Competition a dirty word at Games
Proper security might be thin on the ground but an army of 300 wardens in purple hats have been released onto the streets to quell any dangerous signs of enterprise among the capital’s entrepreneurs.
In particular, the ‘Brand Police’ are on the lookout for dastardly businesses using a long list of banned words to tout their wares.
These include ‘London’, ‘gold’, ‘silver’, ‘bronze’ and ‘summer’.
Testing times for a jeweller with a seasonal sale. Can I interest you in a necklace fashioned from a bright yellow transition metal, madam? Nor will punters be immune to the purple reign of commercial terror, as organisers scramble to protect the billions from official sponsors. We know that chips will be hard to come by, unless purloined under a golden arch. While Games chief Seb Coe confirmed you will not be admitted to Olympic Park sporting a Pepsi T-shirt, but did concede you could ‘probably’ slip through wearing Nike runners.
Mind you, if you’re American and want a medal, you have no choice. US athletes must go Nike head to toe on the podium, even if they wear other shoes in competition. It’s a restraint of trade that has upset athletes, some of whom are planning to do without shoes at all at their finest hour. Babs might not be the last man to win a medal barefoot.
Of course this unseemly slobbering at sponsors’ feet is now a reality of all major sports events but somehow, the Olympics manages to do it uglier — perhaps because the competitors too are so reliant on crumbs from the corporate table. Who can forget Sonia being stripped in Atlanta? A pity, really, that Bendtner isn’t lining out in the football. You’d almost urge him to drop the shorts.
