Results tagged “Government” from Birmingham Mail - Nathan Jolly

'The biggest hurdle seems to be the cost'

The government released hundreds of millions of pounds of contingency funds last week to keep work on the London Olympic 2012 venues on track amid a worsening credit crunch.

Some people have welcomed the Olympics with open arms and some have said that Britain and London has enough to deal with without the burden of hosting the games in 2012.

But, even though it's already going ahead anyway, some people are still dubious as to whether it was the right decision to make.

And while we think that, if China can organise a fortnight of running and jumping - we can too, no one really likes the idea of Lord Sir Pope Archbishop Earl Duke King His-Royal-Highness Seb Coe as chairman of the Olympic Games Committee.

Some people really like the Olympics; they like the idea of training, dedication and the glory of winning medals - a way of getting people involved in something national, and it supposedly gets young people off the street where they put holes in each other, and into an event where they can burn off a little steam and have a purpose at the same time.

All very good.

While I'm not really a fan of sport (or movement, for that matter) and while running is useful if you're late for the train, or fun if you're aged 7, I may find it difficult to be enthusiastic about the Olympics.

But whether you like it or not, it's there.

And the biggest hurdle seems to be the cost.

With a budget running up to nearly £10billion, it could easily be argued that quite a few baby incubators could have been bought, with enough left over to set up a whale sanctuary, and shove a new hip into every pensioner in the land.

It has been suggested that the National Lottery start to fund even more towards the Games, instead of funding schemes like Age Concern's £40,000, for a project called Meals on Wheels for Gluten-Free Birds.

And another problem is that, for some reason, the notion of sport has somehow become the business of government.

The moment when a sports competition got into the hands of those who built the Millennium Dome, attempt to run the NHS, allow our transport system to look like it's been designed by a toddler with a crayon, set up the ever-so successful Child Support Agency, took 21st Century Britain into war and couldn't balance the books at a primary school tombola, seemed to pass everyone's notice.

The new stadiums and set designs are said to symbolise modern Britain. Even the public, street viewing of the torch handover in East London was cancelled in London because a teenager got stabbed.

So if we jump forward to the summer of 2012, to the opening ceremony of the London Games, what are we likely to find? A perfect, ethnic blend of school children prancing about in the half-finished stadium wearing hard hats and protective goggles just in case they get exposed, in some way, to the Olympic flame.

And there will be no swimming events just in case someone drowns or slips on wet tiles. And no javelin events because you could have someone's eye out with one of those things.

We may have to see who can get a gold in crocheting or cross-stitching - making sure everyone wears metal gloves so they don't prick themselves on the needles.

And don't be surprised if, in four years' time, the Olympic torch is carried into that half-finished stadium in East London by Kerry Katona, following a 50-gun salute from the Wembley Crazee Killaz drive-by shooting posse, and a concert by Boy George.

The best idea would be to have a really cheap Olympic Games that's all crammed into one stadium in one day.

Then we can spend nearly the full £10billion on the most important part of the Games.

The fireworks.

'We may soon be in an age where bartering and trading posts will replace currency'

Welcome to 2009. Broken windows. Graffiti. A sinister wind rattling past the boarded shopfronts. Children eating sloppy handfuls of scraps from the bottom of dustbins in order to survive. No money. No food. No Woolworths.

The country could do what every problem is solved by nowadays: turning itself off and then turning back on again.

They say that cutting back is the only way we're going to be surviving 2009. Maybe a small amount of cannibalism. But cutting back is prominent.

But, it would seem that 2009 is actually set to be a good year. Why? Not because everyone's going to lose their jobs and have to eat their fingers and toes to stay alive, but because - with something collective to worry about - there should be less emphasis on the silly little things that don't matter quite as much.

Realising that their houses are worth about as much as a few grains of sugar and setting them alight to stay warm; people will probably start forgetting about whether the bananas they buy are organic, carbon-neutral, nuclear-free, and personally blessed by Jamie Oliver in a pesticide-liberated wind farm just north of Rio De Janeiro.

After all, during the great depression of the early 1900s and two World Wars, there were no loonies chaining themselves to a fence demanding we save the whales and polar bears, and prevent new roads from being built in case vehicles crush any slugs or ants.

We can only hope that being united by universal financial demise will mean there will be less time and money spent on the unimportant.

In 2008, while the banks collapsed, everyone's money went up in smoke and the government were in their bunkers creating a 10-week crash course on how to change a light bulb safely; everyone let them get away with it because they were too distracted by Madonna's divorce or which coloured bin they needed to put their plastic bottles in.

And the environmental protesters seemed more bothered about the greenhouse gas emissions coming from the back of an Army tank as opposed to the high-explosive tank rounds at the front killing women and children in collateral damage.

Therefore, in 2009, with everyone frying their goldfish for extra protein and shopkeepers offering to massage your feet if they thought there was even half a chance of you buying a Twix, there should be no news of any composting of potato peelings or a celebrity's nose or breast dropping off.

We may soon be in an age where bartering and trading posts will replace currency.

So, can we expect a year when government efforts and money are directed in the way of something useful?

No.

It seems, this year, that Britain's last morsel of common sense has joined Woolworths, Eldorado and Spangles as things of the past.

Enter Change4Life: the government's £75million initiative that's going to turn Britain in to a slim, healthy nation. The new adverts say "Move! Live!"

Supposedly, the adverts in 2010 are going to suggest that we "Blink!" and "Breath!" - just in case the public, with hydrogenated blubber exploding their brain cells, may forget to do anything for themselves.

Because, of course, they think the public, without their intervention, are going to die with a tripplebypassburger and fries hanging out their mouth while reading the Daily Star.

That's probably why the new initiative's has a "4" instead of "four" - because they think the dense public that they govern are having trouble with words.

Or, it may be so fat kidz on da street will understand it and start dodging bullets while jogging in the local park instead of playing on PlayStations.