The Olympics will be over soon

While I like the occasional boardgame I'm not very excited about organised competitive sports and normally the Olympics would completely pass me by, much as footballing events do.

This one has got my attention though. There seems to be an almost limitless supply of dumbth coming from the people involved in running the Olympics. I'm quite convinced that it can't all possibly be true, yet the stories are being published in reputable sources (and the Daily Mail too...).

I have not checked the veracity of the anecdotes I've heard below and will cheerfully remove them (and be glad they're not true!) if someone points out an error to me.

(Quite a few of the stories I've heard have come from the Daily Mail - they might have exaggerated things a bit to be honest - gosh, let's hope so eh?!)

• People selling cupcakes aren't allowed to ice Olympic rings on them.
• Children taking part in some Olympic event aren't allowed to wear nonAdidas shoes.
• Anyone attending the Olympics in person needs to wear unbranded clothing, or clothing of the sponsors, there is apparently such a thing as an exclusion zone around the Olympic areas in which no other products can be advertised.
• McDonald's has stopped fish and chip vendors from selling single portions of chips (they must be sold with fish).
• Twitter is in cahoots with the Olympic organisers to ensure that brands don't undertake ambush marketing (although how will they stop me, unaffiliated with any brand, from tweeting that "I'm enjoying Acme Widgets, the official widgets of the Olympics"?) 
• Oxleas Wood has Rapier missiles in it, as does Blackheath heath and some other places. I'm actually a big fan of military hardware but still struggle to keep a straight face on this one.
• You can link to the Olympics pages but only if you say nice or neutral things about them.

Honestly, I have to say that all of this simply makes me want to find ways to deliberately annoy LOCOG and the sponsors. Nothing illegal, just colossally passive-aggressive - such as avoiding buying any products or services from the sponsors and gleefully enjoying and sharing every new instance of silliness.

They have also spectacularly misjudged the capacity of smart, web-savvy types to wreak snarky havoc via social media. I look forward to seeing this aspect of it in particular.

Having said that I sincerely hope the Olympics are a success, that the athletes have a fantastic and safe time and that ticketholders enjoy it too and don't get too ripped off. I also hope the travel isn't too nightmarish.


Full list of Olympic sponsors

Acer
Adecco
Adidas
Aggreko
Airwave
Arcelor Mittal
Atkins
Atos
BMW
The Boston Consulting Group
BP
British Airways
BT
Cadbury
CBS Outdoor
Cisco
Coca Cola
Crystal CG
Deloitte
Dow
EDF
Eurostar
Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer LP
G4S
GE
GlaxoSmithKline
Gymnova
Heathrow Airport
Heineken UK
Holiday Inn
John Lewis
Lloyds TSB
McCann Worldgroup
McDonalds
Mondo
Nature Valley
Next
Nielsen
Omega
P&G
Panasonic
Populous
Rapiscan Systems
Rio Tinto
Samsung
Technogym
Thames Water
Thomas Cook
Ticketmaster
Trebor
UPS
Visa
Westfield