not the olympics in london 2012

readers of my posts on this website may have read my limited comments on sport ands sports before.each to their own of course,but ive never liked nor got on with sport much.ive written about my reasons and experience elsewhere and before.

if you like my limited enjoyment of sport is despite the sport of you like.like them or not i dont hold the view that they particularly contribute to "good things"like peace and that they are a perfect reflection of capitalism economically and culturally.

my wife has adifferent viewpoint so i agreed too pay for some tickets for her,whilst i planned a trip into urope in order not to be anywhere near the olympics when they took place.

things havwe changed for us both and together since we hatched that scheme of things.whilst government may not have aplan B,i do......

without going in details the lottery for tickets meant that my partner was amongst the many NOT to get any tickets and the system of issueing tickets has proven at least to be a let down.

indeed i am reminded that ive recently read about a forthcoming or current book that is about aqt least 10"top down"projects in britain of which the olympics is one which is seen to have failed.its a pity i now cant find the specific book reference.

i may not be able to afford or manage my trip into europe.

but something else has begun to bubble in my head...

in the late 60s and early 70s when something failed or looked questionable.and alternative would develop.indeed often british psychedelic bands hawkwind and/or the pink fairies or even pinkwind or hawklords would show up and play at it and turn it into a festival.

so if then,why not now too?if its worth doing once its worth doing again.

so how about this for a suggestion-

a free festival in lee valley park(its part of the network of olympic sites,with hawkwind,the fairies and more.invite and engage with very differente sports-like free running,urban golf,extreme ironing=there must be more.

in the light of the failed 3 years of cultural festival which was supposed to lead yp to the big sporting event but which as far as i know has been completely invisible apart i suggest from lining some pockets to the tune of £30m....if muchael horovitz poetry olympics is still out there,we could invite the too.

and more.

anyone out there?i think AMM might join us?

i launched the idae of not the olympics here to try to pick up on the criticism that the olympics no longer upholds the values asssociated with the original tradition,nor indeed any notion of humanitarian or progressive values in the here and now.it also reflects the problems inherent in most top down and grandiose iniatives,and that despite what might be good intentions that it has left many people in london and across britain,dissapointed.

im intentionally trung to tap into some of our(britons in all their diversity)countercultural traditions including foltraditions and festival.im also aware but not knowledgeable about some of the sports and games contercultural traditions including what i belive was referred to as new games(theory)in the 1960s and 1970s.im not sure whether this led to the spin of in mathematics but at this time im more interested in the ideas of co-operation which new games promoted as opposed to the competition which seems stressed in mainstream sports.my limited experience of this tradition of new games is in constructing actvities which encouraged collective and co-operative activity and where the sense of achievement camne in the feelings that accompanies the whole activity.i have taken part in and used reverse or alternative mysical chairs,which rather than encouraging exclusionone by one of participants when the music stops encourages groups to work as a group to maintain the resence of the whole group on a decreasing number of chairs.these ideas gained some currency in the mainstream at least in the negative sense that it was the butt of ideas about declining standarsd of fitness and competition.never mind the effect of capitalism in selling rubbish food that "inflates us"or the cuts over the lats 30 years in school and other sports facilities.i would like to hear from those mor knowlegeable about or active in new games and what it may now have become.

i am also aware of what in britain started as the extreme or dangerous sports interests more usually associated with a secod of the british upper class but which i belive may have transmuted into a much more democratic and open free sports tradition.all of this seems counter-cultural and seems to stress some kind of more popular control of more challenging activities which have allowed the development of more independent sporting traditions outwith,at least for a time,of the suffocating impact of capitalism(i do realise that no counter-culture can be entirely free or indepenedent of capiltalist social relations,but such counter-cultures contest those dominant values)

i have also been made aware that there is in relation to the olympics,of a commercial "not the olympics..."but have no details.a web search leads to a somewhat different "not the olympics 2012"which appears to be a fund raising campaign for the alzheimers society and supported by a businnes organised as UK200.i am sure the hairbrained idea i have launched need not be in competition certainly with the alzheimers society.however,until i get a response from them,i am left mystified by what they are actually trying to do.

in the meantime,i have had some express of interest but am not in a position to give further details at this stage.

in the order of thimngs it would not be tragedy if this idea does not fly,but id still like to try.i would thereforw welcome any expressions of interest,ideas or criticisms