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Booze ups and breweries?

Why do I get the feeling that plans for the Olympic Games are going to make us look like a nation of complete plonkers? Our poor bloody troops are going to have to fill the gap left by bungling G4S who apparently couldn't get the staff - what? With all the unemployment -please! I suspect the profits they stood to make were a damned sight higher priority than security. These are the same troops who are facing redundancy, what a good job they haven't already gone, what would we do then?  What bird brain was responsible for letting the contract to GS4? What with the M4 closure, the complete cock-up at Heathrow and now this, just who is in charge?

Vanessa Smith ● 5040d14 Comments

One of our porters made the big mistake of retrieving a plastic carrier bag that had been dumped in a waste paper bin by an arriving passenger, then taking it into the gents.  All this was captured on CCTV.When he emerged about fifteen minutes later looking shifty and suspicious he was nabbed by Customs, who thought he'd been handling drugs.  He had to explain, with some embarrassment, that what had actually been in the bag had been a porno mag.

Phil Andrews ● 5039d

The searches I have had have not been quite so eye watering Phil but I do remember the AWP episode well.Being repeated on one of the channels at the moment. To paraphrase Rab C. Nesbitt 'Yu'll nae be shinin' yer davy lamp up my jacksey...!'

Keith Iddon ● 5039d

Blimey!

Keith Iddon ● 5039d

KeithYou would have if you had been offered the option of a full personal search, as one or two of my porters were at my old job when they crossed Customs staff at Heathrow.Or as Oz so succinctly put it in Auf Wiedersehn, Pet: "What do you expect to find up there, the National Debt?"

Phil Andrews ● 5039d

"How do 'we' 'know' this John.?"Damien Green the minister responsible has said so, that's how.

Vanessa Smith ● 5039d

How do 'we' 'know' this John.? I should imagine that some of those doing the checking may be 'more colourful' as you so quaintly put it.I think this is merely a pigment of your imagination and you should really know better than to post such assumptions.Have you never been searched at a customs point?I certainly have and don't mind in the slightest.

Keith Iddon ● 5039d

Vanessa, south west of Terminal 4 and alongside the cargo terminal a series of temporary sheds have been going up over the last few months. I understand that these will be used to fast-process athletes and others directly linked to the Olympics.Of course, we know that a soft touch is to be applied to white athletes from the "old" Commonwealth and some other countries whilst the "more colourful" will be subject to more thorough examination. I am sure John Terry will be proud that the Tory minister responsible for the process has decreed that this should be the case.

John Connelly ● 5039d

Given all the mess with the Border Agency processing people at Heathrow why wasn't part of one of the terminals sectioned off just for people associated with the Olympics. Surely that would overcome some of the bottlenecks?

Vanessa Smith ● 5039d

I think Yvette Cooper just had a go at the Home Office for not knowing about the situation with G4S. Tessa Jowell said "Bringing in the army was sad but necessary".   Boris on the other hand said,as only he could "It'll be nice to having the smart uniforms around,it'll bring a sense of occasion to the place".

Tony Wood ● 5039d

The reason I thought New Labour were involved in employing this lot was that I heard a snippet of an interview with Yvette Cooper on the car radio and she was making a justification of sorts for engaging this mob.As I say I may have mis-heard as I was driving and only caught the end of the interview.

Keith Iddon ● 5039d

"I may be wrong"Yes, I think you may be on this one. Letting private companies like LOCOG and G4S loose was always going to mean that money came before absolutely anything else. Look at the great ticket farce - all this has done is left a lot of people very hacked off with the whole shooting match. Have you heard the Boris messages booming out on the tube every 15 minutes - the man is a complete d*ckhead.

Vanessa Smith ● 5039d

But haven't Sebastian and Boris been in command since day one?

Tony Wood ● 5040d

At £30,000 per member of staff for a few weeks I would have thought it a doddle.In fact it is - I could organise it for far less

Ian Silver ● 5040d

Not getting party political I may be wrong but it may be the last lot who mis-ruled us who employed this mob.£300m to train and employ 10,000 for 3 weeks should be easy,especially in times of high unemployment.Perhaps if they were not massaging their profit margin so much and paying more than 8-9 quid an hour they would get more and higher quality workers.I would like to know if any of the directors have any political affiliations or if any of them are freemasons.Maybe they should have just given this to the Army in the first place then at least we wouldn't have egg on our faces to the same extent and would have saved a good few quid.

Keith Iddon ● 5040d