And so to the Olympic Game: the requirements and the do’s and don’ts of the IOC: if you know all this don’t bother to read any further. If you’re intrigued, okay. If not, then again, don’t bother.
According to contract London is required to provide 40000 room bookings for the entire games. These are for the IOC committee, staff and officials. The committee of course demand five star accommodation, only the very best for them. These best rooms number 1800. No accommodation is reserved for spectators of course. They would be lucky to find a hotel with vacancies within a fifty mile radius of the games.
An entire village is built for the participants at a cost of £325million. This will include a flower and gift shop and a dance cafe where the athletes can relax.
500 air-conditioned limousines are required whose drivers must wear uniforms and hats and the IOC is to have 250 miles of so-called ‘Zil Lanes’ traffic free passage. They will stretch from London to Weymouth where the sailing games are to be held.
There are evidently pages and pages about the employment of housekeepers for the athletes and these edicts are called the ‘Olympic technical manuals.’
During the games normal London life must be subordinated to the edicts of the IOC. The IOC is paranoid about what it calls ‘ambush marketing.’ That is for any product for which no enormous amount of money has been or will be paid to the IOC. Candidate cities must obtain control of all billboard advertising, city transport, airport advertising etc., for the duration of the games and one month before. Customs officers and police must ‘co-operate’ in taking action against unapproved Olympics advertising and the confiscation of non-official goods! (As though the police wouldn’t have enough to do and is this really legal?).
Spectators at the games must not wear clothing or accessories with commercial messages and no athlete or other participant can wear any clothing on which the manufacturer’s name takes up more than ten percent of the surface area or 12 square centimetres. There is even a half-hearted attempt to control the skies and ‘Brand protection teams will conduct surveillance and will attempt to confiscate any infringing ambush material both inside and outside the venue so woe betide any poor shopkeeper who is inadvertently advertising something outside his shop. Some of the teams will be accompanied by an attorney in case it is necessary to serve any court documents! And they must have a police officer within the team in case it is necessary to enforce an order. Hey hey hey! Is this petty dictatorship or what? All signs must be in both English and French.
For every ceremony the Olympic flag must be more prominent than the union flag and the Queen will have to acquiesce to the IOC’s demands for an Olympic ceremony and royal reception the day before the games officially open. It is a matter of course that IOC members are introduced to the head of state after which they will all watch ‘an artistic programme reflecting local traditions or culture.’ In the case of the United kingdom, I suggest a football match complete with hooligans, a darts match, a curry house competition, bingo, Morris dancing and teenage girls getting sloshed out of their minds and puking all over the venue. Why, oh why didn’t they let the French have it? If Paris had got it would signs be in French and English? Or just French?