Just say no | 19 February 2005

Gstaad

Far be it from me to give advice to the Queen — last I heard she is one wise and experienced lady — but she’s dining this week with the 13-member IOC evaluation commission, which is charged with judging the various bids of cities trying to land the 2012 Olympic Games. Feign sickness, Ma’am, the worst thing that can happen to London after Ken Livingstone and traffic wardens is the Games. I know, I know, Athens were the best Games ever, so why shouldn’t London have its turn? Well, plenty of reasons, and none of them boring. Athens had no Underground, no good roads to speak of, an airport hastily assembled to welcome Charles Lindbergh in 1927, and athletic facilities inferior to those of any junior high school in the great state of South Dakota. The Games rectified all that, with state-of-the-art roads, stadiums galore, an airport which makes Heathrow look like the French garrison’s at Dien Bien Phu, and an Underground fit for Kings Farouk and Fahd, and any other spoiled fatties from down south.