UK Olympics budget farce

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Originally Posted by Louis VI the Fat

Curses, our gourmandises pwned. By an Englishman. The ultimate vestige of national pride, the very soul of France, the sanctum sanctorum of a civilisation, reduced to empty rhetorical posture.
Like a Van Helsing, English assassin has at last discovered the silver stake that will end it all and has driven it mercilessly through the heart of France. The unassailable is breached. Fifteen hundred long years of tussle and rivalry have thus come to their conclusion, our wretched soul smitten to ruin. I bow to the superiority of England, pray God to have mercy on my soul, and leave this world for the next in bitter defeat. :shame:

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Spoken like a true cheese-eating surrender monkey. You do of course realise that the Fourme market will collapse as well after this capitulation. So Louis, any chance we can strike a quick deal, say 50 boxes at cut-throat price?
All in the interest of civilization of course...

Hey Louis, I LIKE monster munch. That greasy yet strangely astringent itchiness on the tongue, the hyperactivity from all the E111, I'm just glad to see French palates developing a true anglo saxon sophistication, that's all.

Anyway, you won the six nations. You deserve to be teased.

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Hey Louis, I LIKE monster munch. That greasy yet strangely astringent itchiness on the tongue, the hyperactivity from all the E111, I'm just glad to see French palates developing a true anglo saxon sophistication, that's all.

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Traitor.

Encouraging the hated enemy to sample our secret potion? That E111 won us the war!

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Originally Posted by Tribesman

yep they could have gone the other approach , used no tax money , got the olympic village built by a local college as its new student accomodation (eligable for grants from the tax payer) , got the olympic park built by corporate sponsorship and local authority(part of which is tax funded and another section eligable for grants from the tax payer and another part can be written off to avoid paying tax) , then you can get stadiums built by local teams (for which they can get grants from the tax payer and write off the expense to avoid tax) .
But hey it brought the regeneration needed to an area that was suffering from lack of investment , though the fragmented approach and avoidance of direct central funding meant that the transport infrastructure was abysmal the organisation attrocious making it (according to everyone I know who was there ) the worst olympics they had ever been to .

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Georgia Tech and Georgia State needed those dorms, Tech got a great swimming center, and the oldest (and one of the most dangerous) housing projects in the country got torn down. Win, win! ~;)

And the fact that I wasn't physically there at the time made it even better!

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Which I note are no longer vaguely foot shaped but seem to be ghost shaped. Also I am not sure they are pickled onion flavour any more, and they may in fact be mere imposters.

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Shame on you EA, there's no 'may' about it. These are clearly not the Walkers monster munch we used to have in the UK.

A true corn-snack afficionado would have known that. For comparision-

https://img.photobucket.com/albums/v...rmunchyass.jpg

This was always my favourite flavour, and they made it in 75g bags too, making it even better. I could make one bag last through break and lunchtime, and have a few left to eat on the way home.

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This was always my favourite flavour, and they made it in 75g bags too, making it even better. I could make one bag last through break and lunchtime, and have a few left to eat on the way home

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If anyone wondered why BKS is 4' 8", with a bow in his legs like John Wayne, bright orange skin and a diagnosis of severe ADHD, I feel we may have found the answer.

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yep they could have gone the other approach , used no tax money , got the olympic village built by a local college as its new student accomodation (eligable for grants from the tax payer) , got the olympic park built by corporate sponsorship and local authority(part of which is tax funded and another section eligable for grants from the tax payer and another part can be written off to avoid paying tax) , then you can get stadiums built by local teams (for which they can get grants from the tax payer and write off the expense to avoid tax)

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That's got nothing to do with this.

It just seems strange, as the article is implying they are spending 1.7 billion pounds extra because of where they're building in London, and they don't have to spend that money. But hey, it's not my money.

Crazed Rabbit

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Originally Posted by English assassin

If anyone wondered why BKS is 4' 8", with a bow in his legs like John Wayne, bright orange skin and a diagnosis of severe ADHD, I feel we may have found the answer.

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Show some respect, I'm at least 4' 10", and my mum says I'm going to get my growth spurt any day now.

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It just seems strange, as the article is implying they are spending 1.7 billion pounds extra because of where they're building in London, and they don't have to spend that money. But hey, it's not my money.

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Nah not strange its just normal , if you get a badly rundown area with high levels of contamination then you not only have problems getting the private sector to take on the added expense that development would take , you have the problem that the longer it is left the more the decay sets in and the more the contamination spreads .
The Millenium Dome would be another example of choosing public funds to step in where the private sector just won't tread . Though in that case the private sector probably would have stepped in once the public sector had funded the transport infrastructure , like they did North of the river (riverside developments can be very lucrative) , or as another example where the transport is already in place Rotherhithe , there they got government to pick up most of the cleanup costs by allocating most of the land as council housing and keeping the river frontage strip for nice exclusive developments , they did the same in Chiswick (north of the river again) and in that case threw in a private marina for good measure (though they had to evict all the local boat people first:thumbsdown: )

So while the olympic venues around Greenwich will have already of had the advantage of government funding for their clean up and construction (plus cleaning up the river itself) those at Stratford will have to get the same funding at todays prices (the current building boom and shortage of skilled labour adds significantly to those prices just as it did when docklands started), plus the Lea river will have to be cleaned up and any private development for lucrative projects on the Lea won't command the same prices as those on the Thames did .
See nothing strange about it at all :yes:
For a similar situation your side of the water try and think of a olympic bid to redevelop the area of the Brooklyn naval yard and Red Hook .:shrug:

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Originally Posted by Tribesman

they got government to pick up most of the cleanup costs by allocating most of the land as council housing and keeping the river frontage strip for nice exclusive developments , they did the same in Chiswick (north of the river again) and in that case threw in a private marina for good measure (though they had to evict all the local boat people first

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its a very successful area, similar developments are something to encourage..

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So while the olympic venues around Greenwich will have already of had the advantage of government funding for their clean up and construction (plus cleaning up the river itself) those at Stratford will have to get the same funding at todays prices (the current building boom and shortage of skilled labour adds significantly to those prices just as it did when docklands started), plus the Lea river will have to be cleaned up and any private development for lucrative projects on the Lea won't command the same prices as those on the Thames did

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:yes:

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Originally Posted by Tribesman

Nah not strange its just normal , if you get a badly rundown area with high levels of contamination then you not only have problems getting the private sector to take on the added expense that development would take , you have the problem that the longer it is left the more the decay sets in and the more the contamination spreads .
See nothing strange about it at all :yes:
For a similar situation your side of the water try and think of a olympic bid to redevelop the area of the Brooklyn naval yard and Red Hook .:shrug:

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Oh, I'm not saying the whole revitalizing a downtown area is strange, I'm saying spending so much money on it is.

Oh well, I hope you fellows have fun with your funny candies and governments.

I'm going to benefit from the Vancouver Winter Olympics and not have to pay a dime in taxes! Yeehaw!

CR

PS I recall Denver got the Olympics once but then declined them because the residents didn't want to pay for it, or something like that.

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Oh, I'm not saying the whole revitalizing a downtown area is strange, I'm saying spending so much money on it is.

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Well the theory is that you recoup the money through taxes on revenue generated from the games and all the visitors , then end up with the redevelopment costing nothing or even generating profit, but theories have a habit of not always working .

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but theories have a habit of not always working

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Ladies and gentlemen, may I present John Prescott

ROFL; both for and aginst teh smoking ban.....sorta sums him up. :wall:

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# Very strongly for the Iraq war. votes, speeches
# Quite strongly against investigating the Iraq war. votes, speeches

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How convenient.

Prescott is an idiot. He should be our UN ambassador or something. He'd sort Zimbabwe out (personally).

This does not surprise me

Another example of new labour ability to run the country

:wall:

Here's the link to the July 2005 thread discussing the London pick. Funny how the usual suspects are pro- and con- London, mostly on the budget angle.

Are they selling tickets yet for any of the events?

:laugh4: UPs thats one of my threads. :yes:

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Are they selling tickets yet for any of the events?

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I don't think so. Probably be unwise to buy any. Odds of it actually being completed on time are rather slim. We'll probably end up being the first country to host the Olympics in a big tent (put up the morning before by some panicking politicians) because the developers were having an argument with the supplier of their seats over which shade of blue to use.