Friday 20 July 2012

Olympics. A Corporate Farce.

I'm getting sick and tired of hearing about this company or that company is sponsoring the London Olympics.
I heard this morning that in the immediate vicinity of Olympic venues, if you run out of cash, and with the extortionate prices at the food stalls, that is a distinct possibility, only visa company ATM's will be available. No other cards will be accepted. Also, if you want to buy a bag of chips (fries) on their own, you can only do this from MacDonald's. Other stalls can sell chips but, only if accompanied with other foodstuffs, ie fish, burger etc. Advertisers have also overstepped the mark. It is an offence to use certain words and phrases to advertise products. For instance if charity shops want to place the Olympic five rings in the window of their shops, they could be prosecuted. Words like gold, silver, bronze, Olympics, Games, Summer, 2012,there are others but I think the words I have shown give an idea as to the level of censorship. This is actually an act of Parliament and convicted offenders can be fined up to a total of £20,000. What kind of a country do we live in when a company can decide what we can and cannot show in our shops and restaurant's?
I am disgusted with the level of restrictions that have happened around this Olympics. The company that won the contract for games security, G4S have made a complete mess of it. It turns out that G4S lost the contract for security at the EU Parliament in April of this year and have effectively been blacklisted by the EU. The reason being that they were found to have engaged in illegal activities in Israel.
Thankfully I will not be attending any of the games events but I hope they go off smoothly.

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