The F.....g Olympics

President Chirac slipped us a hospital pass when he helped London win the Olympic bid instead of Paris. We saw what happened to business as a result of the Royal Wedding bank holiday. It adversely affected our output. How is over two weeks of logistical strangulation of business during the Olympics not going to adversely affect our output again? Admittedly we are basically only talking about London and the soothsayers are projecting £750 million of extra business as a result of the Olympics but I doubt that this will be enough to boost our overall output over the period and we will have to suffer the insufferable Ed Balls asking for Plan B again. Ever since the docklands transformation to a modern city London has rebalanced itself from a town which favoured the western postal codes to a more equal place and it is possible that the Olympic buildings will assist the equilibrium. Looking though at other countries their Olympic sites have become tawdry, tacky unwholesome holes where one would be frightened of walking at night. Are we guaranteed London will not follow suit? Seems not. Apart from the sheer inconvenience of the restriction on movement for Londoners during the Games and the cost to them of setting the whole thing up and running it, which will not be shared in its entirety by the rest of the country, there is the scandal of the ticketing allocation. Londoners should have had first choice. This didn't happen, although I have to own up I had no intention of buying any tickets nor any intention of watching any part of the whole ghastly show of athletes on drugs, and to make it worse on this 14th August the whole of my part of London is to be closed down so that none of us can go anywhere. This is a trial run for the cycle race next year when to add further insult to injury the whole of my part of London will be closed down again for the day. Talk about bread and circuses but this is ridiculous and not even a mention in a reduction in the rates in compensation for the withdrawal of our local facilities.