So the tickets have finally gone on sale.
Hands up how many of you registered?
Keep your hands up if you are getting a ticket?
No your not put your hand down. Even if you do, have you seen the terms and conditions booklet?
Our government want these games to be enjoyable but apparently LOCOG (The London Organising Committee of the Olympic Games) dont want you to have a good time. They want you to have a miserable time judging from some of the rules they are imposing as a condition of getting a ticket.

Here is a snippet of what you can and cant take to the olympics (original here For over 7000 words of terms and conditions)

Section 19.2.3

• The following is a non-exhaustive list of restricted items which may not be taken into a Venue (LOCOG reserves the right to amend this list, generally, or in respect of any Venue or Session): food (save for baby food), alcoholic and non-alcoholic beverages (save for baby milk and other valid medical reasons), liquids in containers of greater than 100ml in size, needles (save as required for valid medical reasons), animals (save for guide dogs), weapons (including knives), illegal drugs, other illegal substances, fireworks, firecrackers, poles, flagpoles, sticks, photography tripods, bats, umbrellas and other blunt instruments, motorcycles, bicycles, roller-skates, skateboards, or other types of skates, electronic transmitting equipment, flags of countries not participating in the Games, large flags or banners, horns, whistles, drums, rattles, musical instruments, lasers or any other devices that in the opinion of LOCOG may disturb a Session (including mobile telephones), objects bearing trademarks or other kinds of promotional signs or messages (such as hats, T-shirts, bags, etc) which LOCOG believes are for promotional purposes, counterfeit products, balls, rackets, frisbees or similar objects, large quantities of coins, lighters, advertising or promotional material of any kind, printed matter bearing religious, political or offensive content or content contrary to public order and/or morality, bottles or containers made of glass or other material, flasks, thermoses, refrigerators, large objects such as suitcases or bags, and in general any material that LOCOG may deem dangerous or that may cause damage or disruption to a Session.

So do you still want to go??

This is an absolutely disgraceful list of  T&C – what it basically means is that unless it is government sanctioned and official you cant eat, drink, take photos, wave a flag, blow a whiste, wear any clothing that has a logo that does not conform to government requirements, you cannot use a mobile phone without being harrased oh and dont take large quantities of coins either – they want paper money and lots of  it and whatever you do – DO NOT HAVE FUN – Your government and especially LOCOG wants you to conform, they want you to line the corporations pockets with every penny you have, they want you to be a robot and do what you are told – Now go and spend your money on something other than this charade.

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Ticket pricing for the already over budget, political grandstand known as the London Olympic Games 2012 has been revealed and for the opening ceremony alone ticket prices start at what appears to be a reasonable £20.12 and raises to a whopping, piss take of a price at £2012. Yes, thats right, over 2 grand to watch a load of flags, fireworks and choreographed mayhem, not forgetting the fucking Spice Girls, for about an hour and half.

What person in their right mind would shell out that kind of money to show what a joke these olympics really are?  What planet are these people on? High Powered Corporations will buy these overpriced bits of paper and give them free to their “esteemed clientelle” or  use them as donations for their  “functions” and “Charity Events”.
The rest will be snapped up by touts who will elevate the price beyond stupid, knowing full well that some mug will want last minute tickets to impress his high maintainence girlfriend (also known as an escort, or hooker in old parlance) or as a bribe for some official to look the other way and anyway going thru official ticket channels is too risky as it leaves a paper trail for his wife to find.

Consider that Boris Johnson wants a typically British opening ceremony by driving in on an open topped double decker bus, just as the Beijing Olympics had closed with one. Boris must be praying for a torrential downpour, high winds and a shit load of pissed up hoodies, chavs and other undesriables who nicked a load of tickets and manage to blag their way thru security, harrasing anyone who even remotely complains about their champagne being drunk or puke on their 2 grand seats. Then they hurl abuse and rude hand gestures at anyone who passes them or god forbid tells them to shut up, finishing off with a rousing rendition of  “Who’se the wanker on the bus” just as  Boris waves at them and grins smugly knowing its all on cctv and he can fine them thousands more than the seats would have cost in the first place.

Lets have a closer look at these “cheap tickets” shall we? Lets start with the “affordable” £20.12 ticket and just how affordable it will be for a family of four on a low income. Immediately a family of  four shells out £80.48 just for the tickets. But thats not much, is it? i hear you say. That is just the ticket price. Have you considered other factors? Firstly, there will be a booking fee for getting your tickets at “official outlets” and these can be anything the agency wants to charge (£25 for prestige tickets), lets call it a fiver per ticket for sake of arguement, your ticket price has now risen to £100.48. Then there is postage, you can have these sent recorded delivery – another fiver – e-mailed, cheaper but booking fee still applies and is often higher online. It is probable that none will be made available on the day due to security and the amount of people that will be there both inside and out.

Then there is the cost of getting there and depending on where you travel from, will depend on how much it costs, how long it will take and how long you’re prepaperd to hear the words “are we there yet?” and “how much longer”.
Lets say you live 100 miles from London and are a family of four wanting to go by train to the opening ceremony that at todays rate with no discount or railcards but all tube zones included weighs in between £130 and £220 depending on which train you catch. At the lower rate that now mounts to £230 (rounded to nearest £) and as its a day out there is the inevitable trip to McDs or Bk etc and for a family of four that will set you back another 30 to 50 quid providing you can find one where the queue doesnt stretch to the next fast food outlet – so you opted for a packed lunch. But what about the souvenirs – now we are getting into a different realm so we will stick with what we got and realise that your “affordable” £20.12 tickets have now turned into a not so “affordable” £57.50 just to get you there and no doubt there will be plenty of ways to tempt you to part with your hard earned on the way to/ from and in the stadium.

But hold on you say, what about free tickets for schoolchildren. Lets look at that shall we, 70,000 tickets to be given away to schoolchildren, but weigh that against the fact that there are more than 5,000 schools in the Uk which means less than 14 kids per school will get these tickets free – so if your intent on going – start saving, especially if you want to go to the mens athletics 100m final where a ringside seat with all the trimmings (a can of beer and a pork pie and maybe close proximity to an MP or Royal if they bother) will set you back a whopping £750 but thankfully the cheap seats will only set you back £50,  thats a great deal if i get the train with my family the whole lot will only be £330 for watching a bunch of blokes running round a track for 100 metres in less than 20 seconds – what a relief to know it will only cost me £4.12 per person per fucking second.

And bountiful Boris wants at least 1 in 8 schoolchildren to have a free ticket does he? And who may i ask is paying for these tickets? We are of course, for the rest of our lives in taxes and other ridiculous ways of fleecing you that will no doubt be introduced before during and after the olympics in the hopes of regaining all the money they lost when over half the seats remain empty coz people can’t be bovvered, innit.

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On Wednesday 19th May, the Official olympic site unveiled the new official mascots monstrosities to the world. What the fuck are these things? Even the usually compliant BBC is having a pop at them saying that mascot is an ancient Greek word for “overpriced novelty”. BBC Video.

And over at the blatent BBC spoof site, News Arse, they say

“The team behind the 2012 Olympics have unveiled their one-eyed trouser mascots, Wenlock and Mandeville, who will be responsible for drawing global derision in the run up to the London event.
The mascots were created for children, according to Chairman Lord Coe, who said, “They will help connect young people to that feeling you get when you think you might recognise something, but then think ‘no, it couldn’t be, could it?’.”

The general public will of course get to love these six foot walking surveillance cameras just as they have grown to love the biggest CCTV network in the world. The kids this is aimed at are being buttered up to accept cameras in every aspect of their daily lives. Who knows they may even put real cameras in the thousands of the miniture monstrosities they will no doubt sell to parents for their drones kids to have as constant companions from when they go on sale to the end of the olympics.

There are some alternative mascot ideas here.

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Hot on the heels of the Olympic Theme Song comes this, that was sent via a friend (Thanks L.M.L.)

In 2012 the Olympics will be held in London and a Facebook group has opened as a source to petition for Iron Maiden, one of England’s biggest bands, to open the ceremony.

Not only are they aiming to petition for Iron Maiden to open the Olympics, they are also wanting you to help make the band number one by purchasing the single “The Loneliness Of The Long Distance Runner” on July 19^th 2010. (Taken from espyrock.com whose tagline is “Spice girls Free Zone” ha ha ha – bloody marvelous)

There are two facebook pages dedicated to this – links at espyrock.com

Beats the fucking Spice Girls and Eddie could enter every olympic event just for a laugh – Gold medal for whoever thought this one up

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So the BBC has suggested that the 2012 olympics needs a show stopping theme and has suggested a mash up of The Clash – London Calling over the strings of “Jerusalem” – lovely.   Also Dizzy Rascal doing a rap version of “We Are The Champions” . Can anyone see the irony here.

First off we are NOT the champions as the olympics hasn’t even started yet so to have this as the olympic theme would be tempting fate and more than a little presumptious.

But do the BBC know something we don’t? Take a look at the first suggestion again. For anyone not familiar with either song then it would seem like a good idea having the tune to a hymn written by Charles  Hubert Hastings Parry (William Blake only wrote the words) which is mooted by many as being Englands National Anthem, with a song whose title alone would call up images of London and make it seem like the perfect fit.
Which to me it is, as i have always been a big Clash fan and know what the lyrics mean. But for those of you that don’t, read on.

Incidently for those that don’t know England does NOT have a National Anthem. God Save The Queen is the anthem of  The United Kingdom and The Commonwealth – of which there is no Common Wealth

London Calling was written by Joe Strummer and Mick Jones of The Clash. Strummer re-wrote the words many times until the final release one was settled on – Mick Jones had previously rejected a lyric which concerned mobs in Soho. The title itself is from the BBC World Service’s station identification: “This is London calling …”, which was used during World War II, during broadcasts mainly to foreign countries.
Makes sense so far and seems like a good olympic choice but dig a little deeper.

The lyrics reflect world events with the reference to “a nuclear error” to the incident at Three Mile Island, which occurred  in 1979. Joe Strummer has said: ‘”We felt that we were struggling about to slip down a slope or something, grasping with our fingernails. And there was no one there to help us.’”

The line “London is drowning/And I live by the river” comes from concerns that if the River Thames flooded, most of central London would drown, something that led to the construction of the Thames Barrier and the irony wasn’t lost that Strummer lived in a tower block by the river.
Also in “The Complete Clash”  by Keith Topping, it  says  “In London Calling, Strummer acts as an observer of the resultant winter-world of the apocalypse.”

So in effect London Calling is about a post apocalyptic world. Combine that with the fact that Jerusalem is about  a perfect England of the imagination, but one that could exist in reality if only we all worked together, then you have a truly vicious vision of the future London after the Olympics, one that could not exist without some kind of major event happening or am i tempting fate again.

Jerusalem has also been used as an anthem by both the Labour Party and The BNP (British National Party) so do we really want this as an anthem for the olympics.

A London 2012 spokesman said: “We are looking to be able to cater for all musical tastes and for that reason all music genres will be represented from pop to classical across our music programmes which include ceremonies and the Cultural Olympiad.” (more on this money pit later)

What they mean is they will employ the most expensive Orchestra they can find who will write an absolute dirge which we will be embarrassed to even hum. Expect people to fork out a fiver for the CD with the badly designed cover and crap olympic logo, which will be given to a charity shop a month later and have a price label of a shit designed 50p – which is about 50p more than it’s worth – and eventually given away with every purchase coz they got so many of em.

I had an idea to do an Alternative Unofficial Olympic Podcast of all the British songs that should be considered for the Olympics. The BBC started it off with The Clash-  London Calling and i am going to add The Skids -  “The Olympian” (lyrics) and Queen – “Bicycle Race” (lyrics).
If any one has any more suggestions please leave them in the comment box and when i have enough suggestions i will put up a podcast for you listening and download.

Its got to be better than the bloody Spice Girls

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Sorry about the lack of updates lately been busy doing non web things.

Anyway here is a massive fail which appears on MP for  Hackney North and Stoke Newington, Diane Abbots own website.
The cameraman must have realised what a classic cock up this is but her own PR person didn’t. Just like everything else concerned with the olympics – FAIL.

And thanks to Joe Public at UK Resistance for pointing out i had missed a classic olympics logo based on the infamous goatse website that featured on BBC London – Video Link

It has been uploaded to our Logo Gallery

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So that bastion of truth known as the BBC is going to make an Olympic film about Seb Coe and Steve Ovett. (How many people said “who?”). Neither of them is involved in the making of the film, so it will be a fantasy film.

Christine Langan, the creative director of BBC Films, said yesterday that she hoped that the film would be shot in summer 2011, with an intended release in March 2012.
No stars or director are yet attached to the script that William Davies is working on, but Langan anticipates using unfamiliar actors to play the athletes and bigger names for the supporting roles, as with An Education.
“This is a gem of a story, about British sporting life and more,” she said. “The essence of the story is universal.”

So if the script is being worked on,how the hell does Langen get away with quoting the last line. It’s a gem of a story is it, how can you know this without reading the script and “the essence of the story is universal” is it? To whom is it universal.  Certainly not me or anyone else who has a modicum of intelligence and realises that the only universal thing about this film will be the hype and the amount of money made from it by the fools who will watch it and buy the “official” merchandise which will no doubt be emblazoned with that shitty design.

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British taxpayers’ access to tickets for the London 2012 Olympic will be limited because of European Union competition law, raising serious concerns that the Olympic venues will not be full of local fans.

Sports fans in European Union countries have the legal right to buy the London 2012 tickets when they go on sale to the public next year.
With London so accessible and the mandatory inclusion of European involvement in the local ticket programme, the demand for the 9.3 million London Olympic and Paralympic tickets is expected to be particularly intense.
But Telegraph Sport has been told that Britons will not have any exclusive access to the tickets, nor any advance purchase opportunities.
On a political level there are approaches being made to see if there is any possibility of reserving a percentage of tickets for the British public, but early indications appear that any such move would contravene the European Union act.
Lord Coe, the chairman of the London Organising Committee of the Olympic Games, said on Tuesday: “The reality is we signed the European Union act in 1971, we are part of the European political landscape and my instinct is that the tickets have to be made available to Europe at the same time as Britain.”

So the government are spending Millions of pounds on an Olympics that we may not even be able to get tickets for in our own fucking country. This is disgusting, you can reserve tickets in YOUR OWN COUNTRY for just about any major sporting event, and any other country gets allotted a certain amount of tickets afterwards and no one has said a damn thing about it til now. This particularly happens in football.
So why is this not happening for the Olympics? Because this Olympics is not about the athletes, which it should be, this Olympics is not about the fans, which it should be and it’s not even about this country, which it also should be. Its about money, power and control. Taking your money, from your Olympics and giving it, yes giving it, to other countries to make sure that the people of this country are controlled and have no choice but to pay for these games for the rest of our lives.
BOYCOTT THE OLYMPICS, don’t give “Official” money makers ANY of your hard earned. Don’t let the Government get away with selling our pride abroad.

And to the person who asked why i’m against athletics. I’m not against athletics, or the athletes and wish them the best of luck.
I AM AGAINST this charade called the Olympics which steals money from the host countries own people and gives it away to other countries. I’m against the politcal aganda of the olympics and the farcical way that the Government think it is their god given right to break any law they wish in making these olympics happen for THEM, I am against the constant laws that are and will be made up to criminalise people for having a good time, that stop people selling “Unofficial” merchandise to make a couple of extra quid for themselves rather than the Government and I am against how the government think that the Olympics is THEIR games.
It’s fucking not, it’s OUR games and we have a right to be offered tickets first and to be able to go to OUR games without being harrased for taking photos or dropping a flyers (considered litter) or being told that we cannot demonstrate against the Olympics in our own fucking homes.
WAKE UP people, this games isn’t about us or the athletes or anything to do with sport, its about power and money and they’re not getting a penny out of me.

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