As I was walking back from the shops just now, I had my first encounter with the new rules of the road for the Olympics. I was approaching a crossroads when a gaggle of Police om motorbikes motored up and closed off the intersection to vehicle and pedestrian traffic alike. I had to wait at the pedestrian crossing in a gathering crowd for five minutes or so until a group of three vehicles bearing the Olympic logo came through, and then another coule of minutes until the last of the escort had passed through and we pedestrians were allowed to cross while the traffic was held until we had all done so.
I think I’ve written before about how annoying that could be in Moscow, with their ‘VIP’ lanes on all the roads, and now we will have it here for the next month or so. It could get interesting. The reaction of the pedestrians who had to wait – lots of them, of course, on their way home after a day at work – was interesting. I wonder how the ‘VIPs’ in their limos felt to see a crowd of angry commuters all shaking their fists and shouting insults? Not that they could hear them, but the body language would have been expressive enough. The poor old cops weren’t too happy…
Boadicea's Chariot 
I doubt whether the VIPs were one bit worried – they all seem to think they’re Gods…
They will be when the rocks start flying!
Anyone with a few bob and an anarchic heart should do it thus.-
Nip down to a bunch of pikers somewhere in Essex, pay them a sufficiency of loose cash for some seriously old, heavy vehicles.
Remove plates and arrange for them to break down irretrievably in Zil lanes in due course, driver walks away just before escort passes through. They will never prosecute, pikers can do no wrong!!!
Even better arrange for a small explosion to destroy the engine and wait for the bomb squad!
Should brighten up the commute.
Or arrange for a muck spreader to pass that way.
Or mass civil disobedience and everyone use them.
Or take a dozen eggs on your commute!
If the English do nothing they deserve the country they are getting.
PS Have it filmed and laugh yourself shitless in jail over the ‘home movies’!
Worth every penny of a couple of hundred thousand if you were a millionaire to have a series of such incidents.
PPS Please call them as they are, not VIP lanes but ZIL lanes. They are not very important people just total parasites, bloodsucking, oligarchic opportunists. It is interesting that our own Royalty drive round London completely incognito most of the time, except occasions of State, without all this falderal.
Falderal is very good. A variant of folderol. I like it.
Can I plead dialecticism?
Blame the ‘a’ sound!
Exactly, it’s only the wannabees who need a motorcade to announce their presence. The real VIPs just get on with whatever they do.
That would annoy me 😦
and the games are still a month away!!!!!!!
Had to look up zil, interesting article and comments here
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/olympics/9314067/Londoners-wont-take-kindly-to-Zil-lanes-at-the-Olympics.html
We had nothing at all like that for the world cup, team motorcades now and again but no inconveniences to speak of.
I realise that the concern is that athletes should not miss their events because of traffic congestion, as happened at the Atlanta Olympics. I expect Londoners wouldn’t mind that. But the idea of preference for self-important, and in some instances corrupt, Olympic bigwigs is ludicrous. Who would care whether they’re around or not.
And lording over the lot of them is that conceited egotistical big nosed twat Coe.
I would love to see him get his comeuppance.
Total nonsense, I agree, but according to the link kindly provided by Soutie, the provision of Zil lanes were nothing to do with us. The Zil lanes were one of the conditions laid down by the IOC for the Games to be held in London.
As far as I am concerned, we should have refused.
Or else also provide the trough-hogging fekkers with real Zils instead of taking BMW’s cars and money. Can you imagine it – a London olympics with Bayerische Motoren Werke AG as a sponsor? Sic transit gloria mundi and screw the IOC.
OZ
p.s. Here’s a good advertising byline for BMW – “Our cars work best when there’s nothing else on the road”.
OZ love it!
The krauts aren’t that stupid, they couldn’t win Europe with two WW so they have had every intent of winning the peace and are succeeding.
We are the stupid ones allowing it to happen!
I often wonder if peoples’ grandchildren will have to fight WWIII against the EUSSR in due course when it comes into being.
(Typical greenhouse rumination!)
The reaction here to the imposition of the Zil lanes seems to be very similar to the reaction observed on the ground. I wonder if people will start to get reely upset when the restrictions begin to bite and interfere with their journeys to and from work at the beginning and end of the day? It would be nice to see some actual protest – but I won’t hold my breath…
Don’t hold your breath, Bravo. We had roads closed in Sydney for the Olympic bigwigs – the only comment the NSW Government made was to advise people to leave Sydney for the duration of the Games.
I really have no idea why countries want to participate in this sort of nonsense. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again – build an Olympic Centre in Greece and let the world ‘compete’ for the privilege of hosting the Games in the country of its origin.
I’m sure that the work generated by the building of such a complex would do far more to help Greece get out of its financial difficulties than all the ‘loans’ that will have to be paid back anyway.
BOA it amazes me how we the average people can see all this yet our glorious leaders have their heads stuck up each others backsides.
They don’t see it, Rick, because one way or another the pollies all make a profit (money, power, or glory) out of it.
Either that, or they all have a lobotomy the minute they are elected.
I’m in Kiev to run some training for a couple of days. No Zil lanes in evidence here – though, like Russia, they do that stuff for ‘VIPs’ all the time. What there is a a huge ‘fan zone’ which turns a large part of the centre of town into a pedestrian-only zone on match days, with plenty of entertainment for the fans – not that the English fans will be taking any further part in the festivities, and nor, from what I saw on-and-off during dinner tonight, do they deserve to after their team’s performance, or lack of same.