I thought the logo was bad but the coins are truly awful

[burning dog]

OK Dave 2002 here goes

Trying for as much objectivity as I can muster

XXX= The Olympics.
I overstated my case but it's become a bit of a monster, at least the building process serves as a Keynesian pump priming function in a contracting economy

XXX= The Proms.
A fine institution, The last night gives the wrong impression, but if that is SO jingoistic, why the flags of ex-colonies being flown? I've even spotted the flags of other nations ex-colonies. I've been to a few regular proms and the first night years ago but never the last night.

XXX= The Glastonbury Festival
Crap and obscure at one time, now crap and popular, but I can't be at all objective about it. My idea of a festival has indoor auditoriums, good loos and definitely no Britpop or Indie music.

XXX= The Bayreuth Festival
Top notch if one is a Wagner fan, or is a bit train spotterish for even some of those? I hear the opening bars of the entire event gives some attendees Goosesteps, No.. Sorry! Goosebumps.

XXX= Wimbledon
Bit like the Derby below, a great tourney except it's a little overrated by the Brits compared to the other Grand Slams, one aspect of it is a posh day out for the middle classes.

XXX= The Derby.
Not quite what is was, but still the most pretigious 3yo horesrace along with the Kentucky version. Cockney day out aspect faded since it moved to Saturday. Toffs, unless they're racing nuts, prefer Royal Ascot

XXXX= The Boat Race
If it weren't for the venue would have gone the same way as the Varsity cricket match. I'm sure quite a few have a good day out, good luck to them, but even some of the hard core rowing fans forget who won it three years ago, I expect. The Social side trumps the Sport here IMO

XXX= The World Crazy Golf Championships
May have a novelty following along with the die hards but a cast iron, solid sporting event by the sound of it. Winner becomes a household name in the world of miniture golf. It may raise the sport to the level of the Snooker if it were televised.

[Mr Pee]

What an utterly appalling waste of money, in a country that hasn't enough money for schools, the NHS, care of the elderly and so on

The Royal Opera? Symphony Orchestras? The Arts in general?

Oh, you mean the Olympics. But unlike the above, which I'm sure many, many people also consider to be an appalling waste of money, the games will bring a huge number of foreign visitors to our shores, who will spend a great deal, stay in hotels, eat in restaurants,and I daresay take the opportunity to tour Britain, thus boosting the wider economy. Add in the jobs created by the Olympics, both in the construction of the venues and all the associated activities, and the regeneration of a previously extremely run-down area of East London, not to mention the legacy and inspiration the games will offer, and overall I'd say the benefits will far outweigh the costs.

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

XXX= The Glastonbury Festival
Crap and obscure at one time, now crap and popular, but I can't be at all objective about it. My idea of a festival has indoor auditoriums, good loos and definitely no Britpop or Indie music.

The real Glastonbury Festival, with Rutland Boughton, was intended to be the English equivalent of Bayreuth, unlike the current over-hyped monstrosity.

[Mary Chambers]

The Royal Opera? Symphony Orchestras? The Arts in general?

Oh, you mean the Olympics. But unlike the above, which I'm sure many, many people also consider to be an appalling waste of money, the games will bring a huge number of foreign visitors to our shores, who will spend a great deal, stay in hotels, eat in restaurants,and I daresay take the opportunity to tour Britain, thus boosting the wider economy. Add in the jobs created by the Olympics, both in the construction of the venues and all the associated activities, and the regeneration of a previously extremely run-down area of East London, not to mention the legacy and inspiration the games will offer, and overall I'd say the benefits will far outweigh the costs.

Well, that's what they say. I doubt if it will begin to make up for the cost.

The arts enrich the human soul, expand the mind, and are a mark of a civilised society. It's simply not the same thing as winning races, which just feeds vanity and 'I'm better than you'. Pointless and mindless, and any 'inspiration' will merely produce more of the same.

I'm aware that my views on this are a bit extreme, but believe me, I feel strongly!

[hackneyvi]

It looks like four dolly mixtures chucked against a game of jack straws.

I think that's the definitive description, Lat, and conicidentally it struck me as everything I could possibly have wanted from a prize at around about 6 years old (your hands jiggle too much for jack straws at 5).

[hackneyvi]

The arts enrich the human soul, expand the mind, and are a mark of a civilised society. It's simply not the same thing as winning races, which just feeds vanity and 'I'm better than you'. Pointless and mindless, and any 'inspiration' will merely produce more of the same.

I feel you've completely misunderstood sport and games, Mary. They are, amongst other things, play and active play enriches natures in a fundamentally different way to the enrichment of passive audiences for the meditative arts. But as importantly they're a place for directing and expressing human competitiveness and agression positively. They're places where the limits of the body and the mind are tested in exactly equivalent ways to the musicians whose physical and mental stamina I presume you would admire.

[Mr Pee]

I feel you've completely misunderstood sport and games, Mary. They are, amongst other things, play and active play enriches natures in a fundamentally different way to the enrichment of passive audiences for the meditative arts. But as importantly they're a place for directing and expressing human competitiveness and agression positively. They're places where the limits of the body and the mind are tested in exactly equivalent ways to the musicians whose physical and mental stamina I presume you would admire.

[Mandryka]

I feel you've completely misunderstood sport and games, Mary. They are, amongst other things, play and active play enriches natures in a fundamentally different way to the enrichment of passive audiences for the meditative arts. But as importantly they're a place for directing and expressing human competitiveness and agression positively. They're places where the limits of the body and the mind are tested in exactly equivalent ways to the musicians whose physical and mental stamina I presume you would admire.

I agree strongly with Mary Chambers.

I'm all for people keeping fit, but can't that be done more than adequately with the aid of cross-trainers, rowing machines and dumb-bells?

And if more people like sport than like the arts, then that's only because successive governments have chosen the 'bread and circuses' route to the electorate's heart and defaulted on their duty to elevate popular taste. Besides, more people buy the Sun than buy the Times....does that make the Sun a 'better' newspaper?

Mr. P probably isn't aware of this, but Stratford in East London has not been anyone's idea of 'run down' for quite some time.

I am disgusted and appalled to read Flosshilde's comments about the people whose lives have been disrupted by this abomination of a sporting event.

And I don't see how it follows that the 'trickle down' factor will spread throughout society....a few people will make a killing, but those not living in London and the south-east won't see any benefits (as per usual).

Here's hoping the whole thing is a copper-bottomed disaster.

[hackneyvi]

I feel you've completely misunderstood sport and games, Mary.

I feel I should add, "for most people." Sport's one of the ways that a human being can encounter their own nature - another is to sit and watch Shoah - and learn to control and direct it.

[doversoul1]

Phil
I see your point but could it not be done without pouring so much money into facility and training? That’s what gets me, not the principle of sport, although I can’t say I understand the attraction of sport, as the last sporting event I watched was when Robin Cousin was competing in men’s figure skating. And for the Olympic Games, is there any evidence that the game has had any lasting positive effects in the regions?

[ed.] Re: #36

[Mr Pee]

Here's hoping the whole thing is a copper-bottomed disaster.

Mandryka, despite my confirmed intention not to use the "ignore" facility on these boards, your mean spirited and spiteful posts are driving me toward doing just that for the very first time. Just because you are not a supporter of the Olympics, to wish the whole thing to be a failure is pathetic.

And I think you will find, if you could be bothered to look, that the Olympic site was indeed extremely run down before the contractors moved in. I often drive through the area and the facilities look magnificent- and they've come in on time and under budget.

Perhaps you're happy for Britain to become a nation of couch potatoes, or worse still a nation of miserable gits who have nothing better to do than sit around spewing vitriol on internet message boards. We should be grateful that there are at least some in the country who think otherwise, and our Olypmic athletes represent a level of dedication and achievement to which we should all aspire. Even you.

[Flosshilde]

And I think you will find, if you could be bothered to look, that the Olympic site was indeed extremely run down before the contractors moved in.

Rubbish. There were thriving small businesses, allotments, nature reserves, and communities. All swept away for the sake of 2 weeks of jingoism. If this government (and the previous one) was really interested in getting more people involved in sport (& there is no evidence that events like the Olympics do that) then they wouldn't have sold off school playing fields or closed council facilities. That's the real legacy.

[Anna]

Perhaps you're happy for Britain to become a nation of couch potatoes, or worse still a nation of miserable gits

Speak roughly to your little boy,
And beat him when he sneezes:
He only does it to annoy,
Because he knows it teases.

Chorus
Wow! wow! wow!

I speak severely to my boy,
I beat him when he sneezes;
For he can thoroughly enjoy
The pepper when he pleases!

Seriously, if more people embraced sports then the UK would not be facing the obesity epidemic that is threatening to engulf it and demanding gastric bands as a human right rather than employing will power to shift the flab.

I probably won't watch the Olympics much but I do hope it will inspire some to get off their couches and stop being potatoes. Actually, if G & S were reading this thread it would make a wonderful comic opera. The Aesthetes versus the Athletes. It could have a sub-plot of who could be the most camp?

[hackneyvi]

Phil
I see your point but could it not be done without pouring so much money into facility and training? That’s what gets me, not the principle of sport, although I can’t say I understand the attraction of sport, as the last sporting event I watched was when Robin Cousin was competing in men’s figure skating. And for the Olympic Games, is there any evidence that the game has had any lasting positive effects in the regions?

[ed.] Re: #36

I think Mary has proposed that sport is ego-driven and ego-inflationary whereas the arts, of course ...

The proposition that a game of table tennis or a fell-running race are somehow impure compared to Ken Russell and Wagner is difficult to understand. To say that sports are 'pointless and mindless' says something only about their value to Mary but nothing at all about sports themselves.

Selfishness and self-promotion are as much a part of the arts as they are of sport or any other human activity because they're a part of overall human nature. Like sports, the arts can have a sensitising effect on an individual human being but the individual and the uses they make of their experiences are what determines that, surely?

I wouldn't disagree with anyone who suggested that parts of public sport are bloatedly loathesome; many aspects of the Olympics, for me, are an experience as empty as the commerce of Christmas. Olympic sports are in most direct competition with the spectacle's finances and, to my eyes, the finance dominates. Can it really be true that soft drinks other than Coca Cola may be confiscated? For 'brand protection', of course. Olympic 'brand protection'.

http://www.thedrinksbusiness.com/2011/07/negotiating-the-2012-marketing-minefield/

Sports aren't the Premier League and the Olympics. Those 2 'sporting' organisations are businesses.

[Mahlerei]

The Olympics is driven by commercial interests, the athletes bit players in a much bigger drama. The Games need to be reinvented every four years otherwise they would simply die. No sooner is one over than the hype starts to build for the next one, a long, expensive marketing exercise that benefits sponsors and media giants but not local communities or national economies. In straitened times it's obscene to throw this money away just to benefit corporations that are already obscenely rich and influential.

It will all be happening a few miles from where I live but I have to say I'm not remotely interested in the whole messy shebang.