On Sat, 12 Nov 2005 17:37:09 UTC, Tony Polson
wrote:

"umpston" wrote:

You could be so wrong Ian - I certainly hope so.

Unfortunately, Ian is very likely to be right.

Erm, thanks, I think.

The trade unions will make sure that the work doesn't get finished on
time unless their members are paid massive "bonuses", and the costs
will skyrocket.

Every landowner will screw the Olympic organisation for every million
they can get.

The money set aside for regeneration will have to be raided to pay for
all of the above.

But above all, does anyone really believe in this regeneration hype in
the first place? I mean, if you really wanted to stimulate ecomic
recovery somewhere, would you give it a) a nice new industrial estate
with tax/rate breaks for incoming companies or b) a velodrome? And if
you want a velodrome, do you put it in a) a pleasant convenient
location that people might want to go to or b) a festering hell hole?

Look at the history of Garden Festivals (have they been given up now?)
Gateshead, Liverpool, Glasgow and the one in south Wales (Swansea?)
were all supposed to leave revitalised communities behind them and all
left areas of wasteland where redevelopment, where it happened, took
years. Some of the Glasgow site is still derelict, twenty years on.

For that matter, look at the Monster of Greenwich.

I think we can safely assume that the people who ran the Olympic bid
did very nicely out of it. I think we can assume that the people who
run the games project will do very nicely out of it. And I think we
can safely assume that the people who live on or near the sites will
be ****ed over before and during the games and left to rot afterwards.

Ian "Pollyanna" J

On 12/11/05 17:37, "Tony Polson" wrote:

Great safe prophecies of our time:

1) The London Olympics will be a complete screwup, many times over
budget,

2) The supposed regeneration of depreived areas won't happen.

Ian

You could be so wrong Ian - I certainly hope so.


Unfortunately, Ian is very likely to be right.

The trade unions will make sure that the work doesn't get finished on
time unless their members are paid massive "bonuses", and the costs
will skyrocket.

Every landowner will screw the Olympic organisation for every million
they can get.

The money set aside for regeneration will have to be raided to pay for
all of the above.


My company does a lot of transport planning and strategy work with TfL and
the widespread feeling within TfL (and outside) is that the whole Olympic
thing is a gravy train just waiting to be jumped on. There are now many
interrelated projects regarded as *essential* to the Olympics where money is
being hosed around with gay abandon...

One day the truth will come out and it won't be pretty

On 12/11/05 18:03, "Ian Johnston" wrote:


Look at the history of Garden Festivals (have they been given up now?)
Gateshead, Liverpool, Glasgow and the one in south Wales (Swansea?)

Ebbw Vale. Now largely a business park although some remnants of the garden
festival are (well, as of 2 years ago) still visible up the hill

"Ian Johnston" wrote:

But above all, does anyone really believe in this regeneration hype in
the first place?

Only the buggers who spout it, including the politicians and those who
led the Olympic bid.

I mean, if you really wanted to stimulate ecomic
recovery somewhere, would you give it a) a nice new industrial estate
with tax/rate breaks for incoming companies or b) a velodrome? And if
you want a velodrome, do you put it in a) a pleasant convenient
location that people might want to go to or b) a festering hell hole?

Look at the history of Garden Festivals (have they been given up now?)
Gateshead, Liverpool, Glasgow and the one in south Wales (Swansea?)
were all supposed to leave revitalised communities behind them and all
left areas of wasteland where redevelopment, where it happened, took
years. Some of the Glasgow site is still derelict, twenty years on.

For that matter, look at the Monster of Greenwich.

I think we can safely assume that the people who ran the Olympic bid
did very nicely out of it. I think we can assume that the people who
run the games project will do very nicely out of it. And I think we
can safely assume that the people who live on or near the sites will
be ****ed over before and during the games and left to rot afterwards.


Agree 100%.

If I was allowed to state more than 100%, I would choose the highest
available figure.

;-)

London 2012 will be a landmark exercise in institutional corruption at
its very best (i.e. worst).

On 12/11/05 22:26, "Tony Polson" wrote:


London 2012 will be a landmark exercise in institutional corruption at
its very best (i.e. worst).

So, so true...

Stimpy wrote:

My company does a lot of transport planning and strategy work with TfL and
the widespread feeling within TfL (and outside) is that the whole Olympic
thing is a gravy train just waiting to be jumped on. There are now many
interrelated projects regarded as *essential* to the Olympics where money is
being hosed around with gay abandon...

One day the truth will come out and it won't be pretty


Nothing linked to "New" Labour is remotely pretty. :-(

On 12/11/05 22:45, "Tony Polson" wrote:

Stimpy wrote:

My company does a lot of transport planning and strategy work with TfL and
the widespread feeling within TfL (and outside) is that the whole Olympic
thing is a gravy train just waiting to be jumped on. There are now many
interrelated projects regarded as *essential* to the Olympics where money is
being hosed around with gay abandon...

One day the truth will come out and it won't be pretty

Nothing linked to "New" Labour is remotely pretty. :-(

The vibe within TfL is that if you can, by whatever means, associate your
project with the Olympics and talk it up to the point where it becomes
'essential', then budgetary constraints seem to evaporate away.

The *really* sad thing is that it's obvious which way things are going and
we, like many other companies, are faced with a choice - do we turn down
lucrative contracts on the grounds that money is being spent unnecessarily
or do we just jump on the gravy train?

Business is business :-)

In article , Stimpy
writes
On 12/11/05 17:37, "Tony Polson" wrote:

Great safe prophecies of our time:

1) The London Olympics will be a complete screwup, many times over
budget,

2) The supposed regeneration of depreived areas won't happen.

Ian

You could be so wrong Ian - I certainly hope so.


Unfortunately, Ian is very likely to be right.

The trade unions will make sure that the work doesn't get finished on
time unless their members are paid massive "bonuses", and the costs
will skyrocket.

Every landowner will screw the Olympic organisation for every million
they can get.

The money set aside for regeneration will have to be raided to pay for
all of the above.


My company does a lot of transport planning and strategy work with TfL and
the widespread feeling within TfL (and outside) is that the whole Olympic
thing is a gravy train just waiting to be jumped on. There are now many
interrelated projects regarded as *essential* to the Olympics where money is
being hosed around with gay abandon...

One day the truth will come out and it won't be pretty

With any luck, they will find that the only way to fund it all is to
appropriate the money now pencilled in for the West London Tram.
--
Thoss

Stimpy wrote:

The vibe within TfL is that if you can, by whatever means, associate your
project with the Olympics and talk it up to the point where it becomes
'essential', then budgetary constraints seem to evaporate away.

The *really* sad thing is that it's obvious which way things are going and
we, like many other companies, are faced with a choice - do we turn down
lucrative contracts on the grounds that money is being spent unnecessarily
or do we just jump on the gravy train?


Simple. You jump on the gravy train, otherwise someone else will.

Business is business :-)

Exactly.

;-)

On Sat, 12 Nov 2005, Stimpy wrote:

Stimpy wrote:

My company does a lot of transport planning and strategy work with TfL and
the widespread feeling within TfL (and outside) is that the whole Olympic
thing is a gravy train just waiting to be jumped on.

The vibe within TfL is that if you can, by whatever means, associate
your project with the Olympics and talk it up to the point where it
becomes 'essential', then budgetary constraints seem to evaporate away.

The *really* sad thing is that it's obvious which way things are going
and we, like many other companies, are faced with a choice - do we turn
down lucrative contracts on the grounds that money is being spent
unnecessarily or do we just jump on the gravy train?

Well, you ought to at least bear in mind that once the landowners have
been bought off, it's likely to be downgraded to a gravy tram. Or, horror
of horrors, a gravy trolleybus.

tom

--
limited to concepts that are meta, generic, abstract and philosophical --
IEEE SUO WG