Thank you for coming home, sorry that the chairs are all worn.

[perfectlyvague]

So businesses are being encouraged to let their staff work from home during the Olympics. I dunno if you have ever had a Business Continuity event at your work (where you get half the staff to log in from home at once and watch your infrastructure collapse around your ears) but over the years I have - in other workplaces...and just one firm doing

Comments

[green_badger]

So much this. I was really enthusiastic about the Olympics coming here until their ticket sale fiasco, and now I'm just fed up about the whole thing and would rather avoid it. That's unbelievable that they made volunteers pay so much to park for their training!

Fortunately my commute should remain relatively unaffected. xxx

[ultraruby]

I went to an Olympic preparedness the other day, aimed at health and social care providers in Tower Hamlets who'll need to make sure that they keep delivering (for exaple) meals on wheels, daycare services etc throughout the Olympic period. The level of disruption is going to be massive - the diversions to traffic and lengthening of travel times alone will make a vast difference to the way people go about their daily lives and to stuff like the supply of good to regular shops and institutions as well as to the Olympic site itself, which will apparently be the size of a small city (with all its attendant demands) within London. As well as visitors to the main site they're also expecting millions of visitors to the open air viewing place in Victyoria Park, plus there'll be 'cultural houses' or something scattered about the place, like say one of the schools near me is goign to be 'the German house' where there'll be German food, music, all that sort of stuff, and there'll be a Japanese house not far away either. York Hall next door

[perfectlyvague]

Lucky you, I get all the disruption and no compensation. The overground is lovely but I didn't need it. We seem to be getting crossrail without an Olympics so I suspect we'd have got an overground without one eventually. I still do not understand why it is in East London. It's too inaccessible to non South Easterners.

[ultraruby]

I think it's cos they needed/wanted to regenerate that bit of London so that the city would grow out to the East rather than over the greenbelty bits to the north etc. Wherever they'd've put it I guess there would have been difficulties, but the more I hear about the transport arrangements the more I'm realising it's not (and most likely never has been) about access for normal regular punters, it's about making sure the sponsors and media and all of that can get to the site in the quickest time possible, hence the extension of the fast trains to Stratford, the special Olympic lanes going out to the west etc. The problem I think has been in the disconnect between the rhetoric (it's a games for everyone to watch and to take part in) and the actuality (tickets are limited, it costs a lot of time and money to volunteer etc) - it was built up to be such a glorious glorious magical thing when...well, really it's just a sporting event, with all the attendant problems and exclusions (and probably joys, but I'm no sports fan) that such a

[perfectlyvague]

Yes, but the reason that bit of London needs it is because it's on a side of London the rest of the country can't reach. It will founder unless we plough millions into it for a long time. Millions I think would be better spent in a less indulgent fashion.

[yummydeb]

BWIAS (remember him?), his wife and their triplets are coming to London for the Olympics. He asked me if we were planning on going. I keep forgetting to reply but it'll be something like "we are planning on going...as far away as possible while still being in the UK," and not even because BWIAS will be there :-D.

Well actually we aren't going anywhere, we'll just be glad we're up here away from it all.

In completely unrelated news, and only because you brought up Shakespeare, Sem and I were listening to the radio during dinner just now, I think the programme is called "A Good Read", and the guests were slagging off amateur actors. The woman, whose name escapes me though she certainly sounded like she thought she was world famous, said at one point, "Olivier, he LOVED amdram..." and then she kept going on about 'amdram' which made me want to keeeeeeeeeeel her. And don't all actors start out as amateur actors? And so who in blazes is she to blast them for doing their 'amdram' while they learn and grow and make a living in other

[perfectlyvague]

Blimey, he must be minted, a few days here will cost about 10grand, I reckon unless he has relatives here. How the hell has he got tickets when half of London didn't even get one in the ballot. Wonder if I can get him deported and steal his tickets! BWIAL/S GRRRRR.