BalarnyStone

LOL. Some of you clearly think you're better company than you actually are. Nee offence like.

And there's the difference between facts and context. Given the context of both the actual amount of private funding, and the way in which it was delivered (as basically an investment), makes the idea that it's mere factual existence proves anything in terms of the sculpture having either been privately funded in the same way nures or libraries are, a pretty simplistic point.

Cheers. I brought cake. I ate it. Here's an empty tin.....

Well, they can't have it both ways - they can either take notice of what people think they look like, based on the time honoured critical criteria (do-able, or not), or they can bloody well stop obsessing about it to their long suffering boyfriends/husbands. They need to hear it from us strangers, because there's no boyfriend/husband out there daft enough to tell them when they sometimes look like munters due to their clothing choices and lack of body perception.....

You're still a simpleton, any idiot can lay out 'facts' without context. I confused you with the other bloke talking about the sculpture because you carried on where he left off about the funding. If that makes me a cunt, well, I'd rather be a cunt than a simpleton.

England is finally reaping the benefits of the success of the EPL on the world stage, which the Erikson years and the no show due to McClaren, had probably masked. At the last World Cup we had a completely knackered squad which was clearly not able to muster up anything creative or spritied without the inspiration of their foreign day to day teammates beside the likes of Lampard, and now it's through the lack of any half decent English players getting regular games anywhere at all, having been all but eliminated from the top squads, certianly their regular starters (NUFC included). Combined with the injuries that come from a season focused on games, games, games, and added to that the arrogance of some potential international players who think they can opt in and out of England as they like, then there's no hope at all that I can see. We're going into this tournament on blind hope that some very untried players can step up. And how often has that worked for any team on the international stage? Even Germany faltered at the last step in South Africa, in the face of proven performers. Like it or not, it's probably Ashley Cole who is the best player of the England squad at this moment in terms of a proven player who's still able to perform in international competitions, even though he's had a full season behind him. And even though he only just won the CL, I'm guessing he's not the sort of cunt who would rank that above winning this tournament. That's not to say England haven' made mistakes - I'd like to know for example why the other Cole doesn't apparently merit even a standby place, and it's pretty obvious he's still 3 lions to his core.

He's one of the assholes who declared they won't go on the standby list. Fuck em all. Don't deserve to wear the shirt.

Birds who wear shorts when they don't have the thighs for it, especially when they're not so fat that they wouldn't look perfectly fine in a nice pair of ladies jeans, and especially when the temperature hasn't even broken the 15 deg barrier.

I watched the pageant highlights, which were surprisingly lacking in any details about the boats involved. That's about all I could muster in terms of enthusiasm, every else I did yesterday was 100% unjubilant.

No, but not to an amount that makes it anything like the white elephant you claimed it was either. Only complete simpletons deal in these sort of absolutisms to win their arguments. If you have an actual case to make in terms either wasted money or unused facilities, then make it, otherwise these last few posts only serve to show how lightweight but pathetically whingy this sort of opposition to the Olympics really is.

Their 'London Development Agency' was funded to the tune of over £400m. They used £3.1 million of that to contribute to just 16% of the total cost of the Orbit. And according to Boris, they get a cut of the profits from the restaurant at the top, and considering tourists will be paying £15 a pop to climb it, unless the steel is of the shittest quality ever, I don't imagine anyone is seriously worried about recouping that £3.1m in pretty quick time, and probably much more as well. And by the by, according to my calculations, £3.1m could increase the numbers of nurses in the UK by 0.04%, for just one year.

The sculpture was privately funded, so that's irrelevant. It's long term use is the same as something like the Angel. Infact, it's more useful, as it has a viewing platform and restaurant, which will serve the game park area into the legacy period (because despite what some might think, the park does not simply get locked up to rust, it gets redeveloped with new housing and business units). Olympics or no Olympics, the A19 will continue to be shit while governments of any persuasion fail to employ any kind of strategic planning in transport. And if there was no Olympics, then the list of transport infrastructue in this country that has gone neglected would have been even longer. Considering its location, transport links, and what was there before, to describe the long term changes brought to Stratford due to the Olympics as being of benefit to a very few is frankly daft and wholly short sighted. It's like pretending the Quayside developments only benefitted the few people living in the east end of toon. Ludicrous. London will make a profit, that's obvious. It is basket cases like Athens and over-ambitious bidders like Sydney that have ended up with white elephant venues that they really don;t have a use for, as well as ending up with a bill for hosting the event. The pool will be a world class facility in the middle of our capital - if it doesn't get any use long term, then no pool in the UK ever would (and iirc the only olympic size pool in the UK before it was the one built recently in..... the north east). The stadium will obviously be used, either for football or whatever the other bidders have in mind.

Not even through any overtime? And of course if you do a decent job for these events, the company does benefit in terms of reputation. But also, given it's the public purse paying for the contract, it's perhaps a good thing that someone had the sense to make sure that we don't pay extra for your extra efforts. Although yes, that probably sucks for you, so you have my sympathies.

Even in these times, the games will make a profit for the treasury, which the NE of course benefits from, hopefully in proportion to whatever it contributed to the cost (which, given half of it was paid for by London, and given the relative position of the NE to the rest of the UK, isn't that big). The idea that the NE will have financially lost out because of the Olympics is just fantasy. The only toss up is whether the benefit is big or small. Given the alternative if there was no games is nothing, then even small is good.

If he lives in London, obviously not. As I was infact asking where he was from, you can't have that one I'm afraid.....

Going into games geninunely expecitng to win of course, or at least have a decent chance of doing so. That's something I thought was just going to be a fleeting pleasure, confined to that one season in the Championship.

The comparative point was what exactly? You contrasted ephemeral individualism with long lasting infrastructure. You seemed to be expecitng something much much more, something that I am at a loss to see where or why it would occur in a London based event, that if they were being honest, couldn't in their right mind seriously class as a white elephant, even if the patently false claim that the NE gets nothing from it was true.

I did mention it....Not good enough though apparently.

Presuming your location isn't actually Jamaica, might you qualify as one of the people from the NE that Gemmil probably knows that's benefiting from the Olympics? (if not you personally, then you're company at least...) This relates to the BAE thread btw.

Isle of Man today. Same day as the start of the TTs. I presume they've kept the courses apart.....

LOL. I must admit as I watched them rolling down the Epsom course earlier, when I realised the windows on the car were open the first thing that flashed through my mind was a sniper taking a pot shot. Then I thought that as it was on a time delay on the Sky plus, this could already have happened..... Anyway, that's one of the good things at least, it all seems to have been planned to be done and dusted after this weekend, so your pain will be over soon. The brainwashed masses can then fix their gaze on the Euros and then the Olympics....

Aye, because I only meant bus drivers. Muppet. I cited that first because it's the biggest single benefit (for a single person) I've heard of so far. If they're happy, that's great as far as I'm concerned. You can piss on their chips all you want, but I bet you secretly know someone also benefiting from the Olympics too, but I doubt you'd publicly admit it now.

I'm guessing that sounds more exciting than it actually is...

A bunting factory? Details man, details....

Anyone doing anything? I'm struggling to get into the whole Jubilee hoo hah. I'm not anti-monarchy, but with the weather and everything, and it being so close to the Olympics and Euros, it's hard to get excited. If this was the regular footbal season I don't think I'd have even noticed it, I'd just be doing my usual matchday routine this weekend. Everything I've seen advertised as a 'Jubilee event' up here by the media is anything but to my mind - the Evolution festival?! Newcaslte Fashion Week!? Newcastle races?! Tyne Tees claimed there was something going on on the Tyne tommorrow, which I might have gone to see, but I can't find out anything else about it. I have a horrible feeling what they meant was an afternoon tea sailing being put on on the Shields Ferry!