To be horrified at the cost of the olympics opening ceremony when the country is in the middle of a huge recession?

[YellowDinosaur]

I just found out today that the olympics opening ceremony is costing 27 million quid.

Dh and I are sitting watching it and while it has been very cleverly done so far there is bugger all to do with sport.

Why the fuck has so much money been spent on bloody political one up manship in staging this and what on earth is wrong with lighting the torch, having a small amount of music and letting the athletes parade in?

I mean 27 million is a truly offensive amount of money for 1 evening at the best of times but in the middle of a bloody recession it's just a smack in the face.

I am happy for my views to be challenged and will even change them if anyone can give me convincing too why this expensed is justified. Not,holding nth breath though...

The health service is important. But the answer isn't always to throw more money at it. Labour did that for 13 years and look where it got them?

Twas great.
Loved the digs about the NHS, factories, Kes, and ..... Arctic Monkeys (not some 70s classic rubbish).

Only thing that spoiled it was Macca.

27million would do a lot for the NHS

Considering the NHS budget is around 4,000 times £27m, it would make no difference whatsoever.

27m is nothing. The cost of paying the interest on our national debt for a single day is more than 27m.

Of course it would make some difference to the NHS, sure it won't save it long term, but it might go some way towards saving lives.

I just think 27million for a 4 hour show is a waste of money. That's just my opinion. I am happy to be proved wrong when more like IF the Olympics has a fabulous effect on our economy.

Posted before I added... Danny Boyle needs a knighthood. I expect all newly-built estates to have a venerable ' Sir Daniel of Boyleshire Boulevard' at the very least.Hiccup.

YANBU 'Twas a bag of shite from start to finish.

Littleprincessrocks - it really wouldn't.

I think you're being blinded by the fact that £27m sounds like a lot of money on a personal level. The reality is that the NHS spends £12m every hour, 24hrs a day, 365 days a year.

It's the equivalent of someone on the national average salary being given £4.88 extra over a full year. A pay rise of 0.2p per hour.

£27,000,000 on the opening ceremony. £15 billion and rising on the cost of the Games so far. £8 billion and rising on the cost of 'improving the infrastructure' (transport links etc) prior to the Games.

These are obscene amounts of money which I would very much like Coe & Co to explain.

Yanbu. It's not a drop in the ocean. It could make a significant difference in the world. And anyway, each drop is part if the ocean. And we look tits to the rest of the worked spending like this. Would all the people approving be able to look at one of the worlds hungry directly in the eye and make the same statements directly to him/her?

It didn't cost £27m.

It cost under £10m. I don't know how many seats were £2012 or £995 each but it was a fair number. They'll have paid for a large part of it. It was estimated that at least 1/4 of the global population would see it, I guess we'll find out how many later on today. Doesn't seem quite such bad value then.

Why would you object to money spent improving transport links? Capital investment in infrastructure is something we have lacked in this country in recent times.

Where did you get the 15bn figure from?

At least some money was spent on something.

Austerity is destroying the economy.

YABU

I wonder if they'll release it on DVD? That'll probably raise a fair bit, too.

You can spend all the money we have on the NHS and stuff, but if the structure isn't in place to run those services efficiently, it'll just go down the drain. Chucking money at problems doesn't make them go away. We need to overhaul things (and not in the way the Tories are doing) not just pump more money into them. It just doesn't work as a solution.

Besides, you need to spend money on fun stuff as well, otherwise what is the point?

And unless you give ALL your money to good causes, you are being hypocritical. To someone who lives on a dollar a day, your £3 cup of coffee/sandwich/unnecessary journey/organic chicken is offensive.

But in the same vein, we could ALL give up ALL our money to charity and there would still be problems in the world because money can't solve every problem when there are corrupt officials, crap structures and inefficient use of funds.

YABU, miserly, and miserable. It's about time the nation felt some sense of pride. To boost people's morale and spirit is just as important as improving services etc.

If that and the rest of the Olympics get children active and playing sport then it's got to be worth the money and save the NHS money in the long run

All i can say op is bah humbug

If all the nah sayers hate it so much dot watch but i bet if they could of got their hand on a ticket they would of packed their rain jackets and been right down their most of the hates is coming from ticketless people

To all the moaners booooooo

I thought it was fabulous. YABU. If that's the attitude then we should never spend any money on sport, the arts, any non 'essential' stuff and our lives would be much poorer for it. The benefits of inspiring a generation cannot be quantified.

The people need bread and circus

I think that the lavish opening and closing ceremonies are a total waste of space anyhow.

And I thought it weak-minded to have the CND logo featured in a Games which needed military input, both programmed and eleventh hour emergency.

I was shocked at the cost of it all.

I understand that the country will get money back in tourism etc. I live that it may encourage the children to be more active and healthier.

But I found it hard not to be a bit bitter last night as I sat in my packed up front room with my tv perched on boxes. All these boxes. All this heartache because I'm waiting to be made homeless by a government who can't find the money to build more housing or offer Housing Benefit rates anywhere near what the properties are renting for here.

I'm trying to get excited. But I just don't trust this government to spend all this extra revenue in any way that might help other people in my situation.

It was a fantastic event which brought the whole nation together. It was a once in a lifetime thing so we had to do it well and that can't be done on a budget.

I wonder how much the Chinese spent on their opening ceremony? I'm guessing it was a lot less, and it was much better.

YANBU

Tt could have been done better on a lot less.

It just proves that throwing money at something doesn't mean it is going to be good.

"It was once in a lifetime"

So those pix of the Queen, as Princess Elizabeth, at an earlier London Olympics were all faked footage? And the veterans of those games who have participated in the 2012 celebrations are all liars too?