Featuring fresh takes and real-time analysis from HuffPost's signature lineup of contributors
Hot on the Blog
Raffi Cavoukian
Tim Knight

GET UPDATES FROM Tim Knight
 

Watching The Watchdog: "O" Stands For Olympics And Orwellian

Posted: 08/10/2012 2:33 pm

Tim Knight writes the regular media column Watching the Watchdog for HuffPost Canada.

Recent news story from London:

"Hundreds of uniformed officials will tour Britain to ensure businesses do not flout advertising regulations by associating themselves too closely with the Olympic Games."

Apparently these officials wear purple caps and tops to identify themselves.

The brand police (lovely cap, darling ... purple so matches your eyes!) can bring "court action against any business breaking the strict rules, with potential punishments including fines up to £20,000 (Can $31,000)."

Here are some of the naughty words and phrases only official Games sponsors (who pay heavy money for the right) are allowed to use:

Olympic. Olympian. Olympiad. Paralympic. Paralympian. Paralympiad. Also their plurals, translations and anything similar to them.

Backing the 2012 Games, Supporting the London Games

LIST A: Games, Two Thousand and Twelve, 2012, Twenty-Twelve

LIST B: London, medals, sponsors, summer, gold, silver, bronze

According to examiner.com, "the ruling prevents the use of two LIST A words and any word from LIST A and LIST B co-mingled the same sentence without LOCOG (London Organising Committee of the Olympic and Paralympic Games) authorization."

Whatever that means.

One bloody-minded shopkeeper got around the rules by advertising "Lodnon 2102 Oimplycs." The Brits, who love dissing authority, flocked to buy his stuff.

Of course, the athletes themselves get not a penny from those words that have to be protected so very rigorously because they make so very much money so very easily for the International Olympic Committee (IOC).

The young men and women who sweat and strain and live and die in the arena while IOC members watch and sip champagne have to rely on negotiating nothing but pittances from their national sports bodies.

Meanwhile, the IOC keeps just under 10 per cent of the many billions Olympic advertising (come on down, chief sponsors Coca-Cola and McDonald's, those paragons of healthy living) raises for "operational and administrative costs". As I've written before, that eight per cent is enough to treat its 105 self-elected members to mind-boggling luxury and privilege. And, as history records, splendid opportunities for corruption and personal enrichment.

The highly respected international sports organization Play the Game agrees. It calls the IOC "an undemocratic secretly elected group of ultra-elite men and ... a few token athletes." Then it gets nasty. "Most of these elites have zero work experience, zero athletic experience, and little if any sports experience."

And these are the people whose sordid profits Her Britannic Majesty's government protects by sending purple police to prowl highways and byways and track down and punish insolent offenders?

Ye gads, is there no end to the massive abuse of power and privilege that is the Olympics?

If it were profits for the athletes and not the Lords of the Rings H.M.'s government is protecting, I'd be all in favour. If Coca-Cola and McDonald's decide to sponsor athletes instead of princes and millionaires the world would be a far, far better place.

But that's not going to happen. Savage capitalism reigns and shows every sign of destroying our battered democracies within even my lifetime. Certainly there's no sign of anyone doing anything to rescue those democracies.

Meantime, the least the rest of us can do for the athletes is fight some of the more ridiculous rules surrounding their Games.

To that end, I ask any reader who cares about these things and really, really wants to piss off the grandees of the IOC and British government to copy this column (or write an equivalent) and publish it all over Britain.


THIS IS AN ADVERTISEMENT THIS IS AN ADVERTISEMENT THIS IS AN ADVERTISEMENT THIS IS AN

My name is Tim Knight, I write the regular media column Watching the Watchdog for HuffPost Canada, and I'm seeking a job that actually pays money.

Both my landlord and my bank manager would be grateful if that should come about.

So why should you employ me?

Among my qualifications are my strong support for the Olympics. In fact Olympic, Olympian, Olympiad, Paralympic, Paralympian and Paralympiad are among my very favourite words and causes. Also their plurals (Olympians etc.), translations (Olympien etc.) and anything similar to them.

I strongly back and favour the 2012 Games also known as the London Games.

I write this in two thousand and twelve, also known as 2012 and twenty-twelve.

If I were in London, if it would please any prospective employer, I would look for medals, sponsors, summer, gold, silver and bronze.

I know this isn't mentioned in the list of banned naughty words but, after watching the Games, I fully expect to be faster, higher and stronger. Particularly higher.

I have every reason to believe that if the International Olympic Organizing Committee (IOC) had any ethics or morals it would support my campaign.

THIS IS AN ADVERTISEMENT THIS IS AN ADVERTISEMENT THIS IS AN ADVERTISEMENT THIS IS AN

Am still working on the explanation of why CTV runs so many heats and features in its nightly prime time Olympic coverage when it could be showing all sorts of world-class athletes in their primes instead. Apologies again.

 

Follow Tim Knight on Twitter: www.twitter.com/TimKnight6

FOLLOW CANADA
Tim Knight writes the regular media column Watching the Watchdog for HuffPost Canada. Recent news story from London: "Hundreds of uniformed officials will tour Britain to ensure businesses do not f...
Tim Knight writes the regular media column Watching the Watchdog for HuffPost Canada. Recent news story from London: "Hundreds of uniformed officials will tour Britain to ensure businesses do not f...
 
 
  • Comments
  • 3
  • Pending Comments
  • 0
  • View FAQ
Comments are closed for this entry
View All
Recency  | 
Popularity
photo
Gnomish
ego doctus ignarus
07:19 AM on 08/11/2012
IOC is the problem with the games! They are totally corrupt and use the games only to make money.

Dump the hoopla and bring back pure sport! Being the best at using special equipment isn't all that spectacular. Level the playing field and dump the political charade.
photo
HUFFPOST SUPER USER
Steve Karmazenuk
Author, Freelance Journalist, Curmudgeon
12:17 AM on 08/11/2012
Nothing new though, is it? It's been going on since Munich happened, expanding its scope and ability as the technology, lobbyists and politics dictated. Let's not forget just how much more of a police state the world's become since America was finally (And I don't mean "finally got what it deserved" but "Pretty much the last ones who hadn't been hit") hit by terrorists in 2001.

London, also, holds the record (I believe - could be mistaken) for CCTV camera surveillance of all public areas...on the one hand it is horribly Orwellian, on the other hand, look at the terrorist attacks that went on during the IRA conflict and the strike era in Great Britain in the 70s - 90s.

Is it the symptom or the treatment of the disease? Both? Neither? Worse? Better? Had a bad week so got myself tippled, so I'm hardly the best one to judge. The reality is, the Olympics are a money-siphon to the host city, and bring with them their own brand of totalitarianism.

I'm still more afraid of the corporations than I am the government...CEOs are setting public policy, and the police and military are both on their way to being privatized. The Olympics and the regime they impose on their host cities and nations are a classic example of Western / European absolutism, decadence, accomplishment and superlativity.

Okay, I'm for bed, now...
11:42 PM on 08/10/2012
Money - more, mre and more runs the world and the Elimpics. I don't watch them and that is my way of saying that I don't care whho can run .001 second faster than another man or swim faster. I honestly don't care. The referees cheat, the athletes cheat and the government wins as do those who pay up the most cash for the right to use the pictures or words re the games. The ancient Greeks would call it hybris and say it will destroy the goverment and the athletes and the economic policies of those who support such policies. And they would be right. Already the world is facing an economic collapse due to cheating, reed and discipline.