It's nice to have something good to celebrate. We have a lot of enforced celebration here at the moment, such as the Jubilee. Every time I put the radio on over the course of four days "Land of Hope and Glory" was playing. If I was a generous monarch I would give any child in the country who wanted one a free ticket to go to the Olympics. Mind you I wouldn't stop there, this would just be the start of one huge giveaway. Anyway The Government wants each school in Britain to receive six free tickets, though London Mayor Boris Johnson is trying to find sponsorship for a further 75,000 to be given to London pupils so one in eight can attend the Games. Tickets for the opening ceremony are priced from about £20 to £2,012 and from what I've seen of it so far, this ceremony could well be a great source of national embarrassment. One of the things that bothers me about buying tickets for the Olympics is that I believe that the taxpayer has already payed for the cost of it all, so having to buy a ticket to attend is a bit like paying for something twice.
The official estimate for the Olympics is £9.3 billion but other estimates put the figure as high as £24 billion. From a newspaper article comes this alarming statement; of the '£1.13bn being allocated to the police for extra counter terrorism during the games or the £4.4bn budgets of the security and intelligence services.' All this for an event that is over in just eighteen days.
Performers at the ceremony have been sworn to secrecy, so let's hope that no one has been asked to wear anything like a large rucksack, such as the day after we won the Olympics bid. I'm sure it'll all be fine, after all the security has cost a bit so what could go wrong? There are supposed to be five hundred extra police taking over a holiday camp in Weymouth for the yachty part of the Olympics, which sounds like a great idea for a "Carry On" style movie though I wouldn't like to be working the bar in that place. I have an image of them all standing in the rain on the beach, watching distant ships through binoculars for any signs of "trouble". Weymouth, lovely though it is, is a small and faded holiday resort known for its rehab units.
On a happier note a wedding took place here recently, which was a source of genuine celebration that didn't cost anyone billions of pounds. Hundreds of people turned up and had a wonderful time. It was the wedding of the year in these parts, despite there being any mention of it in the town newspaper. That two people should find so much happiness in each other is a triumph of love and hope.
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