Butterfield wrote:

cosmictanya wrote:

I wonder why it's usually British cities that host them, and benefit from the funding and attention. Are there no cities in the rest of the commonwealth? Nowhere in India, Africa, Pakistan, Canada et al that might like some brand new sports facilities and some name recognition?

If I lived outside the UK, I might wonder WTF the commonwealth had ever done for me, or was ever likely to. 'Ask not what your commonwealth can do for you but what you can do for your commonwealth' has some merit, but this situation seems to be taking the absolute f***ing p*ss.

It was hosted in Delhi a few years ago. And I seem to remember the accommodation was featured in the news a lot due to it being somewhat substandard.

The exception that proves the rule. I did say usually. Over a billion people in India v under seventy million people here would, you'd think, result in Indian cities alone being more heavily featured as hosts than British ones. Instead, it's Birmingham, Glasgow, Manchester, etc v once in Delhi. There's almost no point in most commonwealth countries even applying to host it.

That coverage is feature of every single commonwealth and Olympic Games that's ever taken place. 'Athletes arriving in a week but the windows at their accommodation haven't been installed/the plumbers have flooded the place/the pool hasn't been tiled yet/the security contractors haven't turned up'. Every single time without fail. The newspapers practically copy and paste that stuff.

For example...



Hundreds if not thousands of people every day must do something careless like accidentally pull their hotel curtains down. If it's the Olympics, it becomes news. It fits the 'nothing is ready/everything is shoddy/these people are useless/the toilet has been installed upside down' template.

'Not enough workers have been recruited, quick, call in the army'...



'Blocked toilets in Rio de Janeiro'...

https://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/25/sports/olympics/rio-olympic-village-australia.html

'Contaminated soil and embankments sliding into the river at Glasgow Commonwealth Village'...

https://www.vhe.co.uk/project/22/commonwealth-games-athletes-village-glasgow/

'Seven years and a financial crash later, quelle horreur the Athens Olympics site has graffiti and the clock has stopped working'...

https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2012/may/09/athens-2004-olympics-athletes-home

Etc. It'll be Birmingham's turn soon.

'Rio so dangerous that athletes were robbed by a gang pretending to be the police', so the world was told. There were all kinds of things said about how violent and useless Brazilians were, and how such examples proved that everyone was right to expect problems. All over the news.

Except no, not exactly. There was no robbery, no gang, and no fake police. The athletes in question had urinated all over a petrol station and the staff had demanded they pay for the damage before leaving...

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lochtegate

There are several films about the complete f*** up at the Munich Olympics, which happened despite Germany having a pretty stellar reputation for competence.

The rest that applies to every event in every city is all the usual stuff - blocked toilets, workmen having to rush around at the last minute, complaints from this team or that team about their accommodation, tabloids who've taken pictures of a building site to accompany the usual 'with only days to go' stories.

It's most unfair that Delhi should be picked out of the line up as if something shocking and unusual happened with the perceived quality of their athletes accommodation.

That map of Birmingham made me realise how close the city is to Wales. I always thought that strip with Shrewsbury and Telford and Hereford and what have you was about 100 miles wider.

It does seem as if we might be justified in whispering 'East Wales' rather than 'West Midlands'. It's definitely what you might call 'over that way'.

Fangirl Three wrote:

That map of Birmingham made me realise how close the city is to Wales. I always thought that strip with Shrewsbury and Telford and Hereford and what have you was about 100 miles wider.

Where I'm from on the edge of the conurbation you can get to the Welsh border near Shrewsbury/Welshpool in about an hour; you've probably seen the road signs pointing to North Wales on the M6 around Wolverhampton. And from high up on the Dudley ridge you can see distant hills in Mid Wales on a clear day.

As I predicted above...

I see that Birmingham has begun to shift homeless people and families out of hotels so that visitors to these games can stay there instead. Knowing so far in advance that this was coming up, you might assume they'd be shifted to flats and houses that had been cleared or refurbished or built.

No. The first of the surplus population have been sent to Coventry. Dickensian stuff, but there again, that's what people in that area voted for, so we'll only hear more of this stuff regarding Birmingham. As long as the visitors enjoy the fine British hospitality in their Potemkin surroundings.

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2022/jul/26/homeless-families-housed-in-birmingham-hotels-moved-ahead-of-commonwealth-games

'Isn't Birmingham glorious these days. They've really scrubbed up for the games. You wouldn't find this loveliness in Lagos'. Etc.

In a speech at the 2016 Conservative Party conference, Street declared his support for Birmingham's 2022 Commonwealth Games, and said that fighting inequality would also be a priority, as "social challenges can only be met when everybody shares the fruits of economic progress".

Street said: "[The Combined Authority] will determine how we create wealth here and what type of society the West Midlands will become. I promise to work tirelessly to convince voters that I am the man to lead us through these decisions... Our economy is being renewed but we have much more to do to ensure everybody feels the benefit. Our mission is therefore to build the economic powerhouse of Britain in an inclusive way.

Fine words. In reality it's 'tidy the homeless away - somewhere else, before anyone has to look at them or sleep in the next bedroom to them'.

Some athletes in Delhi didn't like their accommodation? Some very vulnerable families in Birmingham have had theirs removed from them.

In fairness, the West Midlands gets sent London's surplus homeless people and migrants. I think you get more Cockney accents in Walsall than you do in actual London these days.

Commonwealth Games must stop sportwashing the exploitation of former British colonies.

https://www.theguardian.com/sport/blog/2022/jul/27/commonwealth-games-must-confront-the-truth-about-its-sportswashing-past

Butterfield wrote:

In fairness, the West Midlands gets sent London's surplus homeless people and migrants. I think you get more Cockney accents in Walsall than you do in actual London these days.

I don't agree with London boroughs people trafficking the homeless and destitute around the country either, but that's not relevant to Birmingham's Commonwealth Games.

I was on a flight yesterday/today on which some of the Trinidad and Tobago team were also travelling.
For that spurious reason I will be supporting them..

The Beeb's opening ceremony coverage has just started.

Track 1 - The Running Track.

Instantly patronising Birmingham in a way it'd never patronise London.

Too much Lenny Henry.

Poetry.