The Olympics being the Olympics boosts the profile of the Olympics. It's the Olympics. It doesn't need advertising.

As for Blair, I'm not getting into it, as this isn't yet another politics thread. But even he - in fact, ESPECIALLY he, will know that parties can't be in Government forever, and that people want change every so often. Even if the Conservatives were doing fantastically well right now and immensely popular, I'd pretty much guarantee that the electorate would want a change in 10 or 15 years time.

My sometime photography tutor was at the rehearsal. He said:

"The opening ceremony is very British; a bit cheesy, with a severe identity crisis, a longing for past glories, a long wait for something to happen, ironic, often empty, but somehow spectacular and somehow we pull it off in the end. I was a sceptic, but came away converted despite my best efforts. Well done Danny."

After Boris and the bus in Beijing four years ago, it seems there will be no similar sense of a national cringe.

Boris' rant about table tennis and then having a pop at the Chinese, complete with Seb Coe cringing his head off in the background, afterwards was fabulous television.

Indeed they did.

I love the sport – the things that are doing my head in are the massive, completely OTT corporate b*ll*cks everywhere, and the attacks on civil liberties and small businesses etc.

And having to listen to a recorded message from bloody Boris on the bus!

Walk, like I do.

[url=http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/07/24/boris-johnson-olympics-ma_n_1699463.htmlIf you haven't seen this ...[/url

Love it

Congrats on avoiding my other comments about the true cost and about one-term spending plans.
Oh, and the points made by others about cross-party agreement.

As I said, I'm not getting into politics, as this isn't a politics thread. So, no avoidance there. I simply refused to talk politics.

However given you asked, £27m is outlandish however it's paid for. A £27m opening ceremony won't attract anyone who wouldn't have been there to witness a £1m opening ceremony. I don't care who's paid or how the cost is broken down; that money could have been used on other, non-olympic things.

If you think £27m for an opening ceremony is good value, or you even THINK that kind of money should be spent on it, then quite simply, you need your bumps feeling.

On a similar note, I dread to think what the 3 month, 8000 people, torch carrying will have cost, given that (I hear) everyone has to wear - and gets to keep - both the uniform and the fecking TORCH! Again, why not just have ONE torch, sailing down the Thames immediately prior to the opening ceremony? It would have been more fitting for the LONDON Olympics, and a hell of a lot cheaper. GO on, justify it.

The money wasted on this event is appalling.

As for the cross-party agreement. This was an agreement that an Olympic Bid should be made, based on, I assume, the costs as worked out by whoever Labour asked to work it out. How do those figures compare with the ACTUAL cost?

My mate is taking part. He is pulling a cow round or someat

The costs have increased substantially every year since the vote was cast, and at each stage they have been approved with cross party support and the scrutiny of various financial committees.

I know you'd love to state that Gordon Brown signed a blank cheque on a whim and a promise, but its not the case.

I'm looking forward to the Olympics even more now I know how many people who live in London it's p!$$ed off.

All the roads should be Olympic lanes and everyone in London should be forced to eat McDonalds and drink Coke for 3 weeks.

After the games the Olympic flame should be given to this summers rioters so they can burn down the bits of that monumental $h!thole they live in that they missed last year.

the little credibility you had on this subject just went "woosh" out of the room.

Taking the wife is he?

Ah the old "I refuse to talk politics (because I usually end up getting my ar[is[/ie handed to me on a plate), while trying to score cheap political points" excuse?

We don't have a "politics" thread.

Same thing could be said about pretty much everything the government spends money on (whether or not in conjunction with others). The trouble is, when your logic is applied to stuff that could be fun, which the opening ceremony might be (but I may well be watching it from behind the sofa in case it is a cringe fest), what we are left with is just a double dip recession, the crappiest summer weather I can remember and gloom and doom around every corner. In short, people with your mindset would have the rest of us confined to periods of deep depression because we shouldn't be spending such big money on stuff like FUN.

Not only that but the opening ceremony of the Olympics is the one moment everyone in the world who owns a TV and has so much as a passing interest in the event stares at us full in the face. I want them to see a quality dressed face, not one wearing cheap makeup, a bad hairdo and spots.

Quote ="SaintsFan"Same thing could be said about pretty much everything the government spends money on (whether or not in conjunction with others). The trouble is, when your logic is applied to stuff that could be fun, which the opening ceremony might be (but I may well be watching it from behind the sofa in case it is a cringe fest), what we are left with is just a double dip recession, the crappiest summer weather I can remember and gloom and doom around every corner. In short, people with your mindset would have the rest of us confined to periods of deep depression because we shouldn't be spending such big money on stuff like FUN. '" But, given the mindset of our politicians over public spending is it a good use of money? Why not spend £25miilion on life-saving medical equipment and £2 million filming the ensuing uplifting stories of saved people anf their families? Personally, I'd find that much more gloom-lifting than a couple of hours of so-called fun. Indeed, this article makes some good points about the matter: www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree ... NTCMP=SRCH

Quote ="SaintsFan"Same thing could be said about pretty much everything the government spends money on (whether or not in conjunction with others). The trouble is, when your logic is applied to stuff that could be fun, which the opening ceremony might be (but I may well be watching it from behind the sofa in case it is a cringe fest), what we are left with is just a double dip recession, the crappiest summer weather I can remember and gloom and doom around every corner. In short, people with your mindset would have the rest of us confined to periods of deep depression because we shouldn't be spending such big money on stuff like FUN. '" But, given the mindset of our politicians over public spending is it a good use of money? Why not spend £25miilion on life-saving medical equipment and £2 million filming the ensuing uplifting stories of saved people anf their families? Personally, I'd find that much more gloom-lifting than a couple of hours of so-called fun. Indeed, this article makes some good points about the matter: www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree ... NTCMP=SRCH

You're right. Cancel the fecking lot and tell all the thousands of people in London to feck off home too. Let's have 2 weeks of Eastenders on tv instead

Quote ="SaintsFan"Same thing could be said about pretty much everything the government spends money on (whether or not in conjunction with others). The trouble is, when your logic is applied to stuff that could be fun, which the opening ceremony might be (but I may well be watching it from behind the sofa in case it is a cringe fest), what we are left with is just a double dip recession, the crappiest summer weather I can remember and gloom and doom around every corner. In short, people with your mindset would have the rest of us confined to periods of deep depression because we shouldn't be spending such big money on stuff like FUN. '" But, given the mindset of our politicians over public spending is it a good use of money? Why not spend £25miilion on life-saving medical equipment and £2 million filming the ensuing uplifting stories of saved people anf their families? Personally, I'd find that much more gloom-lifting than a couple of hours of so-called fun. Indeed, this article makes some good points about the matter: www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree ... NTCMP=SRCH

Quote ="SaintsFan"Same thing could be said about pretty much everything the government spends money on (whether or not in conjunction with others). The trouble is, when your logic is applied to stuff that could be fun, which the opening ceremony might be (but I may well be watching it from behind the sofa in case it is a cringe fest), what we are left with is just a double dip recession, the crappiest summer weather I can remember and gloom and doom around every corner. In short, people with your mindset would have the rest of us confined to periods of deep depression because we shouldn't be spending such big money on stuff like FUN. '" But, given the mindset of our politicians over public spending is it a good use of money? Why not spend £25miilion on life-saving medical equipment and £2 million filming the ensuing uplifting stories of saved people anf their families? Personally, I'd find that much more gloom-lifting than a couple of hours of so-called fun. Indeed, this article makes some good points about the matter: www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree ... NTCMP=SRCH

How did you manage to repeat yourself with someone else interjecting?

I hope Chris28 apologises

It would have been far better if, in 2005, they'd announced "Paris" rather than "London". Let them pay for it and have all the hassle. And still be near enough for a trip over the channel to see it.

But they didnt. And nearly everything that's being criticised now has been inevitable since then. The cost overruns, the traffic problems, the disruption to Londoners' lives, the marketing clampdowns etc, etc. All entirely predictable.

The only thing worse than having the games and everything that goes with it, would be to have the games and everything that goes with and not actually enjoy the games. So I think I'll just draw a line now and enjoy what's to come.

I saw a TV programme recently which claimed that since I think it was the Georgia Olympics (but I may be wrong on that one; it was definitely one held in the US), the Olympics have been making a profit for the host nations. That is largely due to the introduction of sponsorship financing. So on the one hand the Gruniad is claiming its all wasted public money; on the other it is claimed that public money is only one element and in fact the Olympics can make a profit.

Either way, while there are many noble causes on which the same money could be spent, the Olympics comes around very rarely for this country - it won't visit again in my lifetime I shouldn't think - and while it is here I would like to imagine that there will be some enjoyable viewing moments, that our sports men and women may achieve some great things, and that the image of my country may improve as a result of them being here which may, in turn, create positive outcomes in the future.

All of that may be naive garbage or it may be rooted in reality. We won't know until we get there. But I don't want to write off the Olympics just because the public money spent on them (how ever much that actually is) could have been spent on something else (but I am pretty certain it probably wouldn't have been).

Lost network connection. First attempt must have sneaked through even though message said I needed to retry.

After the last Olympic games held in the UK, we went on and even though we were crippled with war debts, we built affordable housing for the majority of the population, we embraced a 'free at point of need' health service. Everyone in the country felt that they were better off than before the Olympics.

Do I expect a repeat? With this lot in charge, do I fook.

Truth is that very little public money was spent on the 1948 Olympics, a very tiny amount indeed, no new stadia were built and the athletes even had to provide their own kit.

In that same year the Government spent (from memory) the equivalent in todays money of £7.3 billion in the first year of operation of the NHS and that figure includes the purchase of property from private hospital trusts and charities.

In brief, for less than the cost of this years Olympics the socialist government of 1948 established a National Health Service where one didn't exist before, that has lasted for a legacy of 64 years, so far.