Tag Archives: 2012

Glastonbury Cancelled Due To London Olympics

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Glastonbury 2012 has been cancelled due to the London Olympics procuring all available portable toilets in the south of England. In addition, the organisers have also been told that all the 600 strong police force which patrols the event will also be redirected to patrol the Olympics.

Michael Eavis spoke of a price hike in 2012 for any spare toilets due to their scarcity, which would also inevitably lead to problems. “I can see it getting very expensive,” he said. “So we looked at the timing and thought that a year off seemed sensible.”

Sadly, yet somewhat unsurprisingly, the Glastonbury Festival has become another casualty of the ever increasing collateral damage inflicted by the controversial 2012 Olympic event.

For the full article see Live4Ever.

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50,000 promised Olympic Jobs becomes 70,000 unpaid McVolunteers

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No Jobs only McVolunteers

No Jobs only McVolunteers

Countless employers are now facing the problem of dealing with twenty three working days without key employees come 2012.  The deadline to volunteer for the Olympics is the 27th of October, 2010. The London 2012 Olympics Organising Committee (LOCOG) have stated that 70,000 voluntary positions need to be filled, but more than 100,000  people have already applied. The voluntary roles consist of general and specialised positions, from desk staff, events stewards and drivers. Volunteers must work for a minimum of 10 days for the Games, and 20 for the Paralympic Games. Training is also mandatory for all participants.

There are also a further 8000 positions to be filled for the role of “London Ambassadors”, which would involve helping the vastly overstated and questionable increase of tourists and visitors in 2012 find their way around the city.

For more information visit.

These voluntary positions have been the source of much controversy. Back in 2007 London’s Employment and Skills Taskforce and the London Development Agency (LDA) were talking of the Olympics creating up to 50,000 new jobs in the Lower Lea Valley. Dee Doocey, chair of the Committee for Economic Development, Culture, Sport, and Tourism, the leading committee on the London Assembly for scrutinising the Olympics, commented on the announcement of a new ‘Living Wage’ for London of £7.20 an hour:

“The Mayor and Seb Coe signed an ‘Ethical contract’ with London Citizens before winning the Olympics, promising a Living Wage for everyone involved. Yet to date, no Living Wage has been included in the contracts allocated and Seb Coe told the London Assembly that ‘any of the issues about a living wage is a consideration, not a condition’. This is of great concern because LOCOG will be letting contracts for all the traditionally low paid jobs such as catering and cleaning. As for local businesses exploiting the games, as Coe had suggested, it is more likely that existing businesses will be endangered.”

The “workers” will be given Macdonalds meals and bus travel for the day, but are not even allowed free tickets for the events. To read more on this click here, here, and here.

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ETOA claims Olympics are bad for tourism

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The European Tour Operators Association (ETOA) has warned that the 2012 Olympic games would be harmful to Britain’s tourism industry. The ETOA has published research from cities who previously hosted the Olympic Games, which shows it has a “profoundly disruptive” effect on local tourism. They describe the official estimates for the number of visitors as “exaggerated”. The association warned: “Normal tourist businesses suffer during the Games period . . . The region around the Games can suffer more than the host city . . . The impression that everything will be overcrowded and overpriced blights a region . . . [and] these difficulties are exacerbated by exaggerated claims of the benefits derived from the Games.”

Meanwhile Boris Johnson is drumming up a further 8000 voluntary positions for the role of “London Ambassadors”, which would involve helping the vast increase of tourists and visitors in 2012 to find their way around the city. So no paid tourism jobs there.

They can perhaps help shepherd the 70,000 unpaid volunteers in McDonald’s regalia.

Job anyone?

For more information click here

For more information on 2012 controversy click here

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Unexploded bomb could lie underneath Olympic Stadium

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The Olympic Delivery Authority has dismissed claims that there could be an unexploded bomb lying beneath its Stratford stadium.

However, according to Government records, a German bomb dropped in a tip on the exact site of the stadium during the Blitz.
Records exist of bombings during the war, which state that a large hole was left in a rubbish shoot at the refuse site after an air-raid. Despite several searches throughout the 1940s, no bomb was uncovered at the site.

A report by weapons company BAE Systems for the Government in 2007 concluded that explosive material must lie beneath the site of the stadium of the intensity of air raids in the area during the war.

A spokesman for the ODA said that more than 3,000 searches for unexploded bombs had been carried out across the Olympic Park, including the Marshgate Lane stadium.

For full article click here.

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Olympic Marathon dumps East End for tourist landmarks

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The London Olympic Marathon will not go through the East End or finish at the Olympic Stadium as is tradition. To please the Olympic Committee, it will pass through the West End showcasing tourist landmarks St Paul’s Cathedral, the Houses of Parliament and Tower of London.  The race is planned to finish in the Mall with Buckingham Palace as its TV friendly backdrop. The race walks are also set to be held in central London instead of the East London as first planned.

Rushanara Ali, the MP for Bethnal Green and Bow, has claimed that the change meant that organisers were “embarrassed and ashamed to showcase the area and its people to the world”
“If LOCOG goes ahead with this proposal, the message they send to the world is ‘while we are happy to use the vibrancy, dynamism and diversity of the East End of London to win the Olympics bid, we’re embarrassed and ashamed to showcase the area and its people to the world’,” said Ali.

Tower Hamlets Council have created a petition as well Facebook group to protest the decision. They claim that Sebastian Coe, chairman of London 2012, had promised them that the marathons would pass through their area.

In his defense, Coe stated that “This is not a beauty contest and it would be ludicrous to suggest that we are ashamed of the East End,” when he met with Ali during the Labour Party Conference in Manchester. Although defiant, Coe did promise that the Olympic Torch Relay would pass through East London.

The London Thames Gateway Development Corporation (LTGDC), the Government’s lead regeneration agency for East London, has described the decision not to route the marathons and walks through that area as a “missed opportunity” to promote the region as a key investment destination to international investors.

As with Greenwich Park (see here and here), spectacular televisual backdrops demanded by the Olympic Committee override the interests of London and its residents.

To read more visit insidethegames.biz

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Wanstead Flats: Green space to Olympic holding cells?

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Wanstead Flats: A vast, open grassland in Epping Forest, east London, surrounded by residential areas: This is where the Metropolitan Police plans to site an operational centre for the 2012 Olympics. On 5th September 2010, about 350 people attended a Mass Community Picnic on Wanstead Flats, demonstrating their opposition to the police’s proposal.

Official statements by the City of London, responsible for Epping Forest, have stated it will be a police briefing centre in the southwestern part of the Flats for a period of three months. However, subsequent conversations with officials have revealed that the site, covering three hectares, will seemingly be used for police deployment, and include a feeding station and stabling for police horses and also holding cells. Since those plans became public in June, local residents have started to organise their protest in order to preserve the open green space. Wanstead Flats are protected by the Epping Forest Act, 1878 which inhibits any use other than for recreation and public enjoyment and does not allow the erection of permanent structures. It is feared that the police’s proposal will set a precedent for further developments on the Flats in the near future. The fact that the Epping Forest Act has to be adapted in order to legalize the planned project is strengthening these apprehensions. These and other critical issues such as lack of public consultation, concerns about traffic and accessibility were discussed by local residents during the event on 5th September with Paul Thomson, Superintendent of Epping Forest. Two similar temporary police centres are to be erected for the Olympic Games, one in Hackney and another in Greenwich.

The next Local Residents’ Public Meeting of the Save Wanstead Flats Campaign will take place on Wednesday 6th October 2010, 7pm, at Durning Hall Community Centre, Earlham Grove, Forest Gate E7 9AB. For further information see savewansteadflats.org.uk

Wanstead Flats is one of many green sites that the “Greenest Olympics” will affect.

Sign the Petition now!

This is one of many green sites that the “Greenest Olympics” will destroy also see

Park to be tarmaced for Olympics

Basildon is latest signing to Disgruntled First XI

Greenwich Park, a centre for Equestrian Excellence? Perhaps not

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Mass Picnic To Save Wanstead Flats 5th September

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The “Save Wanstead Flats Campaign” invite all of us to protest with a picnic on Sunday 5th September.


All welcome 1pm on the spot to the west of Centre Road where the police want to site their Olympic operations base in 2012. Ever since over 250 people attended a packed public meeting in July, residents living near Wanstead Flats have been demanding answers about plans by the City of London Corporation to allow the Metropolitan Police to base its Olympics operational centre on the Flats in 2012. In order to push this proposal through, the Corporation would need to amend an Act of Parliament that has protected Wanstead Flats from enclosure and development for well over a century.

Local people want to know why the proposed site for this police base, west of Centre Road, has been chosen, how that decision was made and why the Olympic stadium site itself cannot be used. There has been no consultation, even though the plans involve locating a fenced, high-security compound – with buildings, parking areas, stables and apparently even police holding cells – for at least 120 days and so close to residential neighbourhoods.

The Save Wanstead Flats campaign is organised by local people and on Sunday 5 September, we’d like to invite you to show your opposition to the City of London Corporation’s plans by joining us for a picnic – occupying the very spot where the police operations base would be constructed.  FLYER MAP

BRING FOOD, PICNIC BLANKETS, YOUR CHILDREN AND YOUR FRIENDS! MEET ALL YOUR NEIGHBOURS WHO ALSO WANT TO SAVE WANSTEAD FLATS!

Sign the Petition now!

This is one of many green sites that the “Greenest Olympics” will destroy also see

Park to be tarmaced for Olympics

Basildon is latest signing to Disgruntled First XI

Hackney Marshes

London 2012 Equestrian Events

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Olympic ArcelorMittal Sculpture

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‘So we’ve got £19m to throw around, any ideas?’

‘What about an 115m helter-skelter steel sculpture?’

So went the conversation about the conception of the planned Orbit sculpture to be completed in time for the London Olympics. You would assume then that there must be enough of a kitty for the post-Olympic regeneration project in East London, available for creating affordable housing to combat the rising house prices and for creating job opportunities in response to the high local unemployment levels. Refreshing to know the Olympics definitely won’t go over budget.

The main hypocrisy of the structure, highlighted in Felicity Carus’ blog for The Guardian which you can read here, is that the carbon emissions of the tower’s sponsors ArcelorMittal are roughly the equivalent of the Czech Republic’s carbon emissions for an entire year, an interesting move for the world’s first sustainable Olympic Games. But the main thing is that the red steel framework would be ‘our Eiffel Tower’, says Boris Johnson, so faith is restored.

More about London 2012 can be found on our London 2012 Olympics blog or the Spectacle London 2012 Olympics project page)

South Africa 2010 and Ambush Marketing

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It’s not long now before the World Cup fanfare begins but for local independent tradesman it’s the long, boring drone of contradiction that’s ringing around what is supposedly intended to be their most lucrative opportunity for years. The mantra that’s pumped out before major nomadic sports events is that smaller businesses will benefit from the influx of tourists, but in reality they can’t pay up the prerequisite sponsor fees demanded by the sports governing bodies, so they’re unable to compete with the event’s major sponsors and unceremoniously kicked 25893144299999 miles away from the stadium in question.

When independent tradesmen and entrepreneurs do try to get amongst the action, they’re quickly attacked with flimsy legislation like ‘ambush marketing’, like the recent case of Grant Abrahamse. He registered his football key ring back in 2004 but is now being taken to court by FIFA (who’s account has already ballooned by more than R23 billion). The ruling, if upheld, essentially means that any independent traders wishing to use words like ‘soccer’ or even the year ‘2010’ could also risk being sued. In comparison to the 3,700 cases during the previous event in Germany in 2006, there have been over 50,000 in South Africa. We have already begun to see the same shoots of this story growing in the preparation for London 2012. (more about London 2012 can be found on our London 2012 Olympics blog or the Spectacle London 2012 Olympics project page)

Despite promises to the contrary, Abrahamse’s case, which you can watch in more detail below (source, 2010 World Cup FIFA sue Grant Abrahamse), demonstrates that FIFA and co are the exclusive beneficiaries for South Africa 2010.

London – Delhi Exhibition

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Exhibition – 4 February 2010

Tonight is the private viewing launch of creative media exhibition, London – Delhi 2010-2012.

London-Delhi 2010-2012 is a digital arts collaboration between artists and young people in London and Delhi, creating and sharing contemporary stories of their two cities.

The research areas that are being explored touch upon large scale structural changes that are happening in Delhi and London, the social worlds that get impacted through these changes and the zones of flux and uncertainty about ways of life that these produce. London-Delhi 2010 -2012 will draw on the different perspectives and transformations of these two cities, each with the eyes of the world upon them, as they prepare to host Delhi 2010 and London 2012.

Read More:

London – Delhi 2010-2012

Watch:

Riverfront-Workshop Film

Riverfront-Spectacle’s Film