Rod Speed wrote:
John Williamson wrote
Rod Speed wrote
Brian Gaff wrote

I think despite the critics, people are telling me that the
organisation of the Olympics has been very good so far

Like hell they are on the number of empty seats alone.

Seats which were "sold" by the organisers (as required by their
contract) to the OIC and various sports federations.

Another bare faced lie.

Then you obviously think that the BBC, the IOC and LOCOG are all lying.

The provision is in the original bid documents, just as they were for
the Sydney Games in 2000.

Complete and utter shambles in fact.

Far from it.

Complete and utter shambles in fact.

Even the press here have been impressed by the organisation of the
Games, and all it takes for The Sun to have a go is a hint that
something *might* have the possibility of going slightly wrong...

Of course there has been the odd breakdown on the underground,

Shouldn’t have happened if the system had been designed right.

(1) The underground was never "designed" as a unit,

Irrelevant to whether it would have happened
if the particular bits had been designed right.

Like the Sydney equivalent?

http://www.abc.net.au/7.30/stories/s162615.htm

You have a short memory, don't you?

(It's a link to a story about the problematic rail transport for the
Sydney Games in 2000)

Another:-

http://partners.nytimes.com/library/...oly-rails.html

Bear in mind that the Sydney system is less than a quarter of the size
of the London Underground, was carrying less than a fifth of the
passenger load and still didn't get fixed in time... After four days, we
had already passed the total passenger numbers for the Sydney Olympic
and Paralympic Games.

(2) It is better than 99.9% reliable,

Pity other rail systems had no failures at all during their olympics.

Short memory you've got there, or weren't you alive during the Sydney
Games? They had rail and bus problem on most days.

I could, no doubt, come up with similar stories about *every* Olympics
or other major event.

which is pretty good, given the average age of its parts,

The fools running that system should have considered that
and fixed what problems there were before the olympics.

Is speechless (Knowing very well that *all* public transport systems
break down in some way every single day).

(3) There are enough buses on standby to cover any public transport
breakdowns within very tight schedules. Which is why a lot of bus and
coach drivers are being paid loadsamoney to sit round all day waiting
for a phone call...

Still a complete and utter abortion.

Described by at least one person I know who has been there as "London
Transport at its best", when he walked out of the Stadium to the nearest
railway station after the event he was watching and got straight onto a
train, which got him to his destination on time eactly as expected. Just
like 99.9% of the others.

The only problem that's made the headlines here was when a coach driver
from out of town got lost, and took too long to get a group of American
athletes to their accommodation. That's thirty or forty passengers out
of about three million so far with a minor problem.

--
Tciao for Now!

John.