Olympinonsense

[Northender]

Bizarre Olympics stories #457:
It has been suggested that a post box in Holt, Norfolk be painted gold in honour of a horse that's become a Big Star - indeed, that's its name - because it helped a chap win a gold medal and because that's where it's stabled. How about a gold post box in Droitwich, which I understand is the 'home' of the puck/ball, or whatever it is they hit, with which the Dutch men's hockey team scored their 9th goal last night?

[JohnSkelton]

Well now miseries, I have sympathy with displaced people (the cottage I lived in as a toddler in Denny is now under the M80), but if governments had been populated by your likes we would have no railways, no motorways and no reservoirs.

So having boycotted the Olympics, will you now refrain from travelling by train to Edinburgh, driving on the M25, or drinking water from your tap?

Of course places change, communities change, geography urban and rural is mutable.

Something beyond that is involved here. The urban regeneration narrative is, globally, the modern equivalent of the rural enclosures of the C18 and C19. Public spaces become private, poor people are moved on to live in places which in their turn are regenerated and again they are moved on. In America neoliberal developers have a metaphor for this: the city is the new frontier, the settlers are the creatives, the salaried bourgeoisie, and the native Americans are the poor who have lived in urban communities for generations. With characteristic neoliberal strength of stomach the metaphor doesn't cause them any concern, on the contrary they relish it. Native Americans were an obstacle to progress, so are the urban poor. Where they'll go when there's nowhere else to go is left unanswered: but no doubt there will always be reservations to herd them into at the point of a gun or a baton or behind a riot shield.

Since you want to talk about your childhood - where I grew up has been regenerated out of existence. The head of the council boasted about getting rid of the old families. His line was that aspirational people had moved in and they didn't want their children sharing schools with the wrong sort. The elderly from the past are left isolated as their children and grandchildren are moved on. The new residents do very nicely out of the property boom; old businesses close down to be replaced by restaurants and wine bars; public buildings and spaces are sold off; charities are told their rental agreements won't be renewed or the rent will be increased tenfold.

Today professional sport - which the Olympics certainly is - requires a fair bit of willful blindness to enjoy. Since I love football and cricket I'm aware of that. But the Olympics is at another systemic level altogether. The IOC is a near sovereign state whose officials enjoy diplomatic immunity and which devotes itself to rapacious enrichment whilst claiming some ethical status (Olympic values). And with each Olympics the urban regenerators, the corporate profiteers, have a bonanza. Pass the sick-bag.

If you want to have a serious conversation, fine. If you do please drop the "Well now miseries" and "your likes" stuff. It's childish. If what you are really saying is you think the Olympics are great, other people like you think the Olympics are great, and you couldn't care less about anything else, then be open about it.

[MrGongGong]

If you want to have a serious conversation, fine. If you do please drop the "Well now miseries" and "your likes" stuff. It's childish. If what you are really saying is you think the Olympics are great, other people like you think the Olympics are great, and you couldn't care less about anything else, then be open about it.

Indeed

Follow the script or else ..............

[Sydney Grew]

. . . The IOC is a near sovereign state whose officials enjoy diplomatic immunity and which devotes itself to rapacious enrichment whilst claiming some ethical status (Olympic values). . . .

A lot of them hail from Austria and Switzerland do they not?

[Flosshilde]

If you want to have a serious conversation, fine. If you do please drop the "Well now miseries" and "your likes" stuff. It's childish. If what you are really saying is you think the Olympics are great, other people like you think the Olympics are great, and you couldn't care less about anything else, then be open about it.

Never mind, once the Olympics are over he'll sink back into obscurity.

[mangerton]

Today professional sport - which the Olympics certainly is - requires a fair bit of willful blindness to enjoy. Since I love football and cricket I'm aware of that. But the Olympics is at another systemic level altogether. The IOC is a near sovereign state whose officials enjoy diplomatic immunity and which devotes itself to rapacious enrichment whilst claiming some ethical status (Olympic values). And with each Olympics the urban regenerators, the corporate profiteers, have a bonanza. Pass the sick-bag.

If you want to have a serious conversation, fine. If you do please drop the "Well now miseries" and "your likes" stuff. It's childish. If what you are really saying is you think the Olympics are great, other people like you think the Olympics are great, and you couldn't care less about anything else, then be open about it.

Well said!

It seems that Mr Wright has difficulty in differentiating between projects which are essential for life (reservoirs), projects which improve life for the populace in general (railways and motorways), and projects which are neither (sports stadia).

[handsomefortune]

'follow the script' - what, when you could merely be insulting instead? but that would mean a missed opportunity .....for some!

A lot of them hail from Austria and Switzerland do they not?

we don't know, because they are hardly high profile are they! in fact, they are anonymous, invisible to the public wherever they are 'regenerating'.

did anyone else hear the world service last night? 'the official olympic joy' was ruptured at 1.45 am, when a guest touched on many of the points raised within this thread. but their criticisms of 'regeneration' were not met with accusations of 'miserableist', or treated as though they were merely embittered personal opinion, guesswork, or a whim.

however, the idea that the olympic committee might 'do it better next time', and the tired old 'lessons learned' mantra so often used in the media after a major cock up are hardly reassuring. the guest last night has specialist knowledge, not just of london 2012, but 'regenerated' cities internationally.

domestically, what happens if the east end sets a precedent? the same steamroller approach spreads to other uk cities, and cpos become much more common place? yet what replaces peoples' homes are of no real use to citizens.

[Old Grumpy]

As we approach gold for team GB it is time to consider which anthem will be played as we graciously accept the winners' medal -

As we're all a bunch of miseries - something by John Dowland perhaps?

[MrGongGong]

As we approach gold for team GB it is time to consider which anthem will be played as we graciously accept the winners' medal -

As we're all a bunch of miseries - something by John Dowland perhaps?

has to be this (arranged for large orchestra )

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=obD5HcxECSU

[amateur51]

has to be this (arranged for large orchestra )

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=obD5HcxECSU

[Northender]

Can the medal please be presented by Mr Wright to the accompaniment of Allegri's 'Misery Me' - or Buddy Holly's 'Raining In My Heart' which features his favourite word with satisfying regularity.

[Flosshilde]

[URL]I suspect Flossie and his 'We Want Our Allotments Back' banner would be very much to the fore ...

I take it you've never been a gardener, Scotty? So you won't know about the sheer hard work, dedication, frustration & occasional pleasure involved in bringing a probably unpromising piece of ground to productivity, over several years of feeding & building up the soil, planting fruit trees & waiting for the first crop - all of which is wasted & destroyed when plots are closed & sold off. Then there are the health benefits (physical and mental) from the physical activity, fresh air, companionship, and the pleasure of eating food you have grown yourself (compared with which the fleeting 'feel-good factor of the Olympics and its dubious legacy pale into insignificance). Strange that this activity that you so casually dismiss, is becoming more popular, with waiting lists now so large in some places that it's unlikely that many on them will actually get a plot.

[mangerton]

Some excellent suggestions for miserable music, miserable colleagues. I suppose for Dowland anything with "Lachrimae" - he seemed to write quite a few - the "Mellancoly Galliard" or of course "Semper Dowland semper dolens".

I must confess that I have Paul O'Dette's complete Dowland Lute works all five CDs. What does that say about me?

Other than that, settings of the Mass all plead "miserere nobis", and Orff's roasted swan sings "Miser, miser"! For something more modern, it would be hard to bypass Leonard Cohen.

[handsomefortune]

i'd like to suggest this golden tune for the closing ceremony on sunday, it's what i'll be closing down to at least.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZT48rHz0kA0&feature=relmfu

personally, i don't want a medal - cash will do, (secretly passed, rather than publicly presented)!

here's to misery - bottoms up!

[Anna]

I've just seen in the papers, re the Closing Ceremony, photos of The Spice Girls rehearsing ....... now that will be total misery but perhaps, maybe, Posh Becks might manage a smile? I just hope they don't wheel out Macca again, he's proved with the Opening and the Jublyee that he's 20 years past his use-by date. Good news is that Madness will be there.