The London [insert sponsors name here] Olympic Games

After 7 years of “thorough” preparation, the London Olympics are finally upon us. With the eyes of the world watching, the pressure is on to deliver. In order to oblige, the British government has ploughed around 10 billion pounds of public money in to the games, but has at the same time axed thousands of jobs, destroyed pensions, cut funding in health and education, and is ironically spending less on grass root sports, effectively laughing in the face of the Olympics’ "lasting legacy". However, it’s claimed that in return it will encourage investment in to the country, and stimulate our lagging economy, or in other words, the spending of tax payers’ money will result in large private companies making more money, and will hopefully make so much, that in order to make any more they will be forced to appoint more staff and invest, and so the crumbs from the table are shared.

When first conceived by Frenchman Pierre de Coubertin, the Olympic Games aimed to unite the world through sport, promoting peace and harmony.  However, these ideals appear to have been sold to the highest bidder, with anybody promoting the Olympics, that hasn’t paid for the privilege, being swiftly removed by the Gestapo. Shamefully, in a country full of obese children, with a health care system already at breaking point, the faces of the world’s biggest sporting event are McDonald’s and Coca-Cola, along with a host of other uber-ethical  brands such as Dow Chemical, and BP.

With an estimated 4 billion people tuning in to watch the opening ceremony, almost 30 million pounds has been spent on Danny Boyle’s “green and pleasant land”, which effectively appears to be Craggy Island’s Fun Land, complete with The Crane Of Death, Spider Baby, and the Tunnel Of Goats. Yet, despite billions watching at home, the opening ceremony has struggled to sell out, mainly due to ridiculously high prices being charged for tickets, ensuring the event is reserved for the sponsors and the very rich. Fortunately, the stadium won’t be peppered with areas of empty plastic seats, as the spare tickets are being given to soldiers. A nice gesture, although they will have to select soldiers that aren’t busy filling in for the hopelessly incompetent G4S.

However, beneath all the money and hype, the essence of the Olympics is still there, the sport. Hopefully, London 2012 will prove to be both thrilling and exciting, with Great Britain surpassing their achievements 4 years ago in Beijing, and hopefully pillocks will refrain from calling us “Team GB”, we’re not Yanks, and we are not a brand, we are a country. Stop putting a fucking dollar sign in front of everything.