There was a desperate plea for temporary workers on television here last night.
It wasn’t the Olympics that needed them (the Games have more smiley, eager-to-please volunteers than they know what to do with).
The urgent appeal for extra hands was coming from a local daffodil farm. Spring’s daffodil crop has suddenly appeared a month early.
Winter Olympics? In parts of Scotland, they’d call this high summer.
It’s just as well that I forgot to pack my thermal underwear. I might have been naive enough to put it on.
I would then have spent the rest of the day trying to take it all off in the midst of tens of thousands of people who would like nothing more than to laugh at the most hated breed in Vancouver — the British press.
A lengthy spell of warm weather plus some basic errors and, above all, a human tragedy, mean the 2010 Winter Olympics have had a rocky start.
And for the 50-strong visiting delegation from London 2012, the message is a simple, stark one: you’re on next, matey.
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It is obviously unfair to blame VANOC for the weather, but other than that the Games have been “entirely Canadian”. A not very serious (but a very self-absorbed) country tries to hold a world class event in the most liberal of provinces — that is a recipe for disaster. So, the ice machines were not properly maintained, the luge track not properly designed with adequate safety measures, there were no back-up plans in case the weather did change, the transport system to and from venues was not properly thought out. And, be aware, that this is all that we see publicly. We have no idea what glitches have happened behind the scenes due to bad planning and incompetence.
And, if that is not bad enough, every evening the news media goes on and on that the Games are a success, a remaking of the Canadian identity (as though people can only feel national pride when athletes bring home medals), and a model of successful diversity in action. (Read Steyn’s piece in this week’s MacLean’s). Meanwhile, the world media is becoming more critical and wondering what is going on.
It all sounds like something that the Obama administration was managing!
#1 ‘Entirely Canadian’ many francophones thought it was too English and not enough French unlike their home nation of Quebec, which is ‘French only please.’ but agree with most of your comments.
Only in Canada you say, pity.