Visa for the Olympic Games Tickets

You'll need a visa to get in!

Those who want to come to the 2012 Olympic Games and live abroad may well need a visa to get into Britain. Fair do's, really. However, what is not fair is that Visa, the credit/debit card operator, which has become a sponsor of the games, is dictating which credit cards you can use. Theirs! And theirs alone, it seems.

I spotted a group on Facebook calling itself  "Olympic Visa Boycott". They are campaigning for a change to sponsorship arrangements

"If you want to go to the London Olympics in 2012, you won't be able to buy tickets using any credit or debit card other than Visa. While you're there, you won't be able to use any other card to pay for food, souvenirs, etc.


The reason for this is that Visa is one of the main Olympic sponsors, and has done a deal to exclude other card handlers from anything related to the Olympics.


We believe this is unfair, unreasonable and entirely unjustifiable. There's nothing wrong with commercial sponsorship of sporting events whereby the sponsor gets exposure of their brand in return for the organiser getting money. But sponsors should not be able to dictate what the fans can and cannot do. Whether it's the credit card you use, the clothes you wear or the food you eat, the sponsors have no moral right to override your choice."

Like them, I'm perfectly happy in a commercial world for companies to sponsor people, games, events, etc. But to put people to the inconvenience of not being able to use a credit/debit card simply because it is a competitor's is simply wrong. It is moral blackmail. This happened in South Africa with the football World Cup with assorted merchandisers. It is an insidious, invidious thing!

I believe in free enterprise. My blog is here so I can say things against covert corporate sleaze and wrongdoing, often done in total opposition to free enterprise and entrepreneurship. This action is anti-competitive, it is undemocratic too. Why? Because Visa are denying choice in the market place. In order to purchase merchandise at the event, you have to have either cash about your person or a Visa card of some sorts. If you dare to have a MasterCard on you, do the remnants of the Stasi get overtime bonuses whilst they root out the offending cards?

Lord Coe should come clean now. Is this what we want in a sporting venue? Anti-competitive, self-interested monopolising of commercial activity by secret agreement!


Visa had a glitch!

John Major's Olympic long termism!

It is the long held view by continental Europeans that the UK suffers from short-termism with respect to business planning and civic development. Most governments in Britain don't see past a ten year period. Mostly, I think, this is because, like Blair and Thatcher, they do ten years and the grey-suited men get restless. The grey suits seem only keen to let Buggins get his turn. The rest of us have to make do.

Once in a while a bit of strategic thinking breaks through. John Major, no doubt prompted by the likes of Lords Coe and Moynihan, thought that the only way to win big at the Olympics was to INVEST LONG TERM! Wow! Did he do right or not? I'd say he did. He arranged for part of the Lottery money to go to sport, and the rest is history as they say.

Why not do the same (long term strategy) for the railways, housing, retail, the lot. Then we would know what was happening 25 years ahead. A continental friend told me recently that the UK was "crap at project management". Maybe she's right. After all, according to the radio this morning we as a country are borrowing more in real terms than in 1945! Any more of this and the PM will be printing ration books and sounding all sombre.

So, let's have a bit more of the Olympic winning streak in business and government, and a little less of the doom and gloom.

Chinese cheating

Made in China now includes fakes and faking. The news that the Olympic organisers decided to use the voice of a young girl deemed to be "unattractive" but put a "pretty" girl before the audience to mime the song is very distasteful. The musical director Chen Qigang said that "the reason for this is that we must put our country's interest first" which implies that only beautiful people can go on TV.

Does Mr Chen think that anybody outside China would have thought "blimey, what an unattractive little girl!" as they sat glued to the spectacle before them. He must be mad, because nobody would have thought other than "what a lovely voice" or something similar. All he has done is make China look petty and pernickety and rather nasty. And did he think that this would be kept quiet for long? Not whilst the Olympics are on, as all manner of news is moving around.

Chinese cheating indeed!

Who are the Chinese goons in blue?

Nobody seems prepared to say who the guys in blue are who "protect" the Olympic torch. The word is that they are Chinese secret service personnel. The IOC has become dumbstruck, the Foreign Office won't say, and the British Government has gone mute. Only the Metropolitan Police gave an oblique reference to their status, by saying they had "no executive authority" whilst in London. But why are these blue-suited thugs running with the torch in the first place?

Swedish IOC member Gunilla Lindberg has said, "using the torch this way is almost a crime. This is the property of the IOC, it is not a Chinese torch." No it is not. And this marathon torch running thing is not even an Olympic tradition, as has been touted. It was started by Adolf Hitler as a wheeze to promote the 1936 Berlin games. He got the runners to skip through his Germanic possessions to show off what he thought was Arian athletic prowess!

Now the IOC is debating whether to hold further torch relays. If they do, I suggest they just keep them to involving athletes only, and keep celebrities out of it, politicians well away from it, and secret service types should not be involved at all!

This from Reuters shows the boys in blue competing with some other boys in blue!

Vile Chinese reaction to London protests!

The vile Chinese government, which delights in trampling on free speech, starving girl babies to death, and generally acting in a pretty sub-human manner, offers up a traditional comment! It says that the demonstrations in London were uncalled for. Beijing denounced the "tiny number of Tibet independence elements" who disrupted the torch relay through London yesterday. "We strongly condemn this vile behaviour," an official said. Could this official explain what he defines as behaviour beyond his description of vile?

The Chinese government promised the Olympic bigwigs that they would clean up their act if they got the Games. There appears to be precious little in the way of decent behaviour coming into the hearts and minds of the Chinese politburo types.

I'm glad to see that the International Olympic Committee is putting pressure on the Chinese to open up the Internet during the run-up to the games and during them. What sort of pressure they'll be getting, I'm not sure, but my devious mind suddenly thinks of Chinese burns. Now I mustn't slip into tit-for-tat!

This whole Tibetan freedom issue will continue until Tibet is free. China have either to live with world hostility or just get round a peace-talks table. It's up to them.

London Olympic relay runs into Tibetan protests!

The Chinese automatons running alongside the Olympic flame looked more cheesed off than worried. Demonstrators have been out in force in London trying to promote awareness of Chinese brutality in Tibet.

My take on this is that the Chinese have no business in Tibet. It's not their country! Tibetans are not Chinese and the Chinese are not Tibetans. On top of that, there is a total lack of democratic accountability. People are being abused, culturally isolated, and generally being "controlled".

I have heard it said that the Olympics should not be about politics, and that would be fair enough if we lived in a world where everyone was able to live without torture and terror. However, the Tibetans are not so free and easy. China may not like this but they are going to have to live with it. Some of us can't stomach what they are currently serving up!

We in Britain, just as in other Western countries, have to consider every day what we are buying. You can't go into Argos now without buying something "Made in China". I reckon they've got 100% made there! The same goes for loads of other retailers. If we buy stuff from China, are we to put our consciences in a box by the door? I would hope not!

China can't try to manipulate the world's economy without those on the receiving end having thoughts about what's going on. Despotic and undemocratic regimes are going to get more of the spotlight put on them. Better those spotlights are not made in China, but their dark corners are now being exposed to the light!