"Mrs Redboots" wrote in message
...

AMEN!! I, for one, am utterly delighted. Whether we actually enjoy
living here while it's happening is one thing - but I do think it will,
overall, be an excellent thing for London, and contribute enormously to
quality of life in that part of the capital after the event.

You've got to feel sorry for Paris (err ... no!) - still, at least they
might get what they deserve in 2012: The Eurovision Song Contest. ;-))

Nice to see you looking on the bright side as usual Boltar, the glass is
definatly half empty with you.



Boltar wrote:

Mrs Redboots wrote:

umpston wrote to uk.transport.london on Wed, 6 Jul 2005:


And it was bloody brilliant!! Bring it on!


AMEN!! I, for one, am utterly delighted. Whether we actually enjoy
living here while it's happening is one thing - but I do think it will,
overall, be an excellent thing for London, and contribute enormously to
quality of life in that part of the capital after the event.


Can't wait. Hope all the extra tax I'll pay for this pointless waste
of money will mean the athletes and the locals in stratford have a
whale
of a time.

B2003

Boltar wrote to uk.transport.london on Wed, 6 Jul 2005:

Can't wait. Hope all the extra tax I'll pay for this pointless waste
of money will mean the athletes and the locals in stratford have a
whale
of a time.

Improved transport links, new sports facilities, new housing - all a
waste of money? To say nothing of overall health improved as more
people take up sport? Anyway, I should think an awful lot of it will be
paid by Coca-Cola & similar sponsors - "they" say it won't be more than
a few pence per inhabitant overall.....
--
"Mrs Redboots"
http://www.amsmyth.demon.co.uk/
Website updated 23 May 2005

In message , Mrs Redboots
writes

Improved transport links, new sports facilities, new housing

Virtually all of that is happening anyway, as was made clear in the
Olympic bid.

"they" say it won't be more than a few pence per inhabitant
overall.....

Have you not seen the figures?

The immediate direct tax on London council tax payers will be £20 per
annum for a band D property (for my small terraced house it will be £30
per annum).

As Baroness Blackstone confirmed in parliament two years ago, this
surcharge will continue until the cost of the games has been met. Even
then, the most conservative estimates were that this surcharge would
raise £56 million a year, and so would have to keep going for more than
11 years in order to raise the £625 million that Londoners are expected
to contribute.

This is before the inevitable doubling and then trebling of costs seen
in every Olympic bid over the last 40 years. No matter - we'll still be
paying, since Blackstone added "The duration and total cost of the
charge per household would depend on the overall cost of the Games" -
i.e. the more they spend, the more you pay.

The indirect costs to us all, Londoners and others, go into many
billions of pounds on top of that.

It pleases me not to be a wet blanket on a day like this, but I am
appalled at how people have been taken-in by the euphoria and have
failed to look at the costs - if the money involved was spent directly
on sport instead of grandiosity (especially sport at the local and
school level) it would have done so very much more good. Too late now,
of course - however much the builders and planners hike-up the costs, we
can't pull out now (as they very well know).

--
Paul Terry

Mrs Redboots ) gurgled happily, sounding much
like they were saying :

To say nothing of overall health improved as more people take up sport?

I don't buy that at all. Who ever took up sport (other than a brief trip or
two to the gym) as a result of watching the World Cup/Olympics/Wimbledon?

Why will the fact it's London rather than Paris make a difference in that
respect?

Anyway, I should think an awful lot of it will be paid by Coca-Cola &
similar sponsors

The billion and a half *running* costs, yes.
The two billion building costs, no. That's being added on to London council
tax for the next decade (as well as other sources).

- "they" say it won't be more than a few pence per inhabitant
overall.....

They do not. They reckon £20 per household (based on an exceptionally low
band, higher for higher bands) per year. Oh, and if the costs over-run (if?
IF?), it's coming out of general taxation.

That's all before the diversion of at least TWO THIRDS of lottery money
between now and 2012, of course. Your favourite charity got a lottery bid
in at the mo? Sorry, it's just been rejected.

All so we can have another seven years of the kind of chaos Wembley's
redevelopment is causing, with the end result being another Millenium Doom.

The good side is that Tony hasn't got a cat in hell's come the next
election. Ooops. He's already said he's not standing again. Hiho. We'll
have to take it out on Ken instead. Ooops. He's already said he's not
standing again.

Mrs Redboots wrote:
umpston wrote to uk.transport.london on Wed, 6 Jul 2005:

And it was bloody brilliant!! Bring it on!

AMEN!! I, for one, am utterly delighted. Whether we actually enjoy
living here while it's happening is one thing - but I do think it will,
overall, be an excellent thing for London, and contribute enormously to
quality of life in that part of the capital after the event.
--

I'm also jubilant that London will host the Olympics. And I look
forward to enjoying the summer of 2012, getting involved in the
numerous events that'll happen and being a spectator at as many of the
events as I can.

The games will not make London crumble, they will make London stronger.

In message . com,
Mizter T writes

I'm also jubilant that London will host the Olympics. And I look
forward to enjoying the summer of 2012,

How much are you willing to pay?

getting involved in the numerous events that'll happen and being a
spectator at as many of the events as I can.

Spectating costs extra.

The games will not make London crumble, they will make London stronger.

What do you mean? The games will make London popular but uncomfortable
for 28 days. I cannot get my head around what you mean by London being
"stronger".

London is full, and even the Olympic bid acknowledged that the only way
the capital will be able to house the visitors to the 2012 Olympics is
by turning away 60% of the tourists who would normally come that summer.
OK - bad luck for them, but how does this make London "stronger"?

--
Paul Terry

In article ,
(Jack Taylor) wrote:

"Mrs Redboots" wrote in message
...

AMEN!! I, for one, am utterly delighted. Whether we actually enjoy
living here while it's happening is one thing - but I do think it
will, overall, be an excellent thing for London, and contribute
enormously to quality of life in that part of the capital after the
event.

You've got to feel sorry for Paris (err ... no!) - still, at least they
might get what they deserve in 2012: The Eurovision Song Contest. ;-))

Don't they have to win it in 2011 for that?

--
Colin Rosenstiel

Paul Terry said:

London is full

No London is not. I'm sure you've seen the figures that show that even
during the summer Olympics fewer people will be using public transport
per day than during the average winter weekday. London frequently
absorbs tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands and even somtimes
millions of people for short periods. We do this at short notice and
with ease.

Once upon a time -- around about 7/6/05 08:05 --
possibly wrote:

Well we got em, here's to a nice quiet life on the underground...

As a Merkin, I will warn you all that I'm coming over for them. I probably
ought to reserve a room now, what don't you think? It's pretty much any
excuse for me to go to London, but this is a REASON not an excuse. I promise
to spend way too much in your city which has just made this year's CNN list
of the most expensive cities to live in (at #3 behind Tokyo an Osaka).

Congratulations.

Once upon a time -- around about 7/6/05 10:27 --
possibly wrote:

umpston wrote to uk.transport.london on Wed, 6 Jul 2005:

And it was bloody brilliant!! Bring it on!

AMEN!! I, for one, am utterly delighted. Whether we actually enjoy
living here while it's happening is one thing - but I do think it will,
overall, be an excellent thing for London, and contribute enormously to
quality of life in that part of the capital after the event.
I am also glad to see most of you are happy about it. I know there will be
naysayers, but it will bring some great things to your city (ignoring the
actual COST of it, of course). Atlanta (I went to their Olympics) got great
new infrastructure and so will London.

Speaking of nay-sayers: Atlanta proved that an Olympics CAN be a break-even
or better proposition. London does NOT have to bankrupt itself.

To everyone: try volunteering. You'll have fun. There's many things you can
do, and for two weeks your city will be virtually shut down for everything
else anyway. Expect many companies to give up and just close for two weeks


-- CMOT


--
"Not all men are fools. Some are bachelors." -- Anon