Olympian Shopping Centre

As we slowly approach the day of the start of the London Olympics, hardly a day goes by without the leaking of some new piece of Olympian folly. Now it is revealed that Transport for London is to pay tube drivers an extra £1800 to try to ensure that they do not go on strike during the actual time the Olympic Games are taking place. This is being given without any guarantees at all, so, I assume there is nothing to stop the tube drivers demanding more as the day approaches. If we can pay extra money to tube drivers why not bus drivers, railway engine drivers, ticket collectors, baggage handlers, etc, etc. Name your job, Can we all join in?

Some people in the London area are renting out their flats and houses at high rents for the duration of the games, while they go off and stay with relatives or go on holiday. How many extra people are coming to London for the Olympics, I know not, but apparently bookings in general are down significantly for the period of the games. It is not helped by the increase in hotel prices.

As part of the Olympic legacy, I suppose we must include the new vast Westfield Shopping Centre which opened yesterday "in the shadow of the Olympic Stadium." Already my cynicism is showing because, apparently according to the Daily Mail, we must not call this monster temple to Mammon a shopping centre but, rather Westfield Stratford City is a "retail environment." There are 7 miles of corridors and shops — 300 of them — 70 restaurants, a 17 screen cinema, a bowling alley and a casino. Do people still go to bowling alleys? And is there money still to be made in casinos? Yes! But not by the punters. The shops were packed out with masses of people on the opening day. People anxious to spend their money and who, presumably were living on benefits or had taken a day off work in order to enjoy this absurd place. Why do we need this "gateway to the Olympic stadium and athletes village"? There are already monster shopping centres at Lakeside, Thurrock and underground at Canary Wharf. There is a limit, surely, to the number of virtually identical shopping environments, packed with the same shops, selling the same products at the same prices. There are suggestions that the new centre will have an adverse effect on the town centres of Romford, Ilford and even Stratford, the borough that is hosting the games. We have a world recession, shops and pubs are closing as never before, the high streets of Britain have 15% of all their shops closed and boarded over. Is this the time to open the biggest shopping mall in Europe within a few miles of two other shopping malls? It shows that once something is allied to the Olympic Games all logic flies out of the window and up the Thames Estuary.

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