Olympic Round up

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Zil lanes With phase one of the Olympics over here’s a bit of a round up of the nonsense that’s being going on.
No much by way of good news for the official sponsors over at Just Drinks
Beer drinkers and pubs all over seem to be unhappy with the brand police judging by Real ale up north (And let’s not mention the GBBF being shunted from Earls Court to the smaller venue at Olympia for some sporting thing or other).
Even the mainstream media is reporting how bad the games have been for small businesses of course our glorious leaders still claim it’s been “a very good period” for tourism. Which with many places reporting being down 30%+ on normal, such a disconnect with basic mathematics may explain why the deficit is still rising and the economy still stagnant. If 30% down is a good period I’d hate to know what would count as a bad one. VISA an official sponsor and the only card you can use in Olympic venues said they were seeing more bookings – odd that. From official responses the price of people being able to get to the games easily will be the destruction of numerous small businesses in central London – just what’s needed during a recession/down turn. Heathrow was quieter than predicted and tourists attractions are considering being 10% down as good compared to other places – actually go read the whole independent article for the full catalogue of suffering business and the lack disconnect from reality from Government.

Andrew Gillian also reports local business suffering and his expereince around Greenwich seems to broadly match those from my little walk

Guido has a handy break down of some of the financials.

Another Telegraph writer Dr Stephen suggests that maybe as athletes do so well when funded and looked after that maybe the same could work in education.

Woman on a raft manages to find a hint of a silver lining to the cloud at least.

Finally with the Para Olympics coming up with ATOS being an official sponsor the strangest thing has happened an UK Uncut have had a good idea and plan to protest outside their HQ on the same day as the closing ceremony. I do of course still hold every expectation that they’ll come up with some whacky stunt that will make a sows ear of it but, for now it’s a good idea.

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Wondering around outside the olympics

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Out to look for the spirit of the olympics With surveillance Wenlock to accompany us we headed to the depths of Stratford for a little stroll and to look for any spill over effect from the olympics and to see how well the brand enforcement was working. So if you’re in a hurry the summary is:
– there’s very little spill over into the local area
– the olympic brand enforcement is working very well indeed.
Now before I go any further let me say that the crowds around Stratford are pretty close to my idea of hell, but that the volunteers I spoke to were awesome (mainly I asked “how do I get out of here?”). Also let me point you at the Snow Wolf who has a rather up beat take on matters. Arriving at Stratford there was an awful lot of security around, police private security and the odd very bored looking soldier. Once across the road from the station and into the shopping centre you couldn’t tell anything was going on, apart from the odd person with Olympic id badges and bored soldiers not a hint that anything was happening. The closest thing we saw to an acknowledgement of the games was a Union flag 2012 decal in one shop window. The man running that shop wasn’t aware of the list of banned words so so much for the Olympics authority’s duty to communicate that. Even within Westfield it self the shopping centre you can walk through to get to the games apart from obviously the volunteers and signs saying “games this way” and the huge number of peoples if you looked at the shop windows not a hint. Boots had signs about athletes but no mention of the games, another shop featured mannequins hanging from hopes and that seemed to be as close as it got. We did though bump into a chap who wanted to know where he could get our t-shirts from, and told us about some people who’d been collecting signatures for a petition about job loses and had been moved on.

Opting to leave my own personal hell we grabbed the DLR over to Greenwich, on the way we had a nice chat with a chap who was working in the Olympic village, which he assured us had very good security regarding who could get in – he wasn’t aware of the restrictions on words that businesses could use. So was quite interested to be told about it and seemed to be looking forward to telling people at work about it. Greenwich was a far more civilised affair, by which I mean fewer people in hi-viz vests herding people through runs of crowd control barriers.
No Olympics here
As a shop we passed looked quiet we dropped into to chat to them about their sign. They were well aware of the restrictions imposed on them under threat of fine if they mentioned the event that hundreds of people would be streaming past their doors to see. So they were in their words being careful and sticking to just using lots of languages oh and horseshoes in colours and a pattern that might somewhat resemble a certain group of rings. That echoing the pattern of the rings whilst avoiding anything too close seems to be the order of the day, though very few places even did that. I took photo’s of every thing which came close that I saw whilst wondering Stratford, Greenwich and from Canon Street to Charing Cross and back along south bank, there wasn’t much. I think the crowning moment of how well the brand enforcement was working was in Greenwich park itself, there was a non-oylmpic festival going on just a few hundred yards away from the official venue, and if you’d been dropped blind fold into it you’d never have known the Olympics were happening. The big screen at the session showing the Olympic Tennis had nothing around it, the bar in the park didn’t mention no where other than on discreet official banners was there so much a sniff of any well known sporting event happening.
How dare they mention the olympicsTo be honest the official banners and posters are quite easy to miss as well. The only unofficial out right mention we found of the Olympics anywhere was a single hand written notice in a window. As you can see Wenlock was stunned. Just as well that having paid over 10 billion for these games we all get to take advantage of them like the official sponsors, who obviously deserve such fast amounts of protection having chipped in so much less (which is probably why they’re keeping that bit quiet).

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text messages are publishing

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In very related new to the recent porn trial reports, it would seem that our enlightened judiciary are once more extending the law. For they have decided on an appeal ruling that sending a text message counts as publishing as far as the obscene publications act is concerned. The full details are over at the The Register, but basically text based communications to an audience of one counts as publishing, and it could be up to a jury to decide if the text is capable of “depraving or corrupting”. If it were a chat session then both parties could be liable for prosecution for publishing to the other, so best tone down those racy chat sessions if you think the police might have interest in you. What it might do for the sex chat business is another interesting question.

The judges we have to thank for this enlightened ruling that puts the boot into freedom of speech once more: Lord Justice Richards, Mr Justice Kenneth Parker and Mr Justice Lindblom. I would suggest after all that if it’s established that it’s publishing for the obscence publications act then it won’t take it much as extending to count as publishing for all acts – which wouldn’t be a welcome development. Obscenity Lawyer has the full judgement.

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