From the Daily Mail (caveat lector), remarked upon by Ambush Predator:
More than 250 miles of road are to be reserved for VIPs during the London Olympics.
Up to 80,000 officials, sponsors, politicians and athletes will have congestion-free lanes in London and at other venues.
Ordinary motorists face fines if they stray on to the reserved routes, which include sections of the M25. Challenging the fines could lead to a penalty of up to £5,000.
Sitting beside me on the desk is an OS 25K map of Portland, in the harbour of which I gather the Olympic sailing events are to be held, and which is, I hear, already being bulldozed to make way for yet another lightly-built but desperately expensive ‘Olympic village’. We are thinking of saving up some petrol-money and visiting the place (where some of my family used to live, and of which my grandfather was particularly fond) before it is completely ruined.
There seems to be no doubt that vast sums of money borrowed from our distant descendants will be spent on trying to compete with the USA and China in the matter of gross and tasteless media-circuses irrelevant to the declared purpose of the event.
The reserved lanes, once established, unlike the genuine Hollywood cardboard and tinsel of which the rest of the event is made, will never be removed.
Amateur sport is a good thing (vide Sir Arthur Conan Doyle). Unfortunately the only amateurs one will find at the Olympics are some of the athletes.
My earlier information was that said athletes will not be allowed to use the reserved lanes but will be transported to and fro in minubuses among the common people.
I am not accustomed to the preaching of violent revolution on this blog but the whole business of the Olympics makes me feel like conducting a séance in order to summon up the ghost of Nestor Makhno, who would certainly have known how to deal with it.
