Olympics 2012: Bad Planning

BBC Kent's Polly Evans - MUCH better looking than Danny Boyle

It's just bad planning. Reports today that the opening ceremony of the London Olympics has been cut by quite a few minutes to allow 80,000 people the chance to leave and return home via public transport is just ridiculous.

To think that 4+ years planning and the artfulness of Danny Boyle - the film director "tasked" with designing the opening- didn't somehow allow for enough time for people is ludicrous.

However, it is a complete relief to note that it's the lame-o BMX show-off event that's been cut.

What do you think? Do you?

Olympic 2012: Tickets

Do you remember Beijing 2008 and the massive amounts of vacant seats in stadia at events? Exactly.

I've been writing about the Olympic Games for the 5 years in the run-up to London 2012. The fact that the atmosphere at many 2008 sporting events was apparently ruined by large gaps in attendance was written about by the press, analysed and discussed by me and forgotten by everybody else.

Well now we're seeing a wonderful sleight of hand being played out in the media as it's been revealed at the last minute that there's loads of tickets left.

It seems you'll need a couple of grand to buy the tickets (BBC News), which are on sale on the website.

I'd be asking what all that shite was about when the "get your tickets now or be a total, unpatriotic loser" campaign was on? Lord Coe seems quite happy with the whole, rather questionable, sales strategy. There was a "you'll be crying tears the size of winter cabbages - too late too late will be the cry, when the man with the bargains has passed you by" kind of banter as he did his sales pitch to the world.

Now the demand has been strangled due to earlier purchase, the highest rates can be charged to those who really need these tickets. Just like your airline.

Yield management at its best.

Olympic 2012 Security

Following on from my previous post about the Olympic Press, we now come to the furore concerning G4 Security's handling of Olympic Security.

There's really 2 aspects to this - G4's actions and reactions to what can only be described as their own mismanagement of the situation - and secondly everybody else's reaction to it.

G4's actions constitute project mismanagement. The excuses being given by their CEO are rudimentary at best:

-recruiting for the Olympics is very complicated

- students aren't available for training as security officers until the end of the academic year

- people who were thought to be excellent candidates to stand around in train stations and car parks in return for money, actually would prefer to forgo the likely peanut-level remuneration being offered and be part of the Games by watching them instead of working at them.

All of these arguments were made long ago by the LOCOG London planners of the Games, when they were "tasked" with planning the volunteering strategy for the recruitment of 75,000 volunteers, which started well over 4 years ago.

Whilst G4 only need to recruit 10,000 paid recruits, they seem to have not planned properly, started with too little too late, not built in contingencies and also left their admission of a total, operational cock-up to the last minute.

I'm going to carry on for a while with this story - just because we've yet to consider the actions and reactions of G4's competitors, their employers (the government, and indirectly the tax-payer) and, of course, our good friends the journalists.

What do you think about all this?

Olympic 2012 Press

There's been a storm in the press lately about the shenanigans related to G4 Security's handling of their 2012 Olympic Games contract.

They seem to have basically "cocked it up" as the technical, project management terminology goes.

This is a classic case of project mismanagement. I've written quite a lot about The Olympic Games in the run-up to these Games - I've also wirtten much about Olympic staffing and project management in general. Frankly, I'm "Olympic'd-out" and would quite happily not even switch on my TV for the next month or so until the whole fiasco's died down.

I'm not completely adverse to Brits feeling better about their country - as long that feelgood is based on the truth of real achievement, rather than government, IOC, LOCOG, or commercial sponsor spin.

What never ceases to amaze me is the ethic-free, and gutless way the UK press wades into a fray they start, spin, counterspin and finish, fuck-up and move on, everytime. I've written about this before - and it's not just a UK disease - happens all over the world.

Why is that they can't just let us all feel good about ourselves - for a while at least?

What do you think about it?

The Legacy

Just in case you were wondering how it's all going here in sunny London with the 2012 Olympic Games, I'm happy to report there's been many changes.

As you can see from the photos, Greenwich Park which will be the official site of the equestrian (horse-stuff) events, has markedly changed in appearance, atmosphere and infrastructure in the last few months.

Fortunately, after the Games, the Olympic planners have promised to put everything back exactly as it was.
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Here's where all the money went...

This is the Cutty Sark which is a very old boat. It's now standing splendid next to the newly constructed "Olympic Nando's"
The Queen will unveil it. I don't know if she's smash a bottle of Krug against the side of it in celebration of the being able to tack new bits of wood back on after it was horribly burned in 2007.
There's a whole, huge story about the amount this cost to sort out and the level to which the public money which was spent went to a worthy cause or not, but let's enjoy the moment for the Queen and the nation.
Let's try, above all, to feel better about our country. Afterall, the marketing powers have managed to get the Queen's Diamond Jubilee colliding with the London 2012 olympics in the same year.
Now it seems that the Cutty Sark is being incorporated into the whole design rationale.
I, for one, will be absolutely nowhere near this whole fiasco as it happens tomorrow.

What do you think? Is this a vital part of the nation's history, or a total waste of money when it could be being better used elsewhere? Comment...

What I did on my lunchbreak...

So the boss came round and let us all go out of the office for our lunches early today. We only get half an hour, so usually I like to pop over to Subway with my student card and get a cheap six inch meatball marinara. Problem by the time I queued and they made the sandwich, 28 minutes have gone, which can make a big mess down your lapels for your next class, but it is a good sandwich.

Thanks Chris Rock...

But today was a special moment in the Olympic city as I saw a bit of history being made on the Thames there in the distance. I realised it was the Olympic rings themselves being dragged down the river by a boat on a rope. A closer inspection revealed that the rings were slow moving and being borne by a fairly small tug on the ripples of the water. A crowd had gathered to the edge of the campus and there were uniformed guys on top of large horses standing, overlooking the spectacle. I quickly forgot all about my planned sandwich and walked slowly along the path to see things closer for myself.

A closer look next to the hordes of normal people, which included tourists and children and costumed royal-guard-type people on horseback made me want to capture the moment as it literally passed London and Londoners by. I felt as if history was being made and I had special from my special spot to see something practically nobody else would see. It was before me the emblem that would most likely be the most common during the television coverage of a world-wide spectacle for which London itself would be remembered.

As any media hound would think to do at this point, I grabbed the nearest, familiar face who just happened to be an ardent follower of this site and asked her to snap away with my phone camera as I sought my best, Olympic, "what the fuck?" face (see above).

It felt good to see my tax pounds at work, to finally drown out the echoes of those miserable people in the North of the country who keep complaining that they want more of a share of the event whilst Londoners pay for it out of their pockets.

Finally, the barge passed by and I felt as if I'd become yet another piece of history just by being there. On my return to my workstation, I noted an email from an astute and valued colleague, who'd managed to get quoted today in the New York Times' article about 2012, the Olympics and London. The article had stated that the Olympic rings were being transported down the River Thames in preparation for the big days ahead.

Difference was, I'd seen it.