ABC-TV Foreign Correspondent wrote: England Swings
12/06/2012 United Kingdom: England
Take your marks, world, the Games of the XXX Olympiad are set to start soon and they will be inescapable. The London Olympics will have unprecedented reach as social media supercharges conventional media coverage and takes the spectacle to ever more eyeballs. Close to the action though - in the shadows of the venues - youâ??ll find eyeballs rolling with contempt and tut tuts of disgust as some Londoners do their best to turn the 5-Ring-Circus into a Grumpylimpics.
Why the sore heads?
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When Sebastian Coe was a world beating distance runner and collected gold medals for the prestigious 1500 metre event at consecutive Olympics in 1980 and 1984, no-one cheered louder or applauded more enthusiastically than his fellow Brits.
Fast forward to 2012 and (the now) Lord Coeâ??s latest achievements, and fellow Brit Johnnie Walker would put his hands to a different purpose.
â??Iâ??d like to give him a clump. Iâ??d like to chin him.â?
The crusty community football boss is annoyed at the way the London Olympics juggernaut has crashed his patch. Seb Coeâ??s unstoppable machine has claimed 12 of Johnnieâ??s playing fields for Olympic parking and so a league of 1500 players now crowd a much smaller space.
â??Itâ??s elitist everything has to be ploughed towards the elitist and the grassroots is neglected â?? you aint going to get your elitists unless you look after the grass root.â? JOHNNIE WALKER Hackney & Leyton League
Johnnie is just one of a group of Grumpylimpians annoyed at the unbridled enthusiasm and runaway hyperbole surrounding Londonâ??s big sporting carnival.
Veteran Grump Will Self is another. The acerbic author would surely medal at the anti-Olympics.
â??It feels like North Korea to me actually when people go â??yeah the Olympics, the Olympic bid yeahâ??. Itâ??s like Kim Jung Ill, you know, we donâ??t really know why we are cheering for the great leader and his amazing plan but we better do it because hey thatâ??s what people like us do.â? WILL SELF â?? Author
Foreign Correspondentâ??s Philip Williams braves the bile in search of both sides of the story in Londonâ??s East End. In a challenging lap in and around the Olympic site he does manage to find enthusiasts like Olympics Ambassador and rapper Wretch 32 and former Olympian Yvonne Arnold whoâ??s had her lifelong ambition realised with a massive, state-of-the-art gymnasium appearing in place of ill-equipped facilities. Itâ??s now an incubator for British gymnasts of the future.
â??It is emotional and whenever I walk through these doors and show people the gym I have a well of pride inside me and I canâ??t stop smiling about it.â? YVONNE ARNOLD Former Olympian
Lord Coe tells Phil he thinks itâ??s all â??fantasticâ?? but another local critic Iain Sinclair has it otherwise.
â??I feel excluded from my own territory. I feel I hardly know who I am because all my familiar markers that Iâ??ve known over 40 years, have either disappeared or been enclosed in razor wire?â? IAIN SINCLAIR Hackney activist.
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Video Transcript:
WILLIAMS: When youâ??re tired of London, youâ??re tired of life â?? so the saying goes. The pace and vitality of this world capital never falters and thereâ??s good reason for this place to be in hyper drive right now. As Europe Correspondent for the last few years, Iâ??ve watched as the clock ticks down, hurtling towards a huge moment even for this grand city. Make way for the London Olympics 2012.
Itâ??s going to be a hell of a show, at least thatâ??s what weâ??re promised and I have to say there is a palpable sense of excitement here. Most people want Britain to succeed on the world stage but scratch that shiny Olympic surface and not everyoneâ??s happy. Either way, love it or loathe it, the greatest show on earth is coming ready or not.
In our whirlwind tour of this city Iâ??ll meet a famous Londoner whoâ??s invested everything in the games and can already smell success in his nostrils.
LORD SEBASTIAN COE: â??Fantasticâ?.
WILLIAMS: And a less well known chap with a different take on whatâ??s happening to his city.
JOHNNIE WALKER: â??Crap comes to mindâ?.
WILLIAMS: There are plenty of grumpy old men around here. Weâ??ll meet an elite Olympic gold grump.
WILL SELF: â??Cause frankly I think that, that kind of sport is bullshit anywayâ?.
WILLIAMS: And someone else who canâ??t believe their luck.
(to YVONNE ARNOLD at gym) Wow, that is absolutely stunning! Itâ??s amazing.
YVONNE ARNOLD: â??Itâ??s lovely isnâ??t it?â?
WILLIAMS: Weâ??ve arrived at the field of Olympic dreams, eight kilometres north east of Big Ben as the crow flies. Two hundred hectares carved out of what Games spruikers describe as a toxic wasteland in Londonâ??s hugely unfashionable and unloved east end. Rising phoenix-like from the marshlands, the eighty thousand seat stadium, on this day hosting university games. Itâ??s a trial run for the real thing when more than ten thousand of the worldâ??s finest athletes test their mettle and compete for metal that they hope will be gold.
Seven years in the making, no one has invested more time and energy in these games than this man. Arguably the worldâ??s greatest middle distance runner of the 1980s, heâ??s still running things.
â??Weâ??re about to meet Mr Olympics himself, Seb Coe, Lord Seb Coe. Of course heâ??s won gold medals for GB before. Heâ??s really the Lord of this ring here because without him it probably wouldnâ??t have happenedâ?.
Lord Coe is a man in demand and a man with a story to tell, all good of course.
LORD SEBASTIAN COE: â??Well itâ??s an extraordinary story. You know if youâ??d been here eight years ago and we were standing on a poisoned parcel of land that really was.... was, you know, had been neglected for over sixty years, weâ??re now standing in a world class sporting venue that will go on serving communities for years to come. If youâ??re standing on the site eight years ago, thereâ??d be a fifty foot mountain of rotting fridgesâ?.
WILLIAMS: â??Whatâ??s it mean for the country? What does Britain get out of this?â?
LORD SEBASTIAN COE: â??Britain gets out of it exactly what Australia did. You know no country is ever the same once itâ??s staged the Games - certainly no city is ever the sameâ?.
WILLIAMS: But I had to step outside of the arena to uncover some of the other stories. Hackney is one of the five London boroughs that borders the Olympic Park - culturally diverse, a mixture of the middle class and the poor.
IAIN SINCLAIR: [reading from a book] â??Itâ??s something else, itâ??s something new requiring gills and built in decontamination filters......â?
WILLIAMS: And home for forty years to author and Olympic sceptic, Iain Sinclair, a man with a mission to expose what he says are the lies and deceptions of an Olympic nightmare.
IAIN SINCLAIR: [reading from a book] â??Gateway to Londonâ??s Olympic Park, over three hundred dynamic brands. 1.9 million square feet of retail and leisure destination, Westfieldâ?.
WILLIAMS: I was intrigued by this Australian connection so I collared Iain Sinclair to ask what it was all about.
It turns out that by happy co-incidence the recently opened Westfield Stratford Shopping Mall finds itself right at the front door of the Olympics. To get to the Games most visitors will be funnelled from the train station right through the middle of one of Europeâ??s largest shopping centres.
IAIN SINCLAIR: â??Well what weâ??ve got here is the Olympic Way otherwise known as a track through the chasm of retail opportunities that is the Westfield Super Mallâ?.
WILLIAMS: â??So the Olympic experience is also going to be a Westfield experience?â?
IAIN SINCLAIR: â??I think weâ??d put it the other way around - the Westfield experience has a possibility of a minor Olympic extension for a couple of weeksâ?.
WILLIAMS: â??And yet thousands of people are going in there every dayâ?.
IAIN SINCLAIR: â??Yeah thousands of people used to turn up to public hangings. They were very, very popular but civilisation does move onâ?.
WILLIAMS: I suspect if hanging was still an option Iain Sinclair may have ended up swinging for his Olympic cynicism. He took me further around the alarmed and razor wire Olympic perimeter. Itâ??s as close as many Londoners will get to the Games.
IAIN SINCLAIR: â??Weâ??re now going to have more military personnel at Stratford around the Westfield Mall and the Olympic site than were used in the whole of the Afghanistan campaign from Englandâ?.
WILLIAMS: â??Really?â?
IAIN SINCLAIR: â??Thatâ??s a factâ?.
WILLIAMS: â??Well how do you feel as a local resident when you see this?â?
IAIN SINCLAIR: â??Well I feel excluded from my own territory. I feel I hardly know who I am myself because all my familiar markers that Iâ??ve known over forty years have either disappeared or been enclosed in razor wire. In one respect we are the world leaders and that is in fences and surveillance systems, CCTV cameras, helicopters overhead â?? all of that we, weâ??re pretty safe. Weâ??re secure. Everybody knows what weâ??re doing all of the timeâ?.
WILLIAMS: â??Gold medalâ?.
IAIN SINCLAIR: â??Gold medal definitelyâ?.
WILLIAMS: Iain Sinclairâ??s magical misery tour was getting a bit of a downer after Lord Coeâ??s glowing spruik, but this man of intellect and culture surely knows art when he sees it?
IAIN SINCLAIR: â??This particular piece I think is like a DNA spiral caught in a whirlwind and blown around an East German border postâ?.
WILLIAMS: Spearing higher than the Statute of Liberty on the Olympic site is this sculpture by British artist Anish Kapoor. Itâ??ll be there long after the Games as a viewing platform over London.
IAIN SINCLAIR: â??If the stadium itself is a flat pack stadium from IKEA that could be any height you want, these are the bits that are left over. Thereâ??s always something at the bottom of the bag that you canâ??t fit and theyâ??ve scrambled it together. Itâ??s turning the city into a circus like the end of the Roman Empire. Itâ??s all blood and circuses. Take the minds of the people off it by throwing up another big show and this is the biggest show in the worldâ?.
WILLIAMS: The greatest show on earth straddles a vast area, it stomps on a lot more ground than that rusting pile of refrigerators Lord Coe talks about.
Julian Cheyne was one of the 430 residents in his estate tapped on the shoulder and told to move on in advance of the bulldozers. Clay Lanes Estate was a social experiment in the 1970s, the UKâ??s largest purpose built housing co-op. The residents received a small relocation allowance â?? small comfort for the upheaval to their lives.
JULIAN CHEYNE: â??Well Iâ??ve lost a home. I had a bungalow which I wanted to continue living in and I lost a community which was a lot of people living nearby. The estate was laid out in a series of ten courtyards and it was a very sociable place and there were lots of people that I knew there so as far as I was concerned, you know this was my home really for the rest of my lifeâ?.
WILLIAMS: â??When you look out here, look around, what do you see?â?
JULIAN CHEYNE: â??Iâ??m afraid Iâ??m depressed because I see something which is basically a lie. This was a working industrial area and working industrial areas are not always pretty but there were perfectly nice factories and workshops. It was not a, the whole place was not some kind of waste tip. If you want to have a national celebration, a national sports celebration you can do that by employing existing facilities. You donâ??t have to go for this massive kind of, spaceship kind of thing landing in the middle of east London like thisâ?.
WILLIAMS: After the shock and shame of the London riots, this city needed an upbeat ambassador, someone who could instil a little optimism into angry youth and a man Olympic sponsors could call their own. Well they found him, one of the UKâ??s hottest rap stars, Wretch 32.
Iâ??m at Londonâ??s other big venue, the Millennium Stadium, lost and confused in the backstage labyrinth.
[running backstage] â??Well weâ??re going to meet Wretch 32, heâ??s a big star and weâ??re on the run. Apparently very keen on the Olympics. Letâ??s see what happensâ?.
WILLIAMS: A wrong turn, and an accidental stage appearance but clearly not a let down for the fans.
After my fifteen seconds of fraudulent fame, I found the real star out the back. If celebrity is measured by the size of his bus, Wretch 32 is as big as they come and an Olympic ambassador to boot.
WRETCH 32: â??I think the Olympics will definitely help lift the mood of a lot of people and the country as well in general. I think when everyone sat at home watching you know their favourite sport, theyâ??re watching the Olympics and they know that this is only taking place around the corner or everybodyâ??s in the venue and theyâ??re watching it go down, I think everybodyâ??s spirit is going to be lifted and I think itâ??s a real good vibe man. Itâ??s excitingâ?.
WILLIAMS: â??Some people are a bit down on it. Theyâ??re saying weâ??re not getting the jobs we thought weâ??d get or weâ??re losing our sporting fields and that sort of thing, especially in the Hackney area. What would you say to that?â?
WRETCH 32: â??Do you know what the weird thing about it is Iâ??m not too much of a politician man I just kind of go with the flow. I wouldnâ??t, I donâ??t let anything like that hinder my mood or get me down so youâ??ve just got to look at the plus side to everything I suppose so if youâ??re from that area and itâ??s coming to your town, just make sure you go and watch it to be honest. I think everything else will be all rightâ?.
WILLIAMS: â??Can I just quickly get a snap?â?
Iâ??m buoyed by Wretchâ??s prediction that the Olympics will be banging, haps and fully sick â?? that is a jolly good show. But I suspect the man Iâ??m running late to see wonâ??t be so upbeat. Heâ??s not someone I want to keep waiting with his reputation as one of British televisionâ??s grumpy old men.
WILL SELF: â??Whereâ??s me coffee?â?
WILLIAMS: â??So the Olympics, not a big fan?â?
WILL SELF: â??The fact that someone can run or jump faster or you know higher than somebody else, thatâ??s not a meaningful assay of a countryâ??s worth. It feels like North Korea to me actually when people go â??Yay the Olympics, the Olympic bid, yayâ?? â?? itâ??s like Kim Ill Jung, you know we donâ??t really know why weâ??re cheering for the Great Leader and his amazing plan but weâ??d better do it because hey you know thatâ??s what people like us do. If you talk to people in a reasoned way then you very quickly get the picture that it means virtually nothing to them. Itâ??s not impacting you know on peopleâ??s lives here at the moment. Itâ??s not what they needâ?.
WILLIAMS: â??Whatâ??s for you the single most then offensive element of this whole project?â?
WILL SELF: â??Of the Olympics? Itâ??s the nationalism actually, I find that the most offensive. Itâ??s the yoking, you know so itâ??s the jubilee year and itâ??s the Olympic year and itâ??s ra ra ra for the Queenie and ra ra ra for our sporty folk and that to me is, again itâ??s insulting and itâ??s insulting to peopleâ??s intelligence that they should be demanded to pay attention to a higher ideal that is so empty and worthlessâ?.
WILLIAMS: â??And yet millions will be there, theyâ??ll be enjoying it, theyâ??ll be watching it on television. They may even feel a sense of national pride about the whole showâ?.
WILL SELF: â??Itâ??s all over in a couple of weeks of flim flam and then weâ??re left with this cracked and sprawling piles of concreteâ?.
WILLIAMS: â??But they talk about the legacy though, that this is going to leave fabulous facilities, that will encourage people to play sport for decades to comeâ?.
WILL SELF: â??Now what encourages people to play sport is getting off their arses from in front of the TV and getting down the local playing field and doing it. And the spectacle of elite athletes I never really buy that cause frankly I think that kind of sportâ??s bullshit anywayâ?.
WILLIAMS: When Brits think of sport for most this is the game of choice. The Olympic goal is to get an extra million butts off the couch and into places like this. This is the local Hackney marshes Sunday morning football. Itâ??s spitting distance from the Olympic site, a bit too close.
JOHNNIE WALKER: â??Itâ??s elitist. Everything has to be ploughed towards the elitist and the grassroots is neglected. You ainâ??t going to get your elitists if you donâ??t look after the grass rootsâ?.
WILLIAMS: Johnnie Walker has had local footy running through his veins for most of his seventy eight years. Heâ??s the undisputed boss of the fifteen hundred players of the Hackney and Leyton League, but he was powerless to stop Olympic authorities paving over twelve of his beloved grounds for what they say is a temporary car park.
JOHNNIE WALKER: â??It represents a glorious land grab to me and thatâ??s all it seems to be about. You know theyâ??ve taken so much land around hereâ?.
WILLIAMS: â??Letâ??s look at one word to encapsulate the Olympics for you, what would that one word be?â?
JOHNNIE WALKER: â??Nightmare to be honest. Itâ??s up there with a whole range of other disgusting words that I can think of and canâ??t repeat so..... and thatâ??s basically what I thinkâ?.
WILLIAMS: â??Have a go. Youâ??re on Australian televisionâ?.
JOHNNIE WALKER: [laughing] â??Well I canâ??t go too strong. â??Crapâ? comes to mind. I hate the bloody word and I hate the people that pontificate in front of itâ?.
WILLIAMS: â??If Lord Coe was here, what would you tell him?â?
JOHNNIE WALKER: â??What would I tell him? If I was younger Iâ??d like to give him a clump. He has this smug look you know and oh well you know Iâ??ve done all this, Iâ??ve done all that, yeah heâ??s done it on the backs of us. Well Iâ??d like to chin himâ?.
WILLIAMS: For Lord Coe and his cohorts the grand vision of a great Games shouldnâ??t be clouded by the loss of a few local footy fields, but what the Olympics takes the Olympics can sure give back and then some.
[walking into gym] â??Wow that is absolutely stunning, that is amazingâ?.
YVONNE ARNOLD: â??Yeah Iâ??m very proud of it I must sayâ?.
WILLIAMS: â??Wow and how much of a role has the Olympics played in the construction and this being here?â?
YVONNE ARNOLD: â??Well they contributed 1.2 million towards the total cost of the building so yes we wouldnâ??t have been here without themâ?.
WILLIAMS: Can you show me round?
YVONNE ARNOLD: Yeah, sure.
WILLIAMS:In Londonâ??s south east former Olympian Yvonne Arnold runs a gym big enough to keep the whole community fit. Soon itâ??ll become a training venue for Olympic volley ball teams. Sheâ??s also nurturing the next generation of champions.
â??Can you see some gold medallists here perhaps?â?
YVONNE ARNOLD: â??I hope so. I think we have got two or three who could make it to Rio, yes who are too young now for London. We havenâ??t got anybody for London but Rio definitely four years down the line, I see maybe two or threeâ?.
WILLIAMS: This is a facility that will be here for a long time after the Olympic torch moves on. Itâ??s the Games giving something back. The husband and wife team who once struggled to maintain their gym in a dilapidated warehouse, have now struck gold well before the Games and the whole community is sharing their good fortune. This will be a play space for thirteen hundred local children and their thirty coaches and supervisors.
YVONNE ARNOLD: â??I never thought.... I never dreamed that I would have a building of this size, this magnitude, with all this wonderful equipment. I never dreamed. When I think back to our old place, we really struggled there. Really, really struggled and now well hopefully the skyâ??s the limitâ?.
WILLIAMS: â??Itâ??s quite an emotional thing for you isnâ??t it?â?
YVONNE ARNOLD: â??Yes it is emotional, yeah it does make me emotional as well and I, whenever I walk through those doors and show people the gym I have a well of pride inside me and yeah youâ??re right, I canâ??t stop smiling about itâ?.
WILLIAMS: Back at centre stage Olympic Park the trials inside the 80,000 seat main stadium are giving up and coming British athletes a moment to experience the biggest stage of all. But getting ordinary Brits off their backsides is a core pledge of the Olympic promoters. It was their way of selling the Games to the wider public and ever wider the public is becoming. One in four adults in Britain is now classified as obese so you can imagine the scepticism of claims that millions more will take up sport and exercise all inspired by the 30th Olympiad.
LORD SEBASTIAN COE: â??I donâ??t believe sport for all has ever put one extra person into sport. I actually believe the inspiration from sport comes from big British moments, Australian moments and they tend to be in Olympic Gamesâ?.
WILLIAMS: But perhaps hedging their bets, alongside the main stadium and swimming centre is this â?? the worldâ??s largest McDonalds. Itâ??s here to provide local jobs of course, planners claim by the time the Olympic Park is complete, 40,000 people will have worked at this site. Itâ??s all about change for a greater good and legacy, legacy, legacy. So donâ??t worry Londoners it might all seem a bit chaotic, but look at what youâ??ll be left with. The government ringmaster for all of this is the Olympics Minister. Hugh Robertson has got to get it right. No pressure.
HUGH ROBERTSON: â??Well I often say I mean in a sense with almost everything we do with the London Olympics we use Sydney as a benchmark. I suspect this is going to be one of those moments of great national celebration. People will benchmark their lives by where they were in 2012. You talk to any Australian whoâ??s interested in sport and they pretty quickly go back to Sydney 2000 and Iâ??m sure itâ??s going to have a very similar effect hereâ?.
WILLIAMS: â??If youâ??re wrong you might be looking for a new jobâ?.
HUGH ROBERTSON: â??If Iâ??m wrong I will be looking for a new job but I donâ??t anticipate thatâ?.
WILLIAMS: â??One of the great rivalries of course is who gets the most medals, Australia/GB and itâ??s been see-sawing lately. Whatâ??s your bet?â?
HUGH ROBERTSON: â??My bet is that British sport is in a very strong position at the moment. Indeed I have a bet with my Australian counterpart over whoâ??s going to win the more gold medals in the tableâ?.
WILLIAMS: â??Can I have a tenner on that?â?
HUGH ROBERTSON: â??Yesâ?.
WILLIAMS: â??Can we shake on that? Thank you. Iâ??ll be back to collectâ?.
HUGH ROBERTSON: â??Oh right. Okay. Thereâ??s a thing ....actually, if I lose this bet Iâ??ve got to run round Australia House in an Australia Hockey singlet so there you goâ?.
WILLIAMS: â??Weâ??ll be thereâ?.
HUGH ROBERTSON: â??Weâ??ll be thereâ?. [laughing]
WILLIAMS: As I watch the clock run down and this city preening itself, I wonder whether London will be left in better shape and maybe even turn old sceptics around. Mmm, maybe notâ?.
WILL SELF: â??There is an aesthetic to it. People really appreciate that aesthetic of ultimate speed and fitness. I believe a guy called Hitler really appreciated that tooâ?.
WILLIAMS: â??Given your effort and your concentration on this whole Olympic phenomena, do you get annoyed when you hear people criticising it?â?
LORD SEB COE: â??No it goes with the territory. Iâ??ve got great friends that put the Sydney project together. I think weâ??ve actually had a far gentler ride than some of the misconceptions that were being peddled in Australian media before the Games. You know if you remember on the eve of the Games it was going to be a national disaster. It turned out to be the greatest Games everâ?.
WILLIAMS: â??If you had one word to describe the Olympics, what would it be?â?
LORD SEBASTIAN COE: â??Fantasticâ?.
WILLIAMS: So there you are. I hope heâ??s right. Thereâ??s a lot of money on it and not just my tenner. These are hard times, and Lord knows the country could certainly do with a lift.
http://www.abc.net.au/foreign/content/2012/s3523647.htm
This program aired over here on the national, government funded, free-to-air television network. I can't imagine the commercial network that will be profiting from the river of gold that will flow from broadcasting the Olympics would ever air such blasphemous anti-olympic sentiments as these. Thank you ABC.
PS - This is my 300th post in 4.6851 years!
Currently on track for my 1,000th post on June 11, 2023!
