Another day, another thunderclap of hand-wringing and dire Nostradamus warnings about the 2012 Games. Organisers have been accused of "spending money like water" as costs for the event rise like floodwaters threatening the ageing Thames Barrier.
This is the charge made by the Culture, Media and Sport Committee, who have pricked their penny-pinching ears up at the well-publicised report by the Public Accounts Committee that the original budget was unrealistic. Costs for key buildings like the aquatic centre and velodrome have spun out of control, damaging confidence in the project. And let's not forget, fellow pessimists: the event won't even benefit the local community. Honestly, we might as well give Paris a call and tell them they can have it.
The Zaha Hadid-designed aquatic centre, which has tripled in cost since 2004, is dismissed by the committee as "over-designed and an expensive way of providing the facilities for water sports needed during and after the games" that has been beset by a "risible approach to cost control" and numerous logistical problems. MPs stressed the need to tighten belts and make sure the total cost for the Games don't exceed the £9.3bn ceiling.
Such panglossian pessimism; it really must be a British thing. Is it really too much to ask for some positive press coverage of the Games? If such 2012 gloom is getting you down, take a look at our top five reasons to be Olympically cheerful, and wonder if maybe, just maybe, despite all these prognostications of gloom, it might just turn out fine in the end.
Image courtesy of welsh boy's Flickrstream
