The most laughably devalued words in the English Language?

Conviction politician

anthropogenic global…. peer reviewed

The Establishment

binners – Member
The Olympic Legacy isn’t bricks and mortar. It’s about enthusing people to take up sport, and then supporting them in that
If you think it’s all gone shit now – look in the mirror. What did you do to make sure the legacy of those brilliant few days wasn’t wasted?

Are you for real? Seriously? Or a government spokesman?

I don’t know if you noticed or not, but at the same time the government was spaffing absolutely vast quantities of taxpayers money on its massively over-budget vanity project, they were also overseeing an austerity agenda where youth services, including grassroots sporting facilities for kids, were bearing the brunt of it, and hit harder than anything. Resulting in involvement in sport actually being reduced, but London (and absolutely nowhere else, as per…) got some nice shiny new buildings, so thats all absolutely brilliant

Thats your ‘Olympic Legacy’ for you. Like I said: utterly worthless. So spare us the sanctimonious lectures please? Though I appreciate the viewpoint may be slightly different from up on that high horse

Commonwealth legacy is actually alright up here, got a mountain bike track, velodrome, hockey stadium and some of the worst parts of the east end domolished and a few other bits and bobs. Could have been worse.

just found out yesterday we’re co-hosting the 2018 European championships with berlin anawl so should get some stuff from that too.

Think the crux here is that you need to actually be the host city to get anything though! 😆

Democracy.

I’m not sure what Binners means when he talks of a ‘devaluation’ of the word legacy. Because the word itself can have negative as well as positive connotations. 😕

As for the Olympic ‘legacy’ itself, well, I don’t think there’s any real surprise that things haven’t turned out as advertised. And I don’t know why any intelligent person would have believed the claims and false promises in the beginning anyway; it was always going to be an enormous costly white elephant. The sole purpose of the Olympics is to line the pockets of corporate interests and corrupt officials/politicians. The sports are just part of the marketing fluff.

The true legacy of the Olympics, is £9+ billion spent for very little visible benefit, thousands of displaced people moved out of the Olympic site (and many not adequately rehoused if rehoused at all), massively increased traffic congestion and pollution in the local area, a huge increase in crime locally, the destruction of natural habitats of several rare species, and two human lives lost. I suppose the sports stadia are quite nice. I’m not sure how the rest of the UK benefitted.

I’m not sure how the rest of the UK benefitted.

Indeed Clodhopper.

For the mountain biking they shipped all those big rocks down from Derbyshire, at an enormous cost. As someone more clued up about the emperors new clothes asked at the time ‘why not just have it in Derbyshire?’

😆

I wasn’t bothered about the mtb race, but I did think it strange that if you could have sailing etc down in Weymouth, why you couldn’t have the MTB race somewhere a bit more appropriate than a farm in Essex.

So… Why the hell does every sentence have to start with “So…”???

And “two times”… What the hell is wrong with the word “twice”??? Bloody Americanisms…

And “One Pence”… It’s “ONE PENNY, TWO PENCE”!! (or tuppence)

Phew… That was quite liberating…

Something else that annoys me, and I’m not sure if it should, but when people describe things a “for free” as though free is an actual amount, rather than a contraction of “free from”…

Professional

Celebrity. Seems to refer to anyone who uses appeared at any point in any media ever.

Engineer. Usually used to refer to the bloke with a screwdriver who replaces the toner cartridge on the printer, or replaces drive belts on washing machines. Should refer to the highly educated person who designed the machines/ bridges/ aeroplanes/ cars in the first place.

Professional

Celebrity

Engineer

3 excellent choices.

I’d go with ‘Politician’.

baby robin?

“Reality” TV.

Awesome
Preorder (no, one is merely ordering. Preorder doesn’t exist, it was invented to appeal to the feeling of exclusivety!)
Celebrity

As Cyclingweakly rightly says; any form of Americanisms. They’re not welcome in my vovab!

Costed policies (which bugs me because costed isn’t really a word) because if you’re a politician you decide if you want to do something then you get the money for it, either by taxation or by investing. There isn’t am arbitrary size of the nation budget, it is whatever you choose to do.

Enduro Specific

renewable energy (I struggle to believe it)
green (I know, we’ve had sustainable)
passionate (see the apprentice, etc)

why not just have it in Derbyshire?’

It was the London Olympics! The athletes live in the Olympic village and don’t want to travel to Derbyshire.

Clearly if it was the GB Olympics, that would be different. They did try for Manchester a few years back, but don’t think it was taken seriously by the IOC, so went for one that had a decent chance.

Expert

Narrative.

“It was the London Olympics! The athletes live in the Olympic village and don’t want to travel to Derbyshire.”

But what about the sailing? That was in Weymouth!

And the MTB race wasn’t ‘in’ London anyway.

clodhopper – Member
And the MTB race wasn’t ‘in’ London anyway.

and not near any mountains (though Mountain Biking is perhaps candidate words here also as Mountain is often missing from the activity).

If I was an international level MTB competitor, I reckon I’d be much happier being in Derbyshire than ssaaaaaaaaarf laaaaaahndaaaan, then shipped out to Essex for the day, whether it had the biggest Macdonalds in Europe or not.

As with the Weymouth example, surely it would be sensible to have a mountain bike race somewhere thats not as flat as a witches tit, and you didn’t have to ship a Derbyshire hillside in (at enormous cost) to stop everyone dying of boredom?

To me it just sums up the whole ‘Olympic Ethos’ they’re so dramatically demonstrating in Rio at the moment – lets spaff loads and loads and loads of other peoples money, because we can. Without giving any thought to where we actually should or not.

At the end of the day, the ‘Olympic Legacy ‘in this case is a field in Essex with some very expensive rocks in it.

And has anybody stopped to think about what geologists or anthropologists make of it all in thousands of years. They’ll think they’re found a 21st century Stonehenge. Thats going to throw them a bit, isn’t it?

The only Olympic Legacy I see is Ride London, which is ever more popular each year (if a bit cocked up this year and a bit tragic again).

Hero

Fact

“My”

“bad”

Innovative

A Level

For the mountain biking they shipped all those big rocks down from Derbyshire, at an enormous cost. As someone more clued up about the emperors new clothes asked at the time ‘why not just have it in Derbyshire?’

Any figures for the enormous cost? The whole site only cost £800k so I doubt shipping the rocks was very much. And the result? Now Essex has a fantastic, world class, trail centre where there was none before as a result of the Olympics. That’s a legacy. If you want to improve the MTB facilities in Derbyshire maybe Matlock could bid for the next games.

“Now Essex has a fantastic, world class, trail centre”

Truly ‘world class’:

😆

World Class indeed. Puts our local trails to shame, thats for sure. And a snip at just shy of a million quid. Must make a point of planning a trip down there. Can’t think why I haven’t done so already. A glaring oversight 😉

Awesome.

Why couldn’t they have built something in the Chilterns
1:20mins from London ?

Truly ‘world class’

Yes, it is, they did an olympic race on it. Have you ridden it or just found an unflattering image on google? The point being compared to what was there before, or anywhere in the area, it is a massive step forward and an excellent example of legacy. Whether you think its value for money is up to you but £800k isn’t a lot for something that is now used by hundreds of thousands of people.

TBH with Hadleigh, it’s just that most people don’t understand that it’s an mtb race course not a trail centre.

“Have you ridden it “

I confess I haven’t. But people I know who are keen mtbers, have, and have said it’s shit (compared to other places they’ve been in the UK). I have heard or seen nothing to make me want to visit the place. I suppose it’s ok for families and kids, but I don’t think we had to have a £9 billion Olympics to create it.

Perhaps Binners and I should make a special trip down there, to see for ourselves, just how amazing it is. 😆

I’ve ridden it and it’s not bad. It’s not Snowdonia, or Afan, or even the Chilterns, but it’s got technical bits and it is possible to take people of all abilities round it. It’s even got a kids pump track and a cafe. For the money, even including shipping fees for the prime Derbyshire rock, I think it is worth it.

If you need another reason to go there, Ikea is just down the road. They do meatballs and cheap furniture.

Is there a Greggs nearby? That might swing it for Binners. 😉

Anyhooters, back on topic:

‘Solutions’ added to the end of any sort of business