London 2012: A Preview to an Olympic-Sized Disaster

[sysop]

London and the Olympic Games are clearly not made for each other. Visitors will need determination and, most of all, patience to reach the venues at all. And, for the locals, it all can't end soon enough.

http://www.spiegel.de/international/...844599,00.html

[Rolf Meyr]

There's that nagging question: If the problems are that bad, that would already have been known 8 years ago when the applications were made.

Why in blazes did London even apply for the Games in the first place? And why did the IOC grant the Games to London, if those problems they "now" encounter were already tangible all those years ago?

Good Luck to the city, the organizers, the visitors, and, above all to the athletes!!

[jackscht]

Originally Posted by sysop

London and the Olympic Games are clearly not made for each other. Visitors will need determination and, most of all, patience to reach the venues at all. And, for the locals, it all can't end soon enough.

http://www.spiegel.de/international/...844599,00.html

Don't have a clue who wrote this but I certainly wouldn't pay him again if I were you. Quoting Simon Jenkins known in Britain as the most uptight, humorless,miserable kill joy in the country and A.A.Millne an effete hooray Henry that is the best friend of the right wing Joan Collins. Get real.

The athletes village is actually on site a mere hop skip and a jump away.

As for the weather, I have lived all over the world and I [from Australia] along with 450 000 other Aussies love it. Admittedly this year is the worst [grey wise] since 1840 but as you know no different to Paris, Berlin, Brussels, Amsterdam, Copenhagen, Stockholm..... the jet stream is over France where my mother now lives and has just had her home flooded.

Quality of life index? I'm sure people in their 70's would rather live in Vienna, Hamburg or Munich. But any younger than that and not choose London, they'd have to be insane.

Ridiculous article, sack the 'author' and welcome to the most cosmopolitan city on this planet. London.

[muley63]

Originally Posted by sysop

London and the Olympic Games are clearly not made for each other. Visitors will need determination and, most of all, patience to reach the venues at all. And, for the locals, it all can't end soon enough.

http://www.spiegel.de/international/...844599,00.html

Ah, Spiegel, the slant toward the completely negative article continues. The chance of a 100% negative Olympic experience is not likely, but 100% negative article is the standard operating procedure for Spiegel. That's not fair for your readers.

[dermutt]

Oh here we go again, Der Spegiel is becoming renowned for it's snide Brit bashing. I can't be bothered to refute the whole article but to claim that "everything in London is expensive" is ridiculous when it is famous for having more free high quality attractions than any other city in the world. (After all is rated as the cultural capital of the world)

Germany doesn't have a city that could claim to be and that many believe to be The Capital Of The World and it doesn't have the huge cultural power that the UK has, if it's thought of at all its for being "good at manufacturing"..well done chaps.

[moya]

Oh dear me, Marco Evers has certainly gone off on a sock-the-British bender this time, hasn't he?! What a misery-fest! Incidentally Mr Evers, you are completely wrong when you write: "Even in good times, Western Europe's biggest and most colorful city is a place that demands a high tolerance for stress of its residents". I lived and worked in Germany for over 30 years and couldn't wait to get back home to my beloved London. I need no tolerance for it neither do I suffer stress. I don't wish to use this space to go into a quid pro quo match enumerating the grave shortcomings of German society and German democracy. No. All I wish to do is remind Mr Evers that the last time the Olympics were Germany (I was living in Düsseldorf at the time) the German government and security services demonstrated their incompetence on global TV when they botched the operation against the Palestinian terrorist group 'Black September' who went to kill all the Israeli team in the bus intended to take them to an airport! The SAS could have done the job to perfection i.e. killed the Black September terrorists with no loss of Israeli athletes? Just before this eminently avoidable massacre, Mr Evers, German TV was announcing to the nation the complete success of the German operation! Given this breathtaking German incompetence, (which I also experienced in my own job in British liaison with the German authorities) or queues at Heathrow and London's "too-narrow sidewalks" no prizes for guessing what I would prefer. By the way, was it too much to ask of Der Spiegel that an English translator be found and not an American? The Games are after all in London!

This is a mean article by a self-satisfied, gloating German correspondent who clearly loves living in London but wishes to please he editor.

Some years ago, at a dinner party held in London for London correspondents of German papers by a retiring British Ambassador to Germany, he asked them whether they liked living in London. All said they loved it and were always trying to get extension to they postings here. He then asked them, "Why then are your articles so critical of Britain"? They answered as one man: "Our editors want it".

[pmoseley]

What an unhappy old man Marco Evers seems. I wonder how he manages to live in London and have to report on all that misery he sees around him; so friendless, lonely and sad. London is one of the most exciting multicultural cities - you only have to see all the Europeans visiting, living and working there to realise the draw it has. Even though poor old Marco Evers might not like London as an Olympic venue, the Olympic committee evidently disagreed with him and London in return has produced some marvellous facilities well within time, despite the usual hiccups. I suggest Marco Evers should go to live in Berlin, where he can indulge his loneliness travelling to and from his home in some anonymous apartment block on the hot trains that run on exact time with no air conditioning. One thing is for sure, though, at least he can contemplate that London was chosen as the 2012 Olympic venue without a sniff of corruption, unlike the German venue for the 2006 World Cup. Go home, Marco, because as you already know, Londoners don't like miserable, humourless people.

[palladas@aol.com]

"'Starting this week, the world’s biggest financial centre will be gripped by a special condition usually only seen in wartime,' it reads."

- How bloody dare you! Wartime eh? And who would we be fighting against eh?

[DBN]

I really don't agree with the argument put forward here. I am a Londoner and am more than content with daily life here and believe the London Olympics are and will be a huge success, albeit with a few minor setbacks.

[evitaerc]

Given that German athletic teams cheated for decades in order to win medals and the dire state of security at the Munich Olympics of 1972 were a number of Israeli athletes died I find it exceedingly comforting that the only thing this 'reporter' can say about my country's Olympic staging is that it's raining and our children are fat. If this is typical of German mind set and the piece deters German visitors then I suggest Marco Evers has done us a great service. Thank you.