Since the media in London seemed so eager to take a Cleveland Steamer all over Vancouver when we held the Olympics, it seems only right that turnabout is fair play.
Aside from the rent-a-cop provider G4S falling on their swords earlier this week by not providing the 10,400 uniformed security people for the London Olympics and losing nearly $80 million in the process, it would seem that the few uniforms G4S has provided are at best, useless. From a great blog, Inspector Gadget comes the report of the number of G4S meat who simply don’t show up for work. 180 trainees were booked to start a class “How to Smile at Olympic Staff”. Eight warm bodies actually deigned to arrive.
At the Olympic team hotel in Salford, 56 allegedly trained, vetted and willing security staff were scheduled to work – 17 showed up.
Box Hill cycling venue? 20 of 300 booked managed to cast a shadow and presumably to fog a mirror.
So, who fills in when G4S’s people decide that the dog ate their homework? Regular police officers. The folks who are supposed to be watching the rest of England for the usual robberies, break and enters and domestic violence things that don’t go away because the Olympics are in town.
To try to backfill the missing-presumed-still-sleeping G4S staff another 3,500 British Army have been given orders to prepare to move. That brings the Ministry of Defence commitment to 20,000, or a tenth of all the British Military.
Which tells us that the London Olympics will not be a cheerful place full of happy competitors and thrilled spectators, watching their fellow countrymen achieve great things in sport. The unspoken undertone however, is what could happen if the shit really does hit the fan.
Assume for a moment that a heretofore unknown smallish group of Elbonian dissidents decides that the London Olympics is the perfect place to address their centuries-long conflict with North Elbonia for the Great Taking of the Sheep in 1434.
Like most nutbar groups, their method of protest is the car bomb, which is neither technically challenging, or particularly difficult logistically. Scan the newspapers to see where the G4S people are not showing up to work and there’s your venue. Total brain effort required? Barely enough to power up a light bulb, which would be plenty to set off the Elbonian car bomb next to the the North Elbonian training facility, where the North Elbonian Olympic Team is training for the new Olympic event, the 100 Metre Sod Roll and Carry.
Purely fictional and we dreamed that one up in less than four seconds, but with the London Olympics security in such a mess, we might as well write the headlines now.
RoadDave 