Olympics Leave British Complaining Even More Than Usual

[T_i_B]

http://mobile.nytimes.com/article?a=950032&f=20

Even in the best of times, whinging, as Britons call the persistent low-grade grousing that is their default response to life's challenges, is part of the national condition - as integral to the country's character as its Eeyoreish attitude toward the weather ("Start Planning for Floods," The Daily Mail advised recently).

But even allowing for the traditional exaggeration, this degree of distress has a different tone to it.

"We're looking at something above and beyond the solace and comfort that the British seek in gentle moaning," said Dan Hancox, 31, a freelance writer. "The Olympics is actively antagonizing people."

On Twitter, Mr. Hancox said that for Londoners, "it's as if someone else is throwing a party in our house, with a huge entry fee, and we're all locked in the basement." He elaborated. "The traffic infrastructure has shut down to the point where we're being prepared for a military conflict," he said in an interview. "They're telling businesses to stockpile goods, advising people to stay at home, don't go anywhere, don't travel on the tube, stay on your sofa - it's like it's for your own safety. We have an army on the streets. We're being put on a war footing, and it's not something, after 60 years of peacetime, that the British people are comfortable with."

[MADem]

1. Hilarious! Perhaps not intentionally, but I think it's accurate! nt

[MIDNITERIDER1438]

2. They've bungled this event big time

Londistan is not the place to be this time. I hope it doesn't become another Munich because it's ripe to let loose some pandemonium to draw attention away from the LIBOR scandal, the austerity "program", and a whole host of other things. Witness the desperation of British unions trying to fight for basic things at this time, and how things might very easily slip through the cracks in that lousy private security and slipshod military mobilization of all the clerks and jerks that they could find to plug the gaps. It's going to be a mess, and uniforms will be the least of our team's worries at the moment.
And they can watch it all on their "ring of steel" now.

[Posteritatis]

3. To be fair, bungling the events has become an event of its own. (nt)