London 2012: Dreary Weather, Security, and Chaos on the Subway

There’s just two weeks to go till the start of the Olympics.

British newspapers are full of complaints about the dreary weather, security costs, and chaos on the roads and subway.

But there are some sunny patches.

Anchor Lisa Mullins gets a round-up of the London 2012 news this week from The World’s Olympic correspondent, Alex Gallafent.

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Lisa Mullins: Staying with sports now. This summer’s Olympic Games are just around the corner and we are a couple of weeks away now from the opening ceremony in London. Alex Gallafent is going to be in London in fact and, Alex, as they say, everybody talks about the weather, but nobody does anything about it. What’s up with the London weather, at least in this lead up to the games?

Alex Gallafent: Well, I can’t help but imagine there are people sort of trying to do ceremonies to produce sunshine, but nothing is working. It won’t stop raining. The forecast isn’t good. But, Lisa, I have news. We are resourceful, us Brits, and at the moment Londoners are retreating into nostalgia ahead of the London Games.

[Music plays]

So, Lisa, you remember the movie “Chariots of Fire” about British runners at the Paris Olympic Games of 1924?

Mullins: Absolutely.

Gallafent: Well, that movie today has been re-released in the UK and there’s a stage adaptation of the film too.

Mullins: A stage adaptation? As if the best picture of 1981 were not enough, there’s a stage adaptation just to tap into the nostalgia factor?

Gallafent: Yes. So if you’re in London and you don’t want to watch Olympic sprinters in the pouring rain, then you can watch actors pretending to be Olympic sprinters running around a track built inside a nice warm theater.

Mullins: Well, let’s turn to the one thing I imagine is really on the minds of a lot of people, aside from the rain I guess, and I guess that the joke there is that the Winter Olympics are just two weeks away now, not the Summer Olympics – security. Security is a big issue and it has been. We’ve been hearing a lot about it, including the fact that yesterday, the private security company hired to secure venues hasn’t got enough trained staff. What’s being done about that?

Gallafent: This is a company called G4S and it was contracted a few years ago now by the organizers of the London Games to provide about ten thousand people in security staff. The contract is worth four hundred and forty million dollars. They’ve had a lot of time to figure it out, but, according to the British government, it’s only now – two weeks out – that G4S has said it won’t have trained and screened enough people.

Mullins: So what did they do about that?

Gallafent: Now, they’re bringing in the troops, the British armed services. About three and a half thousand of them will now be deployed at venues during the games and that’s in addition to some thirteen thousand who were always going to be part of London’s security plan.

Mullins: Alex, there has been a bit of a brouhaha here in America about the US Olympic team uniforms. They were designed by an American, Ralph Lauren, but made in China. For some this is an outrage.

Gallafent: I have a feeling we’ve been here before with uniforms for Olympic teams in the past. My feeling is, you know, you want an interconnected global economy or don’t you? You know, have the uniforms been made in the US? You know, maybe we would have been hearing complaints about excessive costs. Then again, perhaps, as a Brit, I ought not to wade into matters of perceived American patriotism. All email to you I think, Lisa.

Mullins: One other thing, Alex. Some commentators have taken issue with the berets that go with the US uniforms as being a bit too “European”, as if there weren’t enough controversy about the garb . . .

Gallafent: Yeah.

Mullins: . . . that athletes will be wearing.

Gallafent: To be honest, I’m a little surprised that Ralph Lauren could be so cruel to the athletes. I wore a beret. I was about 13 years old.

Mullins: Oh my. If we had a picture, Alex.

Gallafent: Oh, there are pictures. I was obsessed with Jazz from the 1950s. I played the trumpet and I wore a beret and, Lisa, I know how deep that hat can sting.

Mullins: So still a Jazz fan now many years later, but without the beret, sad to say.

Gallafent: For public consumption I’m without the beret.

Mullins: All right. Thank you. The World’s Alex Gallafent. Thanks again.

Gallafent: Thank you, Lisa.

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