LOL

So half an hour in a library stops you spending several hours on a golf course? Don't be ridiculous. Libraries are generally open most days and hours, how about going to the library on a day when you're not playing golf with your son, or even setting off half an hour earlier and going to the library first. The opportunity cost of going to a library is not very expensive at all, you are just making up rubbish. You cannot cost your free time as you would your work time, or if you want to then why not just add it to you expense account? Everyone has one don't they? Even minimum wage carers have them so I'm sure you must have negotiated one with your boss along with your pay rise.

Nothing whatsoever like your showing off just how big and clever and Political (with a capital 'p') you are, as opposed to the ignorant rest of us – and particularly anyone who watches the Olympic sports (although presumably this doesn't apply to you and RL) and dares to cheer for their country?

The self awareness training's going well then?

How many times have you thrown your toys out of the pram on here?

I miss your creative talent for inventing new sweary terms to use at people you don't agree with.

Thirty ing five.



You'll get over it.

~sigh~

In the meantime, I do my best to emulate you, Sir.

You really cannot be this stupid - you clearly do not understand the concept of opportunity cost. How can you possibly say how expensive the opportunity cost is to me? You have no understanding of my life or the time constraints that are involved. As I said you really don't understand opportunity cost. The opportunity cost of going to a library would be expensive, I have limited spare time and significant demands on that time. There are things I would have to miss to go to the library. Over a year this would build up and the opportunity cost increase.

I have an expense account which is business related so again not sure how that comment relates to the opportunity cost of going to the library. Just another desperate attempt at deflection - typical RLfans poster!! As for pay increases my firm haven't awarded a pay increase in 4 years - tough out here in the real world!!

One wonders what the "opportunity cost" of spending time on RLFans is, then.



We know. You've told us. You asked nicely but your nasty boss said 'no'.

Which is why you squeal about those nasty unions who actually make an effort to organise in order to win rises etc by negotiating in numbers.

Can't imagine what the "opportunity cost" of such nefarious behaviour is – or of not doing as they do and then whinging about it.

The answer as to why we've been so good at winning medals:

[url=http://www.guardian.co.uk/sport/datablog/interactive/2012/aug/08/olympics-2012-team-gb-medals-education-sport-sex-county?CMP=twt_fdWe won more by sitting down than standing up[/url

Maybe we should canvass for new events, such as:

- Sychronised sofa sitting
- Greco-Roman fighting over the remote control
- half-time sprint to put the kettle on?

fwit aussies brought that up at the last Olympics. But only after they realised we'd done better than them. Funny that.

Ah I see. We're back into the realms of Sal's own little real world again are we? Where libraries can be only be visited in work time, where peoples free time is reduced to a £per hour figure, where minimum wage carers have expense accounts, where anyone who disagrees with Sal is either stupid or a workshy communist, and where only Sal has to deal with wage restraint or private sector conditions. You have free time, visiting a library costs you nothing in monetary terms which is what you were comparing it to earlier, I refuse to believe that you cannot spare half an hour of your oh so valuable and expensive free time to visit a library occasionally since you seem to manage to play golf, watch rugby league, and spend large amounts of time on RLFans.
As for your real world rubbish, just shut up for Christ's sake, it's utterly embarrassing, you're not the only person who works in the private sector and deals with private sector pressures, so stop the cringeworthy self-flagellating guff.

Anyway, back on topic, I think it's obvious the big increases in funding has led to big increases in performances. Sadly I can't see that funding continuing for that long.

It'll be interesting in the next twelve months to see what happens to athletes funding, I can't remember where I saw it but there was a list somewhere on t'interweb of the amount of funding to GB Olympic Sports over the past four Olympics, this time around it was higher than the Bejing funding but probably only by inflation (about £250 mill from memory).

Given that most of that is lottery funding and when the lottery was set up one of its three aims was to fund sports in GB then its going to be interesting to see how this current government could ever claw back that situation.

It seems to be quite well administered too, I noticed the high jumper Robbie Grabarz talking last night of how his lottery funding had been removed last year after his coach had told him to go away and only come back if he was serious about competing rather than messing about, he had to apply to the Ron Pickering Foundation for funding to get through last year.

Then you have no point, it is a commercial agreement set up with sufficient caveats in the contract to allow the business owner to either pay the required amount for a business opportunity, beyond the scope of the year in year out agreement, or vacate the space so someone else can. This is perfectly normal with catering franchises at venues such as Excel.



Never said that, just asked for the same standard of evidence you would expect from others.



Nope, never said that at all, trademarks need to be protected though, if they are owned by big business or a small operator it doesn't matter, you work with intellectual property, what would happen if your rights weren't protected?

A small cafe changing its name to cash in really has no leg to stand on.



That is a leap of reasoning that Sal would struggle with, which bit on NO did you struggle with? Landlords that have evicted tenants are the lowest of the low, along with those idiots that thought they could rent out houses for thousands and the morons that set hotel room rates, their profiteering will bite them on their backside.

Absolutely. I mean, it's not like every taxpayer in the country on average has stumped up something like £400 a medal, why should they have any interest whatsoever in prospering as a result of the Olympics we have 100% funded?

Yes, 100%. Not a penny from Coca Cola, Heineken, McDonalds etc since the whole thing results in a net and vast PROFIT for each of those companies - a profit in which neither Mr Cafe nor you nor I will share.

The whole country, and especially the taxpayer, [ishould[/i be able to try to make a few extra bob on the back of the Olympics, if they can find a way to do so without actually ripping off the trademarked logos on substandard merchandise being passed off as genuine, and reasonable exceptions like that.

Calling your cafe the Olympic Cafe presupposes that someone owns the universal rights to the word "Olympic". They don't. The chap is in no way implying that he is an official Olympic cafe nor would anyone be so stupid as to think he was even for a second. I understand he changed the name to the "Lympic" cafe. Do you not agree that the fact that seems to be fair enough just brings these sort of trivial powerplays, and the law, into disrepute?

What next? A confectioners near us has some gingerbread men wearing kit, with Olympic rings on. that to me is just getting into the spirit of things, and is perfectly fair, and perfectly reasonable. I am not arguing that there should be no line - just that it has been drawn in an absolutely ludicrous way.

They could always do what Otorohanga (NZ) did when Al Fayed threatened them after a guy called Harrod used his surname over the shop.
Every business in the town changed their name to Harrods and the council even temporarily changed the name of the town.
The phoney pharoah soon backed down.

I'm not an expert but from talking to Alicia Blagg's grandad a few times, from how he explained it I'd agree that it seems to be very well administered. Like you say there's no messing about and the athletes are very strictly controlled, if they deviate from their training or nutrition etc they get a rollocking followed by threats of funding going to someone else if they don't take it seriously. It seems to engender a more professional atmosphere among the athletes.
I just worry that having done so well, with some facilities having already been built, that there will be a shift in priorities from government and the lottery and that funding will decline slowly but steadily. I may be, and hope that I am, wrong but that's the fear that I have.

Strawman arguments removed...



That is a totally different argument, one I may agree with you on more than one point but once a trademark is awarded it is down to the rights holder to protect or lose it.

HM Gov can do what they want but isn't sport funding part of the lottery's charter? Same as arts and good causes?

Unfortunately not, from the National Lottery Comission website (can't link to article as it's a weird URL)

The Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) has responsibility within Government for National Lottery policy. It also sets the policy and financial framework that the distributing bodies for National Lottery grants operate within.

Camelot's licence is until 2019, so maybe the funding conditions are safeguarded until then?

I didn't mean that sports funding would disappear, just that lottery funding priorities might shift slowly away from sport.

no, what I was meaning was I don't think they can move away from sport, wouldn't it need a change to the Lotteries act to allow it?

As Standee has said, the lottery is under CM&S and a move away from sport would be suicide for any government for the foreseeable future.

[url=http://blogs.channel4.com/factcheck/factcheck-how-good-a-sport-is-the-pm/11097?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitterMore lies from that lying bastad of a prime minister on schools sports funding[/url

Remind me, which government encouraged the sale of School land for development?