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Tue, 8 May 2012

Olympic evictions

Gotta love the Olympics. Not only is it costing many times more than was originally budgetted, not only are the organisers quite open about taking bribes, not only are they going to screw up public transport with their Zil lanes, and they're happy to close down small businesses and put loads of poor people out of work. They do, of course, bleat about how building the stadiums for their pointless events employs so many people, but it only employs them temporarily, whereas many of the businesses they closed down were well-established and could have been expected to provide employment for the long term.

But now we find out - and are shocked, of course, because we could never have predicted this - that landlords are evicting tenants from housing near games venues so that they can rent them out to rich visitors. The only thing that's surprising about this is that some landlords are doing it illegally at short notice, and that the press have only just noticed. I knew that it would start happening in about January, as tenants would need two or three months notice to quit and then landlords would need some time to spruce up the properties before the scum they'll be renting them to arrive.

Of course, after the Olympics have been and gone, rents will go back down, but not to current levels. Having had their refurbs paid for by Olympic vermin, landlords will be able to set their prices higher than they are now.

Thankyou very much Seb Coe you midget Tory CUNT.

Posted at 13:37 by David Cantrell
keywords: london | olympics | rant
Permalink | 1 Comment
Tue, 6 Dec 2011

Oh look, more Olympic financial incompetence

So we've known for for years that the Olympics would end up costing nearly four times the original budget, being £9.3 billion instead of the £2.4 billion we were originally told. Naturally, those extra seven billion will be taken from the pockets of tax-payers. Now the National Audit Office says that even that much higher figure might not be enough.

And now, for no apparent reason, the budget for the opening and closing ceremony has just been doubled. How it managed to cost £40 million in the first place is beyond me - all that's needed is:

  • a brief welcoming speech;
  • for the participants to take the "Olympic Oath" which they will then blatantly ignore;
  • a brief closing speech
and what on earth they'll find to spend £81 million on I have no idea.

Thankyou very much Seb Coe you midget Tory CUNT

Posted at 22:36 by David Cantrell
keywords: olympics | rant
Permalink | 1 Comment
Fri, 9 Sep 2011

Olympic security costs - again

Three and a bit years ago I wrote about how the Olympics security had increased in cost five-fold. I'm sure none of you are surprised that that was just the beginning. Since then it's gone up again. In fact the cost of "securing" the venues, training facilities, and the "Olympic village" has increased fifteen times. Naturally, this cost is going to be borne by the government and not by the liars who put together the original bid, all of whom are going to come out of the Olympics with several years of nice big salaries while the tax-payers foot the bill.

Other big sporting events, such as the Rugby World Cup, are privately funded, with the organising body both taking any profits but also bearing responsibility for any losses. In fact, it's because the 2011 world cup is expected to make a loss that the 2015 tournament will be in England, where it is expected to make a whacking great profit.

Why is the Olympic Games treated differently? Why does it automatically get subsidised by tax-payers?

Thankyou very much Seb Coe you midget Tory CUNT.

Posted at 21:53 by David Cantrell
keywords: olympics | rant
Permalink | 0 Comments
Wed, 22 Jun 2011

Olympic ticketing fiasco shows the Olympics aren't wanted

The lottery by which Olympic tickets were allocated is universally known to have been a poorly-organised disaster. In particular, you should consider that money to pay for tickets was taken from peoples' credit cards as early as the 10th of May but it's only today that LOCOG could tell people what tickets they'd actually got. That's a bit odd, cos I would have thought that they'd have known that, and therefore been in a position to tell people, back on the 10th of May.

But there's something more interesting hidden in the numbers describing the ticketing fiasco. 700,000 applicants got tickets, and 1.2 million didn't. This means that less than 2 million people in the entire country wanted to go and see any of the events, and 58 million didn't. Just 1 in 30 people are interested. For those one in thirty, the government has bent over backwards, introducing oppressive laws restricting trade and free speech, fucking up public transport and, of course, pissing billions of pounds of Londoners' money up the wall. All of this, for something that just one in thirty people give a shit about. For god's sake, no-one tell the government how many people care about football!

Thankyou very fucking much Seb Coe you midget Tory CUNT.

Posted at 16:13 by David Cantrell
keywords: london | olympics | rant
Permalink | 4 Comments
Tue, 19 Aug 2008

Olympic costs: the excuses

There are apparently not going to be any more hand-outs of public money for the 2012 Olympics. Well, none from central government anyway. Who knows how much Londoners will be forced to pay through our local taxes?

But that's not what I wanted to write about. The interesting bit is what the new mayor said:

"This was a project, an Olympic Games, that was won, secured, commissioned at a time of economic plenty.

"We're being asked to deliver it in a credit crunch and with what people say is a recession looming. The International Olympic Committee understands that."

Boris ain't exactly the sharpest tool in the box, but he seems to be saying that the budget has increased because it's now harder to secure credit (that is, interbank loans and large commercial loans cost maybe 2% more per year). So that 2% a year equates to 5.325 billion pounds. Or an extra 133%. Even if they were counting on borrowing every single penny of the original 4 billion, there's no way in hell that an extra 2% a year would cost 5.325 billion quid. For that to be the case it would have to be a roughly fifteen year loan. No-one in their right mind would give such a loan to a company that will spend money for five years like it's going out of fashion, then really coin it for a year, and then never have any income ever again. At most the loan would be for six years. So if the "credit crunch" is to blame, then the crunch would have to have put interest rates up by 5%. Which it hasn't.

So, Mr. Johnson, where has the 133% cost increase really come from? Were the original bidders innumerate? Or did they simply lie? Those are the only two possibilities. Yes, I can understand some cost over-runs. But that much simply can't happen accidentally.

And the bit about security costs maybe rising? they've already gone up five-fold.

Thankyou very fucking much Seb Coe you midget Tory CUNT.

Posted at 20:53 by David Cantrell
keywords: london | olympics | politics
Permalink | 1 Comment
Thu, 8 May 2008

The Olympics: now available in Welsh!

The 2012 Olympics, which are to be held in the east end of London, in England, and which are already billions of pounds over budget, will now have to be bi-lingual in English and in a little-known language spoken by just 750,000 people. Of those 750,000, a mere 50,000 live in London (making up just 0.6% of the population), and of those 50,000, there can't be more than 10 who aren't also fluent in English.

Naturally, the extra costs incurred in hiring people fluent in Welsh for no other reason than that they are fluent in Welsh, and in translating printed and electronic materials, will not be covered by the Welsh Language Board.

Thankyou very fucking much Rhodri Glyn Thomas you sheep-shagging nationalist CUNT.

Posted at 20:22 by David Cantrell
keywords: language | london | olympics
Permalink | 0 Comments
Thu, 6 Mar 2008

Olympic security costs

Gotta love the Olympics. In the three years since the 2005 bid, the cost of security alone has risen five-fold. That's in just three years. That's a 70% increase per year. That's Weimar levels of inflation, that I have to pay for.

Thankyou very fucking much Seb Coe you midget Tory CUNT.

And the end result will be for the Met to hook in to every CCTV camera in London, of which we have far too many already. Thankyou very fucking much again Seb Coe you midget Tory CUNT. You know, I thought the Conservatives were against wasting public money on Big Government projects. Fucking hypocrites.

Posted at 11:04 by David Cantrell
keywords: olympics | rant
Permalink | 0 Comments
Mon, 4 Jun 2007

Crappy olympic logo

Continuing his plan to waste as much of my money as possible on his unwanted Olympic Games, Mr. Coe has now blown £400,000 of other peoples' money on this crappy logo. I can't make up my mind whether it looks more like the sort of unreadable graffiti "tags" that cretins spray on trains or whether it looks more like Lisa Simpson giving someone a blow job. Either way, it's money well wasted.

Thankyou very fucking much Seb Coe you midget Tory CUNT.


This alternate version that a reader submitted to the BBC news website is much better!

Posted at 20:21 by David Cantrell
keywords: olympics
Permalink | 5 Comments
Tue, 1 May 2007

Olympic bribery

Apparently, vendors of services needed by the 2012 Olympic games organisers will only be considered if they pay to be "major sponsors" of the games. Derek Wyatt MP let slip that "because neither of these companies was a 'major sponsor' of the Olympics their technology could not be used".

If this were anything other than the Olympics, that "sponsorship" would be spelt B-R-I-B-E-R-Y.

This comes shortly after the UK government decided to stop investigating alleged bribes paid by British Aerospace to the Saudi government. It's nice to know that corruption is taken seriously in this wonderful country.

Thankyou very fucking much Seb Coe you midget Tory CUNT.

(story via the most excellent Bruce Schneieieier)

Posted at 20:08 by David Cantrell
keywords: olympics | politics | rant | security
Permalink | 0 Comments
Sat, 3 Mar 2007

One billion a day

That's what the Olympics are going to cost now. And that's a billion pounds a day, not a billion of the shiny but worthless baubles that other countries use. Thankyou very fucking much Seb Coe you midget Tory CUNT.

Posted at 20:54 by David Cantrell
keywords: olympics | rant
Permalink | 0 Comments
Sat, 13 May 2006

Olympic Job Losses

Gotta love the Olympics. Not only is it already over budget, not only will Londoners have to suffer even more unwanted tourists, but now we find that poor people are going to lose their jobs because of it.

Thankyou very fucking much Seb Coe you midget Tory CUNT.

Posted at 12:42 by David Cantrell
keywords: olympics | rant
Permalink | 0 Comments
Sat, 11 Feb 2006

More Olympic cost over-runs

Quelle surprise, the Olympics is going to cost Londoners even more money. Thankyou very fucking much Seb Coe you midget Tory CUNT.

Posted at 00:18 by David Cantrell
keywords: olympics | rant
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