Olympic fail

Apologies for the long lacuna – life has been a bit hectic.

Here at the Observatory, we thought the Olympics coming to London was an embuggerance that could only have been surpassed by the Olympics coming to our own much fairer city. Howsomever, our electorally anointed ones (of all flavours) have pushed on with the idea, so we have to make the best of the multi-billion shindig.

When it comes to the engineering and construction side, we seem to have done pretty well. Very well, in fact. It's some of the soft stuff that's going pear-shaped. I give you, exempli gratia, the question of security personnel. The Guvmint having pimped itself once again to G4S for £300 million ("thanks, darling, same time next year?"), it seems there won't be enough trained personnel on hand. G4S have, it seems, "... encountered some issues in relation to workforce supply". Despite enormously high unemployment, and notoriously low pay for security staff, G4S have managed not to be able to fulfil this contracted undertaking. So the armed forces will have to step in. Well, it's not as if they have anything to do, there being only a couple of wars on. So that's all right.

Moving swiftly to Heathrow. OK, that's just my little joke – as if anyone could move swiftly to or from Heathrow – but moving on. Will we be able to get our foreign friends into the country to see the Olympics?

It seems that today a long queue waiting to get through border control at Heathrow started a slow hand-clap by way of weary comment at the more than two hour delay. Your man on the BBC report appeared to be American. Well, we accept his point; that kind of wait isn't acceptable, and it all bodes ill for the Olympic influx. That said, trying to enter America has become notoriously difficult even for people who don't look swarthy and have beards. Let's imagine the chances of anyone starting a slow hand-clap in the border control queue getting into the US of A? Lightning would strike first, I suggest.