Monday 13 December 2010

So, How Do You Say ‘Squeal, Little Piggy!’ In French..?

As the first tongue of the International Olympic Committee (IOC), it must take precedence at medal-giving and all other Olympic ceremonies. "Billboards and pageantry" in French as well as English must be displayed throughout the capital.
And the committee just dropped trousers, bent over and let the IOC… well, you get the picture, I’m sure.
The stipulation is among thousands of pages of detailed demands made by the IOC as a condition of hosting the games.
As Angry Exile points out:
"...the real question is why it took two years of battering the bastards with the Freedom of Information Act before this came out. Or why they didn't feel able to be open about it and say this in front of all the flag waving crowds five and a half years ago when there was still a chance for Britons to demand the bid be withdrawn."
Quite. It's not just the immediate areas of the Games that will be affected, either:
The Union flag must be flown fifth in precedence behind the Olympic flag, the London 2012 symbol, the United Nations flag and the flag of Greece at the stadium and fourth elsewhere in London for the duration.
Pretty ambitious of them, eh? So, if some pub in London hosts an Olympics Party, does it have to comply with this, if it wants to fly the Union flag?
London must "require behaviour modification for residents, public and business communities" as transport is disrupted.
Now, that's a pretty sinister sounding phrase, isn't it? God knows, the last 13 years of Labour misrule tried their best, but it seems we seem to be quite adept at avoiding 'behaviour modification', so good luck with that, IOC!
London is required to prevent spectators from "wearing clothes or accessories with commercial messages other than the manufacturer's brand name." This would ban them from wearing football clubs' replica strips, which usually carry the name of the club's sponsor.
Yes indeed, instead of 'No shirt? You're not coming in, pal!', London will reverberate to 'Arsenal? ARSENAL?! No way, chum!'...
The city authorities must also "obtain control of all billboard advertising, city transport advertising, airport advertising etc for the duration of the games and the month preceding." Olympic "brand protection teams" must "confront violators" and "conduct surveillance" across London. Police and customs officers must enforce sponsorship rules.
It's an authoritarian wet-dream...
A spokesman for London 2012 said: "This is information provided to cities to get them thinking about all the things they need to do.

"The hotel room numbers are guidelines and we may not necessarily need, for instance, 100 rooms for the ceremony stars. The ambush marketing provisions are targeted on mass ambushes, not people wearing their football shirts."
Easy targets, pal, easy targets. The sort of people who will be enforcing this go for them every time.

I give it a day from the introduction of these 'guidelines' before the 'Sun' or 'Mirror' has a crying child on the front page telling a tale of woe about the Olympic staff who stripped him of his football shirt...

12 comments:

Longrider said...

London must "require behaviour modification for residents, public and business communities"

What the fucking fuckitty fuck?!?

Captain Haddock said...

Quelle fucking surprise !!!

I hadn't intended watching a single moment of the Olympics anyway ..

I won't be anywhere which is affected by the Olympics ..

So they can stuff their silly, completely pointless, French-speaking Games up their collective arses ..

Jiks said...

What LR said. What the HELL does that mean?

I rather suspect it means whatever any Authority would like it to mean at the time ...

Bronze hope said...

The moment we 'won' the Olympics was a sad moment for us all.

There will be two weeks of frenzied worrying about how many medals we win against the likes of Freedonia, the Independent State of Pimlico (true, I saw the film once) and the Outer Lesser Anchovies will bring despair and angst. Meanwhile the Association of Plump Backhanders and Kickbacks (aka the IOC) who descend on London to try out the luxury hotels and special priority traffic lanes will add to the huge financial burden the nation will have to live with for years.

We don't even get to make our own souvenirs.

Now we learn on top of all these insults that we must behave properly and tug the collective forelock to these pompous asses. Bah!

Like the good Captain I will avoid watching it, though if I do the toads who run it can be assured I will wear my team's non-approved shirt.

Jim said...

Did French have equal status in Athens, Beijing and Sydney? If so, I suppose we have to accept it. If not, why are we bending over to be shafted like this?

Rob said...

Simple solution - just boo loudly through the French bits.

"The Union flag must be flown fifth in precedence behind the Olympic flag, the London 2012 symbol, the United Nations flag and the flag of Greece"

in increasing order of corruption and risibility?

Rob said...

If the Greek flag has to be shown because they invented it, then it's only fair that the English flag takes precedence at every football World Cup.

Nick2 said...

Definitely a set of good reasons to escape London during Olympic fortnight...

microdave said...

I'm sure there is opportunity for some clever movement of funds to avoid "Advertising" - You know, "I'll give you a months free space on my hoarding in return for a years supply of whatever"....

What are the "Enforcers" going to do if lots of homeowners along the designated routes choose to display non approved stickers in their windows?

Why not employ some "Ethnics" to drive around in foreign registered cars & vans plastered with stickers? They can always pull the "Race" card to fear of God into the authorities.

microdave said...

Or even to PUT THE fear of God into






Bugger...

Xopher said...

I'm so pleased to see all that lottery money high-jacked for such good use.
It's obvious those millions raising funds for the local, small 'good causes' they funds were originally intended for will be really happy.
A rfeatured Whitehall Farce at the Shafteseverybody theatre.

JuliaM said...

"What the fucking fuckitty fuck?!?"

Indeed! Could they have come up with a more sinister-sounding phrase if they'd tried?

"I rather suspect it means whatever any Authority would like it to mean at the time ..."

Even if it doesn't mean that now, it will by the time they get around to implementing it.

"in increasing order of corruption and risibility?"

Heh! :)

"What are the "Enforcers" going to do if lots of homeowners along the designated routes choose to display non approved stickers in their windows?"

I suspect they'll pick one that they think they can bully and intimidate, and look to make an example of them in the hope that everyone else will follow suit.

"I'm so pleased to see all that lottery money high-jacked for such good use."

Indeed...