I saw the Olympic flame today. The pomp and ceremony attached to it, the sponsors and not very large crowds who waved as it went by. As an event I thought it mildly uneventful. I wondered really was this an Olympic flame? I thought in all reason it could not be, it was a flame which represents the Olympics, but not an Olympic flame. It's fuelled by butane or some other gas. Whatever it runs on is the substance of the flame. A truly Olympic flame would be fuelled by a common material to Greece. Olive wood, olive oil or some other substance. I saw an imaginary discussion with people behind the scene and what they did when the flame went out just-like-that with no explanation. In the Tower where King Henry's ex wives had stayed. A beefeater on standby pulling out a lighter he had tucked in with a packet of ciggies from a hidden pocket, then lighted it up afresh for the next morning. I suppressed my inner urge to get a bucket of water and throw it at the thing, the event and all the pomp. All of which being part of the 9.3 billion pounds it cost. Big Momma said to me in her own insight, "we have money for the Olympics but we can't buy a house for the homeless in London." She's right as well. Quite a few houses could of been built with this amount of money, quite a few people sheltered. How difficult it was not to swing a bucket over it, full of water, but probably a fire hose would of been better.
Every moment I think about the Olympics and the cost of it to the UK bile boils up. I know I should just get on with life and let go. Yet can't help this irrational mood. Or it could be it is not at all irrational. Not at all stupid to ask questions like why are so few people actually going to see the events live? Why have sponsors been allowed to completely hijack the event and hold London to ransom? Why will every Londoner continue to pay for this event over the coming years? And certainly in a recession could this money of been spent better elsewhere? Defo on this point, big defo. Even a shower in the strongest acid known to science would barely scrape the surface of Olympic question and discontent, which will never be answered because it can not be clearly justified. Shut up!!!!!!
Otherwise the day has been fine. Sun came out for a while and warmed everybody up. Birds tweeted in happiness of the weather change. Then I met Layabout Lad for lunch and he told me about his job working at a Cinema. It's his first real job for which he gets paid real money. At minimum wage of course. He is enjoying the work but finds he is in an ethnic minority, he's a white male. He tells me of his experiences and how some of them have been pretty challenging. How he has dealt with them and grown. It is pretty amazing to see him this happy. It's not a job I can see him doing for longer than six months at most, he would of out grown it and hopefully will move on. The cinema is hectic and it seems training and support for new starters is near non existent. Yet he continues and I'm happy for him because he is happy. If he saw the Olympic flame and thought like I have then he'd probably have something to moan about as well. For now he'll just take a free drink from the sponsors, well sponsors are good for some things, but not a lot others.
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