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Dear Londoners™ the UK,
Your Olympics™ starts in just a few days and we hope that you're excited! They are your Olympics™ that have cost you £2.5bn£9bn £11.7bn possibly £24bn of your money, that 38p per household, that you really need in these times of austerity but were forced have chose to spend on what is sure to be the best Olympics™ ever ever. So you have to enjoy them, you don't have a choice. We've put lots of measures in place all for your Olympics, including allocating tickets via a lottery system. We thought this would be better than giving free tickets to people in the local area as who knows what ruffians that may allow inside the Park™, so instead many of you used your VISA™ credit cards which all of the people we'd like to invite clearly have at their disposal to deposit unaffordable amounts of money only to get tickets to watch a horse dance™ or speed walking™ while our corporate executives get to watch Usain Bolt™, because its your Olympics™.
Because its your Olympics™ we've made sure it's all completely safe from any terror at all, which is why we hired a company to do the security who only days ago realized they didn't have the appropriate staff to do the job. So we've got the army in, which may leave lots of other troops stranded out in Afghanistan for longer than they planned to be. Not only that but these army specifically trained for such family friendly sporting events with months of firearm training and warfare strategy, will provide an appropriately intimidating presence making sure no terrorist or anyone without a ticket gets anywhere near. We now have more army at the Olympics than have been deployed in Iraq or Afghanistan, which means that in 2022 tons of troops will probably still be around Stratford for no reason at all. Because its your Olympics™ we've had the MoD position huge surface to air missiles on top of blocks of flats nearby without consultation or permission needed, to ensure that if we have to shoot down any threats the local residents will be showered in debris and shrapnel. This will ensure they are safe.
Because its your Olympics™, please refrain from meeting with friends anywhere near the Park™ or you'll be seen as a threat and be removed. For your safety. In fact please avoid from being anywhere near the Park™ while the Olympics are on. Please avoid Central London™. Please avoid Greater London while the opening ceremony is on. Please avoid the UK for the duration of the Olympics™. Please avoid the tubes when people seeing the Olympics™ need to get to them even if its exactly when you need to get to the job you've been doing for years and are currently struggling keep with all the cuts. We've kindly asked Boris Johnson™ to make a tannoy message to warn tube travelers of overcrowding, hoping that his pompous voice alone will ward many away. Please avoid the roads, especially the Olympic™ lanes that will remain empty while you sit in traffic getting later and later for where you need to be while people who are trained to run fast glide by in cars. Because it's your Olympics™, you'll be charged £130 for going in those lanes. We've also made sure its far harder to park anywhere nearby by closing all shopping centre car parks in the vicinity and removing parking spaces all over Stratford to make sure lots of you gain massive, expensive parking fines for even daring to live or work in the area. It's your Olympics™. We'd like to encourage people from all over the London™, sorry the UK, to travel to the Olympics™ though don't drive there, or get a train, or a tube or walk anywhere nearby. All because it's your Olympics.™
Because it's your Olympics™ please don't use the word Olympics™ unless you are authorized to do so, or we'll take you to court for breach of copyright. Other words we've also copyrighted are sports™, park™, track™, field™, ball™, swimming™ (see also swam™, swim™, swan™), diving™ (see also dive™, dove™), javelin™, torch™, running™ (also see run™, ran™, rain™, Ray™), rings™, men™, women™, stadium™, tickets™, army™ and Ancient Greece™. Because its your Olympics™ we suggest you refer to it as 'That Thing', 'Coe & Hunt's Beautiful Lovechild' or ' Swimmy Runny Jumpy Throwy Lifty Times Event'. Because its your Olympics™ no shop in the near vicinity or in fact anywhere over the UK, or Europe, or the World can use any of those words for fear of the law, unless we have allowed it like we have with our main sponsors that we feel embody the heart and soul of such an athletic healthy event, like Coca-Cola™ and McDonalds™. Those are foods all athletes eat and drink and so we believe that you should enjoy eating them too to make sure you remain fat, stupid and gullible. It's your Olympics™.
Because it's your Olympics™ it will bring in £13bn to the UK. When we say UK we mean our corporate sponsors who will ensure they don't pump any of it back into the desperate economy by dodging as much tax as possible. Because its your Olympics™ we want to make sure that when all these companies leave and the events are over that you are left with tons of derelict buildings that almost definitely won't end up being used to help the surrounding community. You know the surrounding community we've made sure you can't see from the Park using clever sculptures, just incase their poverty makes you ill while you eat your McDonald's™ authorized fries™. Because its your Olympics™ we'd like you to clean it afterwards. It's as though its your flat and people are coming round. People you haven't invited. People who are going to use all their money making a lot of mess. You have to scrub and clean it after. You do. It's your Olympics™.
It's your Olympics™ that you can watch on 24™ HD™ BBC™ channels. If you have Sky™. Because you all have Sky™. You can all afford it.
You will enjoy it. It will be amazing, your Olympics™ Londoners Britain, so don't ruin it for everyone by pretending you won't.
Yours sincerely
Your Olympics™
Follow Tiernan Douieb on Twitter: www.twitter.com/TiernanDouieb
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If you are planning to attend the Paralympics try to forget it is being sponsored by Atos who are responsible for terminal cancer patients being told they are fit to look for work.
If these Games have done anything it is that they have made me fully realise how ugly the Olympics have become and how much we are being ruled by corporations. Public money funding private profit. Capitalism doesn't mean freedom, it means the corporations get to micromanage our every thought and move.
(Cheer up! It'll be over in a month.)
I have never understood why we need to spend billions on Olympics to test these basic conclusions.
And you know what is sad? they were right
I was told they were out of tickets for wheelchair users. They still had tickets for walkies on sale. Which seems ludicrous. It's not like I was buying tickets for the stadium or the aquatics centre where there's a finite number of spaces!
If you could imagine for a moment that there's a world outside your London apartment and the central line, you'd realise that the Olympics is one of the most critical advertisements for London in the last 10 years, probably more. No one know that the world would be in a global recession when London won the bid but your government (the democratically elected, uncorrupt, responsible one that provides healthcare and welfare - and that you have no idea how lucky you are to have) has managed to construct a phenomenal year of UK promotion at a time when the economy is screwed and you need every single tourist penny and all the external investment you can get. Yes the spend is huge but, with the Olympics and the jubilee, London is top of mind for billions of people around the world. And although you may think you're too cool for school and don't need Indians, Chinese, or Brazilians - believe me you do.
So instead of wasting your time and breath complaining about something that will happen with or without your support, why don't you get positive and show Britain at its best. You're privileged to live in a great country, be proud of
In any case, that London needs to be publicised seems doesn't seem a terribly convincing argument. London is one of the best, and often most affectionately, known cities in the world, and because the UK is relatively democratic, relatively uncorrupt, relatively safe, and friendly to business to a considerable fault, it needs no help in being an extremely attractive country. £24 billion of a convoluted marketing exercise doesn't seem particularly game changing for the UK.
The MOD page that used to show the figures has disappeared - http://www.mod.uk/defenceinternet/aboutdefence/organisation/keyfactsaboutdefence/defencespending.htm
Instead you can check here - http://www.ukpublicspending.co.uk/uk_defence_spending_30.html
".....................and I further recommend that any of you who actually LIVE in the vicinity of the Olympic Park to take a holiday for the duration to avoid being arrested, evicted, run over by official cars etc. etc. Oh, sorry, I forgot, you can't afford to because we built the park in an area where people struggle to exist because our corporate sponsors (government) couldn't give a damn. Enjoy Your Olympics!"
Anyway, keep being cynical - I look forward to the next diatribe.