Danny Stapleton is high up in a large multinational events provider. Being in charge of the British operation, he wants the London Olympics to succeed. He explains why:
“It’s going to have a massive impact on our sector. If it goes well, clients will mentally upgrade the UK as a source of good event management. At the moment we’re something of a backwater. Sourcing major events help here is very difficult. The key expertise just isn’t there. If the Olympics is a badly-organised flop, then we will go further still down the league of people who know how to put on a great event. At the moment, I’m very worried.”
Why is Danny worried?
“Coe is in denial. Locog is all over the place. Boris Johnson is a good figurehead but he’s interfering ineffectually. Last trains home, coach routes for airport pickups, security lapses, and piss-poor supplier choices: this is all Page One stuff these part-timers are getting wrong. It really isn’t looking good.”
Hmm. The man allegedly in charge of Trade & Investment spin-off from the event appears to have some experience in money-laundering and tax evasion, but has never worked an event for trade purposes in his life. This of course is Lord Green, former sensorily challenged CEO and Chairman of HSBC.
Danny Stapleton sums up:
“It’s self-fulfilling, isn’t it? The Government and its Locog amateurs are unable to source expert help because Britain is a backwater. They should’ve looked abroad. Now our backwater status will be confirmed, and penny-pinching plus appalling bugetary control will mean that Britain pays far too much for mediocre help, and gets nothing in the way of business in return.”
Ah well. Brave smile. Warm welcome. Prayers about weather. Cup of tea. Muddle through.
KBO, dear boy, KBO…
Really is comical not long to go now and really expected more mention of it in general gossip and it is so quiet. All in all being so quiet likely you are right on it being a shambles. You raised this thought though why are these events of interesting missing as they are sporting chances.
How many lies can a politician utter, bankers can a judge prosecute or even for efficiency have an event on deporting foreign nationals to clear the backlog “last bit a mental plug by the Telegraph”.
Let your mind wander and dream of honesty and truth.
What was omitted?… Aah yes….
Now don’t attend the Olympics wearing a Pepsi T Shirt but Nike trainers should be ok…. (Coe).
Every reason on earth why the Olympics should be boycotted.
Excellent post, highlighting the unpalatable truth behind the entire fiasco. For anyone interested, Katy Evans-Bush is on a similar wavelength.
Well hopefully once the public see the IOC up close and personal they will realise that it is a crypto Fascist self serving corporation, that is accountable to no one…
As a vision of our globalised corporate future the IOC is truly scary, getting our government to re-write laws, suspend civil liberties, and have heavy handed enforcement, and for what?
A glorified school sports day!
Compare and contrast the current shambles with the ‘austerity’ Olympics of 1948, when athletes competed for the love of sport, now they all have sponsorships.
I for one I am glad that I live miles away from London, and unless I have to go there for business, I will endeavour to keep it that way.
I can only hope the whole thing is such a shambles, that it never visits our shores again…
From the safety of Merkelland, I can only shake my bewildered head as I receive “helpful” advice on ORN and PRN and Games Lanes. Muddle through, JW advises (or should that be comments). I fear it will be all “muddle” and rather little “through”.
Athletes and officials, it transpires, are being advised where possible to take public transport or coaches to avoid crowded Games Lanes.
Try the following:
“Some lanes on ORN roads will be reserved as Games Lanes and are for use by athletes, officials and the world’s media. The vast majority of Games Lanes are in outside lanes. In these cases, normal traffic can use the adjacent lane(s). Driving in a Games Lane will result in a £130 penalty charge.
When you can use Games Lanes
Games Lanes will be very busy. They will be for the use of Games vehicles only from 0600–midnight. If Games Lanes are less busy, they will be switched off and electronic signs will indicate that normal traffic can use them.
Who wants to bet against my forecast that Games Lanes will NOT be very busy most of the time, that they will be switched off and on and off with electronic signs that add to the confusion and profusion of information that already makes safe driving almost impossible.
Looks like rain from next Friday through the W/E, that’ll cause a problem for the oganisers :-(
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Locog and the Games (can I use that word?) should serve as a case study on the economic problems in the UK.
In themselves, they are rather too small to have any bearing on the whole economy, but what they do demonstrate is the corporatism that exists in government across the UK, the EU and, probably, the world.
Governments, particularly of the pinko New Labour (and the current New New Labour) variety, want to run everything themselves and to regulate everyone else. Hence why we have amateurs like Coe running Locog. What’s his experience of running a large corporate?
Ignoring the fact that it was proved beyond all doubt in the 1970s that governments were the worst people to run anything, the supposed ‘rolling back the frontiers of the state’ of the Thatcher era (if it ever existed) has been overcome with a tsunami like ‘rolling forward’ since then, not just of regulation, but of indulgence in anything and everything.
So not only do we get crap organisational examples like the London Olympics (that would have been bankrupt many times over without the bottomless pit of taxpayer bailouts) but in many many other parts of day to day life we have the state competing unfairly against enterprises and entrepreneurs, and where they cannot compete they interfere.
+1
You would have thought that after the Millennium Dome debacle the Government would have learnt its lesson to steer clear of these grandiose events but apparently not. The whole thing has become an ugly spectre in corporate greed and sponsorship. Just look at the way the ordinary members of the public were stitched up on the bizarre ticketing arrangements.
The amount of money that the UK has squandered on this total garbage doesn’t bear thinking about or the amount of money that’s undoubtedly been quietly embezzled by the organisers who will all have made themselves very rich.
Perhaps Bob Diamond, Sir Freddie Godwin and Adam Applegarth could officially declare the London Games open admiringly watched by the hapless Tessa Jowell. The international guest of honour could be the British Commonwealths most esteemed excellency Sir Robert Mugabe.
I cant wait for the post Olympic post mortem into how it all went so badly wrong, it will be fascinating see all the dirty linen and cans of worms come falling out.
Where does the IOC get its authority from?
And why is the dubious privilege of hosting the games in its gift?
Anyone know?
I agree totally with @MarkyMark.
I said a few days ago that if the organisational requirements, massive security, breathtaking inconvenience to Londoners, huge taxpayer costs had all been made public when Blair was bidding for the Games, it would never have been approved by the electorate IF given the chance to vote on it. But like so many people have said for years, in Britain we elect dictators. They decide what’s good for us and set about making a shambles of their bizarre ideas. It’s past time for a huge clear out.
@Bt indeed. My heart sank the moment they announced we’d won the bid
And a couple of weeks ago a Parisian told me his spirits had soared when he knew Paris had “lost”.
Hindsight is a wonderfull thing, where were you on this item? it was made for you.
http://hat4uk.wordpress.com/2012/07/21/at-the-end-of-the-day-170/
Sorry, I don’t have time to read/respond to every article from JW.
Sorry BT it was aimed at aflatoxin
Perhaps UK needs a constitution then.
Freedom to wear what the buggery you want might be high on the list (even if you want to wear nothing)
The UK certainly needs a proper written constitution. It should not be written by the political elites/Establishment becasue it wouldn’t be worth the paper it was written on.
We already have a Constitution or which large chunks are written down. We merely do not have one single document called Ye Constitution. What we actually need is for our political elite to actually respect our constitution and, as importantly, our traditions.
@andy
you mean our tradition of not having a constitution and moaning endlessly about the ineffectual ruling elite which we have cleverly eugenically engineered and never get rid of for fear of losing our prime topic of conversation after the weather.
@andy
you mean our tradition of not having a constitution and incessantly moaning about our ineffectual ruling elite which we have ingeniously eugenically engineered and never get rid-of for fear of losing our prime topic of conversation after the weather.
@Andy: we’ve been round this loop before methinks. If you believe we already have one then, alas, you are missing what a proper constitution actually is.
sponsors get their names up in lights, but for their investment they also want the lawful liberty to force their swill down our throats – i’m sure that in the old days sponsors were happy simply to get their brand advertized.
i’ve been enjoying watching our lads competing in the tour de france where there’s no dress code imposed on french spectators, as far as i’m aware, and certainly no security designed to exclude the general people – football, together with its fan-base, also seems to enjoy a good relationship with sponsors. of course, it’s politically unfortunate that wiggins and co are sporting the sky brand, however that particular company has a right to negotiate advertizing like any other; it’s a pity that our boys aren’t being backed by something more british, like birds eye, for example…
…but obviously it’s a free world…
The excessive zeal with which “olympic doughnut” bans are enforced is down to local jobsworths rather than the IOC, I’ve heard. These enforcers are of a kind with those who turn EU directives into UK laws – leaving the EU won’t rid us of them. A thorough clear out will be needed.
oh piss off boris and stop frantically shovelling the blame up-and-downhill from your pathetic present position at panic-station platform-one.
it’s because you stuck your dick in the doughnut from the beginning that no-one wants to come near the thing.
i presume that the trademark regulations prevent lord coe, boris johnson, tessa jowell, jeremy hunt, and nick buckles from congregating at any one place at the same time – given that they are five olympic-sized arseholes.
I always like to say that the Brits, whether in the public or the private sector, couldn’t profitably manage whores on a troop ship. It’s something in the DNA: managers can’t manage partly because they cannot exert control over a bolshie staff for regulartry and legal reasons. It’s cultural:middle class versus working class etc. and a hangover from feudal times. ‘They pretend to pay us and we pretend to work’.
Absolutely zero interest in the games myself but may go to the Oval tomorrow if it’s not all over tonight..
the only thing that can save the london 2012 olympics is daley thompson lighting the flame at the opening ceremony – mr thompson should be awarded this honour in recognition of his unflagging embodiment of the olympic-spirit and the fact that he single-handedly demolished the krauts on the track and field in 1980 and ’84.
to his credit, daley has also demonstrated extreme bravery in his lifelong battle against discrimination, not least when he recently uncovered an ira-cia plot to subvert the london olympics with spelling-mistakes.
yes, lord crow…by the sound of things, daley thompson has already displayed a remarkable aptitude for lighting flames.
there’s clearly only one way to settle the tricky question of which great british sports personality should light the olympic flame…
…at the climax of the opening ceremony, the torch should be placed at the foot of the olympic cauldron and the two leading contenders, steve redgrave and daley thompson, permitted to fight-it-out in the middle of the athletics field using vaulting-poles, oars, shots, javelins, or any other sports equipment of their choice.
@duel of the dipsticks
that sounds a perfectly reasonable solution, mr dotd…
…providing that the chosen combatants do not attempt to wear pepsi t-shirts or make any unwarranted ‘ring’ gestures.
I would dearly love to be wrong but i fear these olympics fulfil the picture that will seal britains image as that what it was: a rich properous nation… To that that it now is: a slow, aging, out-of-date backwater.
Its hard to be so cynical but i have heard and seen nothing that changes this viewpoint
For the last eleven weeks,up on to last Monday,I have been painting and burnishing more houses and offices in oligarch land London,than I have ever done since 1980.All my trades men have come from Oxfordshire and the North West of England,their bills were large but the oligarchs willingly paid-even the tight ones!As of this morning,we are back to cleaning and slopping with my regular team-but RUSSIAN GEEKDOM IS BACK IN TOWN in a big way.Quite a num,ber are from Israeli Uni’s as well as St Petersburgh and all are hungry for success.From last night to this morning most have earned a massive £27000 on average-doing what I ask?As of yet no answer.Remember,these lower security teams ,work for tight fisted Russian oligarchs who pay them little more than board and lodging.Are our security forces really asleep?
“Remember,these lower security teams ,work for tight fisted Russian oligarchs who pay them little more than board and lodging.Are our security forces really asleep?”
What interests me about the very shadowy world of *security* is how the contracts are awarded. Anyone who has had anything to do with *security* knows that what is promised or bid for is never, ever provided. Stupidly low rates are paid to the ‘poor bloody infantry’ which practically guarantees nothing of quality results. Yet huge sums of money are paid out to all sorts of corporate entities in the never ending game of the *security* con. Why?
John, have you got a link to the original source of this?