I’m not the most sporty person in the world, and as such I’ve tended to keep my mouth shut about the ever escalating costs of the London Olympics lest I be dismissed as a killjoy. But the unveiling of their new logo today does suggest that collective insanity has broken out amongst the Olympics planners.
I’m hazarding a guess here, but I suspect that logo will be about as long lived and affectionately remembered as the one for Consignia (which for anyone who might have blinked in 2002 was the name that the Royal Mail were intent on calling themselves until they realised they were about to commit hari-kiri). Indeed, panic measures like this suggest that management is in panic mode. The message I’ve learned from the news today is that the London Olympics are in even deeper doo-doo than I thought they were.
Not one penny of this £400,000 will be spent on sport facilities or regenerating poor parts of London. It may be a churlish thing to point out, but that is how the vast expenditure of the Olympics has always been sold to us.
To me, the logo looks like an abstract drawing of an explosion, something rather more redolent of the events of 7 July 2005 rather than 6 July 2005. And, far from ‘yoof’ it looks like something you would have found in Smash Hits circa 1984. Last thing I knew, Andrew Ridgley wasn’t cutting edge, but then again I don’t get Lily Allen either. Maybe we should get Duran Duran to do the Olympic theme, and have the ceremony opened by Roland Rat.
It’s dreadful. I hope that the BBC story that merely reprints the effervescent quotes of various high-ups – and various nonsense about how magically this new brand sums up London – will soon include some criticism of it. 84% of people voting in their own poll hate it.
On the other hand, it’s aimed at young people, so maybe the rest of us just don’t understand it.
If that’s yoof, then bring back DLT on Radio 1!
My heart sank when I heard we had bagged the Olympics, well before I learned of spiralling costs. What particularly irks me is the prevalent assumption that having the Olympics is just the bestest possible thing that could have happened to London. To think that we’ve got five more years of this build up before the great drug taking festival begins. And what kind of person walks taller just because Britain has gained some gold medals? It’s so childish – my country can run faster than your country! Arseholes like Seb Coe talk about their “achievements†as if they had actually done something useful, instead of just running round in circles. What’s the big hurry anyway? Besides, I could beat Seb easily on my bike. Well, maybe I’d need my car.
Isn’t it odd the way that sport is one of the last things we’re allowed to be any good at? So we hear about “elite athletes†and “elite swimmers,†whose talents must be developed to the full as a matter of urgent priority; but rarely do we hear of “elite musicians†or “elite engineers,†say. But then again, I guess that would be, well, elitist.
> Maybe we should get Duran Duran to do the Olympic theme
If that was intended to be satire, it’s hopelessly outclassed by reality – you obviously didn’t notice St Tony of Hadley singing ‘Gold’ in Trafalgar Square before the multitudes on the day they announced the blasted things were coming to London.
Personally I believe that any country forced to host them should be exempt for the next 100 years.
Seb Coe has been drinking his ad agency’s Kool Aid. So much emphasis on a freakin’ logo, when the actual ‘brand’ of the Olympics is being determined by the committee’s behavior and thieving ways. What a bunch of numbskulls.
It’s already been described in several places as ‘Lisa Simpson giving oral stimulation’
You so didn’t want to know that, but now you have, you won’t be able to see the logo any other way.