The terminal dozen

Verity

I absolutely cannot wait for the the many humiliating failures that will be attendant on the 2012 Olympics.

I just can't wait! With any luck, London will finish off the Olympics for good.

Water

That equals "more than 900 bags a day"!

ACT

Self-obsessed, perspective-free balls, that 'national humiliation' tosh. Or to put that a marginally more polite way - noticed what's been happening in Dublin over the last fews days? I'm guessing not. It's been a damn site worse than the inconvenience suffered at T5 - *and* it's happened in a country, which as it delights in reminding us, supposedly has a higher standard of living these days than we do. No one, but no one, other than hacks and the directly afflicted, cares about the SNAFUs modern life in invariably prone to. We are certainly not worse than anywhere else in this respect, and for what it's worth, most people who have to travel would guess we're actually slightly better than most.

Verity

ACT - What a pathetic and needy post! I have never heard of a daily, wholesale loss of luggage in any airport in the United States. Or France. Or Mexico.

In Singapore - which has a vast airport as it's the financial capital of South East Asia? Are you kidding? Tokyo? No ... Of course, in Asia, they have the sense of shame working for them. Screwing up would bring terrible shame on their entire family. In Britain, they just don't care. Or they're jokey and laugh it off like a used car salesmen caught out in a lie.

You are not "slightly better than most", Act. You're worse. And shabbier in the way you handle mistakes.

The Olympics is going to be a laugh fest on a monster scale. The taxpayers may as well getsome entertainment for their money.

dearieme

There are those who enjoy referring to the London Olympics of 2013. Optimists.

Trumpeter Lanfried

Trouble is, Verity, the Tories will be in power when the Olypics bill arrives, so they will take some of the flack; deservedly so, in fact, since they supported this ludicrous beano.

Tim Calvert

Please read this
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/3739715.stm

Now tell me that we can't do Le Grand Projet as well as the French.

Fred

Unfortunately this also means that Cameron and Co will need years to fix this. We and they will suffer many more failures until the decade of lying spin and excuses for failure are eradicated.

The Happy Carbon Footprint

Dearie Me - Ha ha ha ha!

Trumpeter - If Dave had any guts, which he hasn't, he would cancel the Olympics and save tens of billions for the London taxpayer. It takes a city around 30-40 years to pay for this big celebration of absolutely nothing. In other words they're putting their grandchildren in debt.

Who wants the Olympics?

No one except loony egomanic, steroid-laden, self-important athletes and the Olympics committe - they of the charming gold polyester jackets. And the builders of stadia, etc., which will have cost overruns of around 300%. Frankly, it's all a bit East European under the Soviets for my taste.

Cancel it now. If Boris said he was not going to be bound by a bad decision made by his predessor,everyone would heave a sigh of relief. Shame for Tony 'n' Cher,of course, who were looking forward to being bathed in international glory on the platform, but those are the breaks.

Hysteria

um - let's not wish for a bad result eh chaps?

And actually we showed in the Manchester Commonwealth games that actual we do this sort of thing pretty well.

Max Kaye

Let's hope something 'interesting' (as in the Chinese curse) happens to derail the Beijing Olympics and cancel the London Games.

Photo-reportage of a Max Mosely-hosted party for the IOC, perhaps?

EyeSee

I think the reason that things go wrong so regularly these days is that Blair introduced a 'me' generation. Now Thatcher was accused of having been responsible for people being selfish, but in fact she merely empowered those that wanted to, to make something of themselves. Blair is very different and when PM always pushed the self centred agenda. People notice and copy. Failing companies give massive salaries and bonuses to the executives responsible for the mess, politicians feather their nest and cannot be bothered to do the job they are paid for. New Labour have relentlessly promoted the idea of self importance in a way that suggests no personal responsibility; we are all victims. It is with such pathetic and weak rubbish that this country has been brought to the corrupt mess that Mr Property-Buyer always inteded. He certainly only ever cared for what he got out of it (as he said to a member of the public when critical of him, 'why should I care about you? You wont vote for me' Is that what a PM is for?).

Yann

Perhaps the expected and entirely predictable London 2012 cock-up won't matter that much. After all the Olympics is but a series of minority sports promoted for reasons having nothing to do with sport by an intrinsically corrupt body of international freeloaders, whereas the T5 mess directly and indirectly affects millions of ordinary people going about their normal lives. There is nothing normal about the Olympics...

Verity

Well said, Yann!

Wise words.