Wenlock and Mandeville

Wenlock and Mandeville

The groundswell is growing in London against the elitism and commercialisation of the London 2012 Olympics, dubbed in some quarters “The rip-off Olympics.” One commentator has captured the mood:

"The Olympic spirit no longer exists, it's been completely replaced by a relentless hunger to make the Games as much of a money-spinner as possible; for the contestants, for the organisers, and especially for the corporate sponsors."

The imposition on Londoners is considerable; Transport plans based on 30% of Londoners not going to work during the Olympics, sky high ticket prices but the best seats reserved en bloc for freeloaders and sponsors. A so called “traffic free” Olympics but with 3 Zhil Lanes (now renamed Olympic Ways) for the “Olympic Family (50,000 “VIPs”, officials and freeloaders) to have exclusive access to these lanes in 3,000 prestige cars on security grounds - and this for what was billed as "Car Free Olympics!" And then there is the overweening sponsorship; In the Olympic sites, you can only drink Coca Cola products, you can only use Visa, you can only eat McDonalds, you cannot wear anything with somebody else’s logo in an outburst of sponsor fascism. In Bhopal in India nearly 200 survivors of the world's worst industrial disaster have burned effigies of Lord Coe and an Indian Olympic official to protest against Dow Chemical's sponsorship of the London Games.


Sebastian Coe, Chairman of the organising committee with the London 2012 Logo which bears a passing resemblance to Lisa Simpson!


Olympic Stadium under construction in 2010 with Canary Wharf in the background. All the main venues have now been completed a year before the event.

The spectre of commerce was conspicuous in its absence at the first Olympic Games staged after the Second World War. The president of the IOC, Avery Brundage, was a right-wing businessman from the USA; but he opposed with a messianic vehemence any moves to develop the Olympics on a more commercialised footing. Even at the time of his retirement, at the Munich Olympics in 1972, Brundage was still declaring that the IOC ‘should have nothing to do with money.’ The idealistic founder of the Olympics, Baron Pierre de Coubertain, spoke against ‘athletics as a show’, implying that commercially-based large-scale events would corrupt the amateur spirit: drawing upon promotional budgets and generating large crowds to justify the investment in the event, ‘these oversized showcases are the source of the corruption at the root of the evil.’


The main venues @ The Olympic Park in East London

Consider then that London 2012 mascots Wenlock and Mandeville have failed to visit a single school in an Olympic borough as head teachers struggle to pay their "exorbitant" appearance fee. Pupils in Hackney were left disappointed after the two characters used to promote the Games stayed away, despite repeated requests by staff. Emma Penzer, the head of Mandeville Primary, said her school had failed to qualify for a free visit, despite sharing a name with one mascot. She said the school, from where pupils can see the Olympic stadium, was now considering paying £850 for the privilege. "Normally we would not even consider spending £850 on something like this," she said."But as our name is Mandeville and this is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for the children, we have thought about it. We'd hoped for a free visit but didn't win the draw."


Stoke Mandeville - Spiritual Home of the Paralympics

The characters are named after the small town of Much Wenlock in Shropshire - which hosted a precursor to the modern Olympic Games in the 19th Century - and the birthplace of the Paralympic Games, Stoke Mandeville hospital in Buckinghamshire. The Wenlock Games gave inspiration to de Coubertain as he formed his concept of the modern Olympics in 1896. Olympic motifs chime through the design: Wenlock wears the Olympic rings as friendship bracelets, and although predominantly silver in colour, also contains flashes of gold and bronze. Mandeville's head reflects aspects of the three crescent shapes of the Paralympics symbol. In a deliberate homage to London taxis, each has a yellow light on top of its head, with an initial in the middle.

Interviewing the dynamic  Olympic duo

Mandeville's name is inspired by Stoke Mandeville in Buckinghamshire. In the 1940s, Dr.Ludwig Guttmann came to Stoke Mandeville Hospital to set up a new spinal unit to help former soldiers suffering from spinal cord injuries. Looking for ways to inspire those in his care, he encouraged them to take up sport, leading to the formation of the Stoke Mandeville Games, widely recognised as a forerunner of the modern Paralympic movement.

You can follow the adventure of these strange (and expensive) creatures on their own site;

http://www.london2012.com/mascots

The £850 fee is to cover the two "actors" who put on the Wenlock and Mandeville costumes and also to pay for an assistant. A visit from one of the characters costs £600. Neighbouring Newham has had one school visit, Greenwich one and Tower Hamlets three.




Stratford International Station - The public transport gateway to the Olympics - just 9 minutes from St. Pancras on "The Olympic Javelin"

Andrew Boff, Tory spokesman on the Olympics at the London Assembly, said he will raise the subject as it appeared Hackney schools were "not getting their fair share". A spokesman for the London Organising Committee of the Olympic Games said: "Our priority is and has always been to make mascot visits available free to schools via initiatives and competitions."Wenlock and Mandeville have already visited many schools."

Perhaps Jeremy Clarkson could arrange for them to be executed in front of their Olympic family?

See also; London Olympics 2012

http://www.daithaic.blogspot.com/2009/01/london-olympics-2012-stratford-station.html

Paralympic Games and Stoke Mandeville

http://daithaic.blogspot.com/2008/09/paralympic-games.html