With the season one finale of The Lottery airing tonight to a disinterested audience, two things are clear. Firstly, there will most likely never be a season two and secondly if there was, for some reason, no one would care. The show has worked very hard to come up with a thriller that should have been a winner. Sadly, it seems that the viewing audience just do not have any interest in a near future where infertility and governmental dirty tricks walk hand in hand.
On the 27th of February I added a Poll to the end of a review. I was experimenting with a new type format of review and I wanted a second opinion as to how to present these ramblings.
I promised that I would post the results of that Poll and that is the sole purpose of this very, very short post. Now, in case you’ve forgotten, the poll was a if I should use the new format (which was to break the review into sections, such as plot, device, twist, et al) or just to ramble on as I always do.
I would like to say that traffic to the polls was brisk, but that would be a grotesque untruth. Business was slack to the point of being non-existent. The grand total of participants equalled (drum roll please) 9.
And one of those was my vote, to see if it would register or not!
So despite the dismal turnout of voters, I have left the poll up for the requisite week as promised and here are the results.
Poll Results:
6 people voted for the new format.
3 people voted for the mix and match format.
No one voted on either of the two other choices.
Due to the very low response to the poll, I have decided to do a mix and match.
Why, you may ask, why not do the new format?
Good question.
The answer is simple, I kind of like the new format, but, it doesn’t really fit all the films I review. Some do not have an obvious “twist” and some just don’t warrant the new format. Plus I am still not sure I really like the new format. Add to the fact that my blog is not a democracy but more of a benevolent dictatorship, I going to go with the lower numbers. (not to mention that I voted for that one anyway)
Had there been a greater turnout, I might have gone with popular demand. But the truth of the matter is (with only eight people actually taking the time to vote) that not enough people seemed to be bothered one way or another.
I was not too surprised to see such a low number of respondents. I have never included a poll in any of my blog posts before and it must have thrown folks off. Still, it was an experiment that I wanted to try (like the new format) and I am glad that I did.
So there you have it. One very short post about the Poll results.
Thanks to all those who took the time to vote, it was appreciated. But as this experiment did so pol-ly (sorry, I couldn’t resist) I doubt that I’ll be doing another one in the foreseeable future.
So G4S, the company that helps the prisons in England to move their prisoners, who were contracted to provide the security for the 2012 Olympic Games in London, have seriously fallen short in the area of numbers.
To be fair the target numbers for ‘policing’ the games has gone up repeatedly since the initial estimate from officials of 2000 people. Due to repeated ‘re-estimates’, the number required is now 10,000. G4S has agreed each time to the increases and now at the eleventh hour have fallen very short.
With the Olympics due to start on the 27th of this month, organizers are starting to panic. The army, who are already pretty much over tasked, have been further tasked to provide around 4000 troops to bolster security. Leaves are being cancelled as they attempt to fill G4S’s shortfall.
But how did we get into this mess? Were the organizers and the government too busy rubbing their hands together in anticipation of the money that the games will undoubtedly bring pouring in? Why were their estimates at the beginning of negotiations with G4S so low compared to what they now want?
Surely somebody in the government or the games organizers would have had a better idea of what was required in the way of security. The news stations are focusing on G4S and implying it is their fault. I think that the fault lies with all three of the players.
The government for not taking the security seriously from the out set. I think that they obviously left the decision up to the organizers.
The organizers for believing it was acceptable to keep changing the goal posts that they originally agreed upon and expecting G4S to “step up smartly” each time they changed the numbers.
G4S for failing to tell the number changers that it was not able to meet the higher requirements, instead of pointing out what they had originally agreed on.
I believe that G4s is just as guilty as the government and the organizers of rubbing their hands together in anticipation of a ‘great little earner.’ In a similar fashion of “not seeing the forest for the trees” I think all the main players in this little fiasco couldn’t see the logistics for the money.
Why couldn’t they have contacted out to more companies to provide security when the initial numbers turned out to be too low. That way they could have shared the wealth and met their ever increasing requirements.
Nobody really believes that the pressure to hold the Olympics was down to “national pride” or any such sentimentality. It has always been about the money and the revenue that will be generated by visiting athletes and their supporters from other countries.
I’m sure that everyone connected with this security gaffe knew all along that G4S could not provide the numbers that finally were decided on. I think they always intended to seconder the military to help out.
Since it is all about the money, why cut your possible net profit down by having to pay for more security when you can get the military to do it for no extra cost.
I won’t used the clichéd phrase of “something being rotten” but I will say the whole debacle stinks to high heaven.
London 2012 banner at The Monument. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
The fifth of June 2012 or next Tuesday in fact will be the day set aside to celebrate the Queen’s sixtieth anniversary of her ascension to the throne. Although the fifth is the “official” day set aside for these celebrations, British people will be having their own celebrations throughout the whole Bank Holiday weekend.
On my street for instance, a few families have got together to organise a “Street” party. Everyone in the street has been invited to attend. The party boasts a barbecue, drinks (alcoholic and non-alcoholic), although I think the general idea is for everyone to bring their own food and drink, and many other party-like activities. There will also be activities for those party goers too young to quite enjoy the grown-ups ideas of festivity.
I don’t begrudge the organisers asking for everyone who’s attending to BYOB and BYOF. After all, they have spent quite a bit of money renting a bouncy castle, and setting up other various activities for the little ones.
I do find it highly amusing that the government had boasted of an extra Bank Holiday in June which would officially be the four day holiday for Jubilee celebrations. In actual fact, the June Bank Holiday is not extra at all. It is just the May Bank Holiday which usually falls on the last weekend in May moved forward to June.
If the British public are going to really celebrate Queen Elizabeth II and her sixtieth anniversary as the honorary head of the British Empire, wouldn’t it have been nicer and that bit more special if they had really put in an extra Bank Holiday? In a time when it is increasingly difficult to get folks to show national pride, patriotism and support of the Royal Family, how hard would it have been to make the June Bank Holiday a real addition to the already existing Bank Holiday’s. Just a ‘one off’ would have been very nice. It will be another ten years before another “special” anniversary date comes up. And the Queen, as hale and hardy as she evidently is, may not be here for that one.
I am guessing though, that with the world in a recession (just scant millimetres from a depression) the government doesn’t feel we can afford to have that extra Bank Holiday. The earners of the country need to keep earning as much as possible. After all it is the earners who pay the government salary. Heaven forbid that they should not get the maximum tax benefits from the working populace.
I will not actually be attending the street party. I cannot really afford it. On top of that it generally rains in this country on Bank Holidays and I don’t think that sneakily changing the Bank Holiday dates will prevent the weather from performing on cue.
Mikes Film Talk 
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