I’m sorry but I have to say it. The Olympics are coming to London. And just as an example of how great it’s going to be, I thought I’d tell you my experiences with the ticketing system. Briefly, here’s an overview of how it works. Initially you had to apply for a password and set up an account. Then you found you could only buy London Olympic tickets with a Visa card. Then you found you could only actually ‘bid’ for tickets. Not buy them. Huh? This meant that you had to effectively gamble just like buying a lottery ticket – and try and buy (gamble) thousands of pounds of Olympic tickets to get any chance of getting any.
BUT then you didn’t know exactly what tickets to what events you would be sent (if any), you didn’t exactly when or where you’d be going (if you went at all) and then finally the prices jumped from £20 to £400 in the blink of an eye. So effectively, you could ‘bid’ for £3000 worth of tickets only to find, instead of seats at the Opening ceremony or the 100m final, you’d actually ‘won’ two £95 tickets to the pigeon scaring finals in Kidbrooke!
With me so far?
But then as you entered this baffling surreal world of not knowing what, how much you were paying or where you were going – the website continuously blocked you doing anything at all! Half the time, nothing was available apart from the 100m Female Drag Queen Arguments bronze medal qualifiers from Putney. It seemed all the main events in the Olympic stadium were suddenly mysteriously all unavailable. Apart from if you chose to buy tickets in Germany, for example, where you could buy any tickets you wanted!!!
Naturally I didn’t get offered any tickets. I’m not German.
BUT then came the second gambling round for the ‘unlucky’ ones. So with a sense of foreboding, I entered the site to find even less choice of events at £300 ticket, all nowhere near the Olympic Park. Examples: Olympic FOOTBALL? Olympic TENNIS? What’s that all about? So I gave up. What’s the point? It’s simply a fat cat corporate junket we Londoners are sadly paying for.
To recap – I’m a Londoner so some of my taxes (yes, Londoners are the only people paying Olympic tax) go towards the games and my chances of going are clearly zero. Only London could create such a ticketing system. I’ve decided to not be in London those two weeks. There is no point. Ho hum.
Wimbledon is here. And so unsurprisingly is the rain. But this year they’ve got that roof from Thunderbirds so they’ll be able to presumably play on. However, I noticed they hadn’t used it much – preferring instead to have TV coverage full of Sue Barker talking endlessly to various elderly tennis stars of yesteryear. Weird.
And I love the Londoners’ attitude to Wimbledon. I heard radio coverage of the public’s thoughts. Was it excitement at the thought of days of stunning world-class tennis? No. Mainly the thought of more traffic congestion and less places to park. Apparently, the traffic wardens outnumber the strawberries this year.
We Londoners are hardy folk though. In the face of adversity we just carry on. And yesterday, I saw the brilliant sight of a crowd of tube passengers exiting Baker Street into the pouring rain all lifting their Metro newspapers above their heads at the same time. It looked like a modern dance company. You could have set it to music. Of course it didn’t work, but it was great to see them all copy each other in the who can make the ‘most papiere mache first’ game! Best of all, however, right next to the exit, there was a little smiling Indian bloke flogging umbrellas from a bicycle. He was yelling: “Umbrellas, umbrellas, best in town’. What a star! He’ll probably end up being Mayor. He’s got my vote.
Talking of our glorious Mayor for London, I see the campaigns are now seriously starting. Ken is back and so are the other usual pointless candidates. Most of them so bland that when they stand in front of a beige wall they simply disappear. I saw a Liberal Democrat being interviewed and even the interviewer lost interest. She kept glancing past him – clearly hoping a tourist or a drunk would interrupt.
For those of you unclear about things – the London Mayor and his office are yet another level of bureaucracy we pay through the nose for. They spend much of their time meeting about things that don’t ever happen. And when they do make things happen, we just get a bigger bill. A classic case are the fantastic BLUE cycle highways. Millions of pounds of blue lanes painted onto the road. Very safe for cyclists. Clearly cars can’t cross the blue paint – oops yes they can. Doh! But we do provide employment for Boris and his hangers-on currently, up until he tries to take over the Conservative Party. But right now he’s doing his best to mess about with London. And when he’s not screwing things up we have our local councils.
My favourite current example of London madness at official level is a fantastic new idea for local high streets. London councils are creating pop-up shops to give the illusion that our high streets aren’t dying – although of course they are. These pop up shops are usually local artists flogging their work, which I admit is nice, but on the other hand, after a long day, few Londoners go home thinking’ if only I can get a graphic representation of the Queen as a chimpanzee playing the banjo locally’.
The other madder idea is to put plastic coverings on the empty shop fronts. In other words, either stick ugly advertising for Mcdonald’s or some other corporate monster that destroys high streets (no sense of irony these councillors) or in some cases, pretend shops. Yes really. Pretend shops! They look like a flower shop or a grocery shop, but they’re not real! It’s great to watch bemused locals trying to walk in. Bang. They bounce off the locked door and then realise it’s just a big graphic poster with a 3D effect. Seriously, they are out there! You couldn’t make it up really. But it is the London way. We are innovators.
But seriously. Do we care about being ripped off over the Olympics? Is the Mayor going to make the slightest bit of difference to anything? And will it stop us enjoying the summer? No. It’s just a London thing.
