Reading the newspaper…about the Olympics and the expected travel chaos. It made me upset…I am not often upset but…that is just ridiculous.
Tourists truly believe (and I cannot even blame them as foreign media is just doing its job) that the Olympics are all heaven for the UK (I gave up showing to my mother that we are not watching the Queen going down a river, on a boat with her choir …for four hours in the pouring rain)…but I can tell you: No, we are not putting our work down for six weeks just to watch the Olympics on TV or somewhere outside AND, No we are not happy about basically being cut off from the traffic system (Blackwell tunnel, Dartford Crossing all gonna be packed – they are already now, with relatively normal traffic), including the trains. Few high-speed trains to/from Canterbury? …or even NO high-speed anymore to/from Dover? What the hell is that? How are people from the South East are supposed to get to work in London? …or, like me going to London on the 4th August to catch the train from Paddington to the South West for holidays?
Games are nice and lovely when they do NOT affect the local community…and basically every county around London, including Kent, will be affected by the traffic.
My forecast is: business will go down for the time of the games….very typical we underestimate the work and chaos coming with it, but throw out as much money as possible. Chaos will be perfect.
Just like the white horse…yep, the 50 billion white steel horse they want to build near Ebbsfleet (fabulous pic in the newspaper: a normal living white horse gigantic on a field – that’s not what it’s going to look like: it is going to be the white horse on the Kent flag). Who does it surprise now that they are still looking for sponsors!