Plastic Brits
There has been a lot of criticism about the UK choosing athletes, swimmers and others from other countries. There is an article on the BBC here, in which Paula Radcliffe talks about the subject and defends those who come here to compete.
But in some ways, it’s always happened. After all, Linford Christie was born in Jamaica, although he’s lived in the UK, since he was seven.
The Times today tells the story of Ben Helfgott, a Polish Jew, who survived the Holocaust and eventually ended up in England, who competed in two Olympic Games for Great Britain. He later went on to be a respected internsation weightlifting administrator. Today at 82, he is president of the Holocaust Memorial Day Trust.
Like Paula, he wouldn’t agree with the term plastic brit.
Olympic Tickets
Everybody has had their views on the problems with Olympic tickets.
The difficulty in obtaining tickets depends on many factors.
The first thing, is that the various stadia are probably not quite large enough. But they were designed around the number of tickets sold at previous Games and of course within the more limited budget available for these Games.
I think too, that people like corporate sponsors are taking too many of the prime tickets. But again, because of the straightened times we are in, we need the sponsors to keep the costs down.
But the biggest problem we have an immense number of people who can get to the Games. Obviously, there are all those, who can get to London for the day, but we have to include all of those, who have a friend or relative in the city. Let’s say you are Austrian and your daughter works in London. With both the Olympics and the Diamond Jubilee, this summer, what better time to come and spend some time in the greatest city in the world, even if you have to sleep on the sofa or even the floor.
Many of these people, like the Irish, the Scandinavians and some of the smaller European Union countries will never get to host the Olympics in their lifetime, and as they have a right to buy tickets, then why will they not come?
So London is probably the most convenient city to hold the Olympics. The only European ones that come near are Paris and Berlin. The next city, Rio di Janeiro may be a fabulous city, but it’s not exactly easy to get to. just like Beijing and Sydney.
We’re all suffering from excess demand and not enough tickets.
If the Olympics had gone to Paris, the same problem would have happened.
Abbey Mills Is Revealed
Abbey Mills Pumping station sits like a Moorish castle on the Greenway guarding the Olympic Park.
I’m pleased to see that the years of vegetation have been cleared and it now appears as the great Victorian building it was designed to be. Note that the signpost sits on the south-east corner of the pumping station site. You have good views towards Canary Wharf and the Olympic Park.
I carried on to West Ham, where they are building a lift to make it easier to get to the station.
The Bridge Over Stratford High Street Is Coming On
I’ve taken pictures of this before. I took this one today.
The Bridge Over Stratford High Street
The handrails are now in place.
Note that disabled users, those who can’t climb stairs, buggy pushers, cyclists and the plain lazy will go round the side to a light-controlled crossing over the road. Or at least it looks like they will! All in all, this bridge crossing over a very busy route, seems to have been well-designed.
The Busy Greenway By The Olympic Site
Before I went to lunch, I took the 488 bus to Hackney Wick and then walked to the ViewTube.
I had intended to have a coffee at one of the best places in London, but it was just so busy I moved on.
A Chinese View of London’s Transport in the Olympics
This article from China turned up in one of my searches. It’s a good read and very positive in outlook.
The only thing about the article is that the pictures didn’t really go with the text.
Wot No Fountains!
It is always reckoned that if you want it to rain on your event, you ask the Queen, as she is renowned for bringing the rain.
But the current drought has even stopped the fountains in Trafalgar Square, as this article in the Telegraph outlines. Here’s two pictures I took today.
The visitors don’t seem too bothered. The Queen’s bad luck doesn’t seem to be having any effect. It will of course bucket down at the Diamond Jubilee and the Olympics
Getting Emotional
I can sometimes get very emotional and start crying quietly. I did this morning in Carluccio’s in Islington. I’ve talked of this before. All I was doing as reading the colour magazine in The Times and especially the piece about some of the people who had won medals at the 1948 Games after suffering badly in the war.
The star of those Games was the Dutch female athlete, Fanny Blankers-Koen, who won four gold medals. The Dutch presented her with a new bicycle.
One other competitor I’d heard of was the Hungarian marksman, Karoly Takacs, who after losing his right hand to a grenade accident, learned to shoot left handed and won gold. He also won gold four years later in Helsinki.
One amazing tale concerns Jim Halliday, who fought in the retreat from Dunkirk and later was captured by the Japanese in 1942. On release from the his POW camp, he weighed just 27 Kg. He then won silver or bronze, depending on the source, in the wrestling. Sadly he died in 2007, so won’t be able to present any medals. Perhaps, he has a son or daughter, who can be asked!
And people moan about, VAT on pies and pasties. They don’t know they’re alive.
To me though, the crying may also be about my eyes telling me that they have now wetted up and are not as bone dry as they have been in recent months. Two years ago, a nurse treated them and said they were the driest eyes she’d ever seen. She gave me some artificial tears, but I can’t put anything in my eyes.
It’s not as if this day is anything significant in my life, as my son died on the 23rd, not the 30th.
Perhaps, I’m just one of those people, who needs to cry!
A Saint Helenan at the Olympic Park
I walked across the Olympic Park from the ViewTube to Hackney Wick along the Greenway.
On the way I met this guy from St. Helena, who was visiting the UK, and had a chat, as we looked at the park.
Bryan Duncan from St. Helena at the Olympic Park
I’ve never met anybody from St. Helena before. Or indeed anybody from the other two islands in the South Atlantic of Ascension and Tristan da Cunha.
He told me, that he’d got to the UK by taking a packet boat to Ascension and then a flight to Brize Norton. He’ll be going back by flying to Cape Town and the packet boat. That’s some journey.
Sorry, if you’re a Brian!
The Olympic Legacy
Everybody seems to be complaining that there won’t be any Olympic Legacy. I’ve just had this e-mail read out on Radio 5.
Just compare Manchester after the Commonwealth Games, Sheffield after the World Student Games and Liverpool after the City of Culture with Athens after the Olympics and Montreal after the Olympics.
You can’t say we don’t do legacy. We do it very well!
I could have added, where’s the legacy in Atlanta and my physio from Queensland, doesn’t think there was much legacy after Sydney.
London’s biggest legacy will be the Olympic Park. And no-one who’s ever been over just a few of the UK’s big parks, could not agree that we do parks well. So just as Victoria Park and Hampstead Heath became London’s lungs nearly two centuries ago, the Olympic Park will be London’s park for the 22nd Century.
It’s a pity though London has got no superlambananas or equivalent. They may be rather trivial, but Liverpudlians love them.
The Anonymous Widower 