Olympic's what's the benefit

With the London Olympics media noise having been gradually heating up over the last year, the proximity to the actual event, seems to have bought the media babble up to simmer, prior to boiling over as the inevitable hysteria of the games themselves.

I'm just thinking back to the previous Olympics, to compare the hype and smokescreen erected around China in which, broadcasters notably the BBC played down the human rights abuses in the host country as hundreds of its staff (400+) enjoyed the trip of lifetime courtesy of us taxpayers. Of course you cannot compare the UK (while it still exists) with the blatant human rights abuses of China,  although it's clear to me that with recent revelations about a clearly criminal and widespread corruption in the British government, media and police, we cannot be too sniffy.

Its becoming clearer by the day, that while long term benefits may well be the legacy of the 2012, I cannot help but think, that during the short time, of the games on a personal level for me, those who live or work in London, we're looking at potentially weeks of misery and by this I don't refer to the endless product of BBC bods (700+) camped around Stratford and Hackney but disruption to work as London is subject to lock down by the Olympic authorities or whatever you might call them, as the rich and powerful are given preference of the millions paying for this event.

The Telegraph carries a story, that thousands of Civil Servants are to be allowed to work from home during the Olympics, good for them, a measure you which shows how difficult, life is going to be in the capital, still I'm sure no one will notice the difference, however since I'm further down the food chain, I'm hearing that much work in London is going on hold, which is alright if you happen to be in the public sector, however those of us paid for actual hours worked this summer, this has a potential to be quite grim.

On a personal level, to date the Olympics has been beneficial, early on I had a few days work, around Stratford while a large industrial area was reduced to rubble, watching factories and offices, which in some cases looked new, being destroyed, the thought occurred, how those whose work place had been demolished would earn a living, in the lead up to a month of prosperity in the summer of 2012. Since that time most of the infrastucture projects I've worked on have had some linkage with the Olympics.

Having worked around, the Olympic site, you cannot help but notice that the many billions of our money sloshing around the site have yet to leak out into the local economy, probably the main legacy of the Olympics will be the Westfield shopping centre in Stratford, something which would probably have been viable without all the games malarkey. Certainly the bits of Hackney I've seen have yet to be gentrified, resembling the sort of dark foreboding scenery which features in gritty crime drama.

I'll be interested to see the how television coverage of the Olympics, packages images of the facilities during the games,  I'm thinking of those aerial shots you generally get with a camera panning out from the Stadium, I understand the Chinese faked up their Olympic fireworks with computer generated graphics, I just wonder if BBC will do something similar, perhaps they could paint over the shabby urban housing, concrete works, scrapyard's and industry with a green and lush landscape.

Finally I just wonder how we've done here in Kent, are we getting any business from all this, having come across this news item courtesy of AFP it appears the Pas-de-Calais region is doing alright having spent a few million euro's on sports facilities.