving me a crime reference number to pass on to my insurance company.
Incidentally, I am still trying to get something from them but so far we are at a stalemate as I cannot produce receipts for the tackle some of which was bought by my late Father in the 1930's!!

Yes.
With the G4S failure to provide security the Olympic Games will also be the burglar and thief partytime.

 

[Flyfisher]

Since we're wandering off-topic anyway, the G4S shambles made me wonder why Locog didn't think about using the police and army in the first place. We have to pay these people anyway and they supposedly join up to serve the country, so why not? Instead of paying a private security company to do a bad job (OK, I know that wasn't the plan), why not pay our hard-working and committed public public servants a bit of overtime? After all, we manage to go to war without sub-contracting the job, so surely we can manage two weeks of games?

 

[Penners]

I agree, FF, but I don't want to say more than that, because it'll just put my blood pressure up.

 

[biffvernon]

Thank-you Penners and Lime.

The Olympic corporate sponsorship with all the inheritance ridiculousness, ONLY raised some £750 million of the Games' £9bn+ budget. For a mere 8% scaling back, we could have hosted a corporate free Olympics! What a missed opportunity.

Illustration for those not offended by humour:
https://fbcdn-sphotos-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-prn1/563971_10151126122651913_2132089654_n.jpg

 

[Feltwell]

The amount of coverage given to the G4S debacle irks me.

The setup for the Olympics has gone amazingly smoothly so far - no stories of half-built stadiums that won't be finished on time, accomodation that's sub-standard etc, as we've heard so often in the past elsewhere. Love or loathe the games, it's a significant achievement to get the setup just to where it is now.

The G4S debacle was newsworthy, but not for the amount of airtime it's been given and is still being given. It's as if the press was waiting to pounce on any negative story.

Back to the world of evil corporations - I was contacted by a major cigarette manufacturer this week (as I am now an evil peddler of these and many other ills) who has surveyed all our stores in the London area to suggest where the increased cigarette sales will fall and where we should boost stocks. We'll be covered just in case Usain needs to pop out for a quick fag before his 100m :wink:

 

[Flyfisher]

The Olympic corporate sponsorship with all the inheritance ridiculousness, ONLY raised some £750 million of the Games' £9bn+ budget. For a mere 8% scaling back, we could have hosted a corporate free Olympics! What a missed opportunity.

That's a very interesting statistic, especially given that the orginal budget was a mere £2.4bn and then magically increased to around £9bn. So it's clearly possible to conjure up £6bn+ but not the measly £750m that would have avoided the contentious subject of corporate sponsorship, which generates so much negative publicity. Still, damned if they do, damned if they don't I suppose - the media love controversy because there's no news in a "Successful Games Were Flawless" headline.

Your graphic was very amusing but I was rather suprised that the corporate satan otherwise known as Tesco was not included. :wink:

 

[AMc]

Nothing new under the sun...

Mary Beard's article from a couple of weeks ago
The Olympics – ancient and modern

But no less damaging to the idea of the ancient world's pure amateurism is the fact that some of the most prestigious wreaths of victory went not to the athletes themselves but to men whom we would call "sponsors". The grandest event of the Games was the chariot race, but the official winner was not the man who actually did the dangerous work, standing in the chariot and controlling the horses, but the king, princeling or plutocrat who had funded him and paid for the training, at no doubt vast expense – not unlike the Queen's winners in modern horse-racing. In fact, this was the only Olympic event at which a woman could claim victory – as one Spartan princess did in the fourth century BC. So far as we know, she did not get a victory ode (though she did get a statue at Olympia). But some of Pindar's best-known Olympian poems were written to celebrate not athletes at all, but these rich grandees who had for the most part shown no sporting prowess whatsoever, just a deep pocket.

 

[another_richard]

The Olympic corporate sponsorship with all the inheritance ridiculousness, ONLY raised some £750 million of the Games' £9bn+ budget. For a mere 8% scaling back, we could have hosted a corporate free Olympics! What a missed opportunity.

Thanks for the statistic and applying that to the original topic title for their 8% input the corporate sponsorship (it seemed to me) managed to dominate 99% of the Olympic Torch Relay.

 

[FamilyWiggs]

G4S have brought shame on our Olympics. We had a good story until then, on time, on spec and under budget. It was all progressing relatively low key, and set for a great spectacle of sport.

The b@stards have stuffed that up and the Beebbare almost orgasmic in their desire to undermine it all (despite putting on what looks technologically to be the best ever coverage anywhere).

It seems a simple no brainier to spread your risk between a number of companies (as they have for the thousands of stewards) and then to embed locog folk inside the operation of a £250m contract to ensure it is all on track to deliver.

I'm quite happy that the police and army will be doing a fab job and liKe others wish they had been plan A. I also bet they won't be threatening to strike for a bonus as well as the overtime... :roll:

On the other matters, let's all chill a bit. No need for anyone to become indignant - real or otherwise. 8) this thread just shows the diversity of views, which is healthy.

If biff's stat is correct (and I'm sure it is) it is an intriguing thought to think we could have had the anti-corporate games. I suspect it is not quite as simple as that though...

 

[Gareth Hughes]

I must say the whole thing, pre G4S, did seem to be missing a characteristically British cock-up. Now we're back on track, can I just say how much I'm looking forward to seeing Boris burn the stadium down at the opening ceremony?

 

[Flyfisher]

It'll all be a magnificent success, Boris will bask in the glory and then go on to become our next PM.

I'm not suggesting he'll do a better job than any of the other candidates, but he'll be more entertaining. :wink:

 

[skier-hughes]

Not sports or games - just big business for rich people to get richer with.

Sorry, but I disagree with Lime and Penners, this was Biff's statement, saying the Olympic games are not sport or games.

My point is we all work and all get richer by doing it, even if it is just a small amount richer. Biff's window making business must make a profit, he must get slightly richer by it.

I find his attitude to the games very distateful and have taken him to task over it, that does not make me self important, purely staing my views like Biff did..

I don't believe he makes not profit.

He doesn't need to buy a private plane to become richer.

My views have obviously grown apart from the majority.

 

[FamilyWiggs]

Graham,

I think you were entirely correct - if biff makes any profit from making windows then by your definition he is doing it to get richer. I also think he denied it tongue in cheek, and as Penners suggests, there is a difference between getting "richer" and getting "rich".

Can I suggest it is honours even?

I'd echo your plea to stop talking the nation down, recognise the Olympics for the underlying positives it brings and get behind them.

We know some folk don't like money, big business or advertising. Whatever. What we do know is that the olympics will showcase inspiring examples of human effort and achievement, that we can all marvel at - whether it is faster, higher, further or just sheer determination to do one's best whilst moving last.

The greatest show on earth, even if they give out bottles of coke at the torch relay! :wink: