Olympic Torch

Me and matt stumbled across it's arrival in oxford street today (we originally went to find a place that I need to go to on Tuesday for work); didnt click as to why there were so many policebikes, cyclists and vans at first! Thought there was an accident but then matt mentioned that the olympic torch was arriving.

It wasn't hugely exciting, but cool to see. Esp the skill of the policebikes zooming up and down the road! Oh, and the sugababes were on the olympic torch bus too





Maria

Amazing what you bump into on Oxford Street - Isaac and I found Vixis trying to restrain SoulKiss at the chocolate cake counter in John Lewis' cafe yesterday.

We were contemplating joining in the protests today, but it was snowing and staying in bed seemed like a much better prosepct. mind you, judging from the media coverage, the Tibet liberators seemed to manage very well without us!

[Ch00]

I think its quite shameful that these protesters were allowed to more or less ruin the whole event. From the TV clips I saw you couldn’t see the flame for the amount of guards and Police officers around them.

What’s meant to be an international joining of the world’s greatest athletes to champion sport turned out as a massive game of rugby where people seemed intend on getting to the torch.

I will be totally honest and put my hand up to not knowing the full facts on the China/Tibet events but I think it should have been a nice day for sport that has been ruined bearing in mind that we are hosting the next games.

Ch00

i heard some reporter say that the protesters want Britain to boycott the Olympics due to China's stance on Tibet, because and I quote "the Olympics are political"..............



...........What effin planet are you on. I thought the Olympics was about bringing all nations together to compete at sport irregardless of World Politics!

Originally Posted by DanDare

i heard some reporter say that the protesters want Britain to boycott the Olympics due to China's stance on Tibet, because and I quote "the Olympics are political"..............



...........What effin planet are you on. I thought the Olympics was about bringing all nations together to compete at sport irregardless of World Politics!

But the protesters say that China is intending to use the Olympics to show how wonderful they are. I have no idea whether they are or aren't.

China executes more people than the rest of the world put together. It bangs up dissidents. If we were in China, this forum with all its criticism of the Government would not be tolerated, it would be closed down, and John and the mod team would be similarly banged up for allowing it. There is no free press. There is no freedom of religion. You cannot say what you like. There are no free elections. Their record of repression in Tibet is disgraceful. And their record on their own people is similarly hideous. Tiananmen Square, anyone?

I think that people have a right to comment on these things. If it means pointing out that beside the Olympic spectacle there is a less pleasant side to life in the Peoples' Republic of China, then so be it.

[northwind]

It's absurd to say it's not political- it's already been massively politicised in china, it's all very well to say "Oh, we're supporting the games not the regime" but that's not how it's being shown in China. We're giving them a huge propoganda tool. They should never have been given the games in the first place...

[ethariel]

Indeed with China's human rights issues passing them the slot to host the olympics was an awesome error on the part of the IOA.

Almost as bad as giving the next slot to London (but don't get me started on that).

[yorkie_chris]

Originally Posted by Ch00

I think its quite shameful that these protesters were allowed to more or less ruin the whole event.

Originally Posted by Ed

But the protesters say that China is intending to use the Olympics to show how wonderful they are. I have no idea whether they are or aren't.

Well IMO the government have totally misread the chinese, they've tried to appease the chinese by not boycotting the olympics a la US boycott of moscow olympics. Then they've allowed these protests, which according to someone on BBC news shows us to be a "tolerant democracy" The chinese won't see this as tolerance, they'll see it as weakness. Giving us no points with them at all, Browns carefully controlled PR of not touching the torch will go down even worse.

The government have also shown themselves to not care about various human rights issues, (prime concern for invasion of iraq of course...), so they've managed to achieve the ultimate goal of f###ing the lot up, at the same time!


Oh yes and the chinese press is pretty much totally a propaganda machine, it is quite amazingly obvious, but the general populace over there have no other information.

They are barbarians.

I think you've just spotted Bear's secret love nest, a first floor flat above shops in Oxford Street - boy has he been busy, he's got a whole clan there

Oh, and on the demonstrations, to be honest I'd be pretty ashamed of my country if there weren't any demonstrations. I'm glad that we live in a country where we can demonstrate like this, and I'm proud that we live in a country where we do.