London 2012

Call me miserable, pessimistic, grumpy…..Northern. The last few days have hit home to me that the Olympics in London this year may not be as great as people are imagining.

I am sat on a British Airways plane waiting to fly to London. Due to the fog in London, we are delayed two hours and they only knew this when we boarded the plane – not ideal. It is not just Easyjet that suffer delays – fog stops any airline, cheap or less cheap. I’ll give BA their due, they are providing drinks for people and the air hostesses have ipads with all our flight details on and are helping with rescheduling options for people missing connections. That’s the difference I guess.

Speaking of travel, my mum read a newspaper report claiming that a regular journey in London that takes one hour and a half, will take over three hours during the Olympics as they try to manage the flow of people. Awesome. I cannot wait for those tube journeys. Imagine going to see 9.6 seconds of the 100m final and travelling SEVEN hours there and back to watch it.

One of the biggest unions in the UK dished out a few threats this week about considering action during the Games. I witnessed the protests about the Games in Vancouver two years ago and I am sure that it has happened in other host countries before, but I cannot help but think there is an inevitability about some form of union action in the UK. The world is watching, we’re hosting the biggest sporting event in the world, and I just sense something like this is going to cause all kinds of unnecessary disruption.

Rewind to a couple of weeks ago and I am watching Derek Chisora slap Vitali Klitschko in a press conference, spit water on his brother before the fight, and then embark in one of the most ridiculous scraps post-fight with David Haye…..closing the battle with screams of ‘I’m going to kill you David’, and ‘I’m going to burn you David.’ Classy, very classy. Throw John Terry and Wayne Rooney and their antics in recent months in for good measure, and you have the cream of British sport disgracing themselves. They may not be participating in the Olympics, but it is not what I want to see when the spotlight will be on British athletes more than ever this year.

On the participation front, I vividly recall the struggles faced by Canadian athletes at the start of the Vancouver Games in dealing with the huge pressure on them with the whole country expecting. I imagine this is also the same for all host countries and their athletes – but let’s face it, if there is one thing British athletes are not good at, is dealing with pressure and expectation. A huge stereotype, but let’s see.

And there you have it. I warned you it was miserable, pessimistic and grumpy, and I didn’t even start scribbling about budgets. I hope I’m wrong.

Spare a thought

It is a common assumption that when a major event comes to town, most if not all local industries, stand to benefit financially from the large number of tourists and spectators that are attracted to the city willing to flash the cash. The same is happening in downtown Vancouver.....throw a flag on some random t-shirt, and folk will be all over it pretty quickly.

Spare a thought however for taxi drivers. I wouldn't usually suggest it, or feel much sympathy myself....they're a strange and random bunch...often good for a solid footy chat (in London at least), but not a crew that I would usually feel sorry for....they do it enough themselves.

In Vancouver, the public transport system has been bolstered - trains, planes and automobiles at every corner and venue, ready to whisk you away at little cost. Highly commendable from the LOC's perspective, great if you're a fan....not so good if you're a taxi driver however.

Not only are they one of the view folk unable to really profit (or even make their regular income) from having so many tourists in the city, but to provide them with a further kick in the marbles, a number of key roads in the city have been closed so that the traffic can be controlled. Pretty harsh all round really, so spare a thought for Vancouver's taxi boys.