Listography: 5 (More) Reasons Why I Hate The Olympics 2012...

I knew when I wrote my original post that 5 reasons just wouldn't be enough. I was right. So, to celebrate the opening ceremony this evening: 5 MORE Reasons Why I Hate The Olympics 2012.
1). The stupid advertising rules. Oh, every product and it's dog are sponsoring the Olympics (Official Olympic nappies? Washing powder? Tampons? Batteries? Shampoo? Dish Soap? Really?!!), but if you want to mention the Olympics and you own a business, you'd better be careful. There are two lists of words. You cannot mention words from the lists together. If you do, you face a hefty fine. Info below quoted from here.

The following words, their plurals, translations and similar meanings are protected by copyright: Olympic; Olympian; Olympiad; Paralympic; Paralympian; Paralympiad.

The use of specific ‘Listed Expressions’ which are quantified as follows: any two of the words in list A below; or, any word in list A with one or more words in list B:

List A

Games
Two Thousand and Twelve
2012
Twenty-Twelve

List B

London
Medals
Sponsors
Summer
Gold
Silver
Bronze

You don't own those words, Olympics. Certainly not any in List B. Pirates can no longer have a chest with 2012 pieces of silver? Ludicrous.
2). London is basically off-limits for the summer. I have friends who live in London. They are moving to Scotland for the duration of the Olympics. Train fares are still high, and if you can find a reasonable price, they're rammed. Car parking is all booked up. Things are still happening in London that *gasp* aren't Olympics-related. Mark Rylance is back at the Globe, for example. I would LOVE to see that. Plus the Globe has an awesome season lined up. In the West End there's Matilda, Rock of Ages, Wicked. Yayoi Kusama has an exhibition at the Tate Modern.

3). Ridiculous sponsors. Ah, the Olympics. The pinacle of sporting excellence. The largest number of healthy people in one place, probably ever. Who are the two biggest sponsors? Coca-Cola, and McDonald's. In the main sponsors, there is only one sports brand, and THREE junk food brands (Cadbury's being the third).

4) Ridiculous sponsor's demands. Have you tried to buy anything Olympics-related online? Chances are if you have you will have hit a little hitch. You can only pay using a Visa card. We hit this little problem for the Winter Olympics, when we had friends placing orders through us that we had delivered to our address in Canada and then went over to collect them. "Pay us when we get back" is fine when you can pop it on the credit card. When they will only accept Visa (and the only Visa you have uses "real money")...We have a problem. Visa is also the only means of payment in the Olympic Village/venues. Visa reportedly wanted to BAN CASH at the Olympics. Which a) shows you how ridiculously expensive everything is, that you can buy a bottle of water on a credit card, and b) is so insanely controlling I can't even begin. And it's not just Visa. A journalist was recently told in a press conference with Lord Coe that anyone wearing a Pepsi T-shirt would be asked to leave the Olympic venue, lest their fashion choice make it onto the television and offend Coca-Cola. If I was going, I would be collecting Pepsi bottle wrappers, smuggling them into the Olympic stadium in my wallet (behind the Visa card), and re-branding all of my ridiculously expensive Coca-Cola in the loo.


5). The BBC palming the Paralympics off on Channel 4. Seriously?! You have space for the Olympics, but with all of your plentiful digital channels you can't spare some room for the Paralympics? OK, I'm biased, but I prefer the Paralympics. In my mind, whatever it takes to get to the regular Olympics, it takes many times more to get to the Paralympics. One thing I love is that Channel 4 have completely blown the BBC out of the water with their first advert (they've banned embedding, sorry):

Meet The Superhumans.

Meet the Superhumans. AKA, screw you, BBC.