I’m not. And I haven’t noticed much coverage of them as yet. The most frequent reference to them that I’ve heard over the past few weeks is the complaint that the Games are being used as an excuse to extend daylight saving by another week.
The Commonwealth Games are next month? I honestly had no idea; and I’m usually aware of this sort of thing, at the very least. I suppose that goes to show how much they’re seen by someone living in England at the moment.
Anu
Nope.
I wasn’t interested in them when i actually lived in the Commonwealth, and now that i’m in the US the only way i could really follow them would be on the internet anyway.
I think they’re rather pointless, and would be quite happy to get rid of them.
I won’t be watching them. I’m don’t really enjoy watching sport all that much, though. I caught a bit of the Olympics, but not by design.
I have no interest in them.
I’m not, but must admit I’m a fairly extreme example of managing to avoid sport*
However, I am pretty sure I don’t see much fuss about them in the news sites I visit (although television might be different).
Once or twice I have recently tried to look for some “background” sort of stuff - about how Melbourne actually feels about his thing - because at present there’s a sort of build-up to "oh, which city shall have this great pleasure in 2014 - Abuja, Halilfax (Canadian version, not Yorkshire 
), or Glasgow. Consequently I do get to read a fair bit of rubbish about what an wonderfully splendid thing this would be, without it being at all clear just why we are all meant to want it, or care about it.
So I suppose I’ll skim over Games coverage in the hope of finding somethign about what the real implications of this have been for Melbourne, as in, what about people whose homes might be knocked down to make space for Og-knows-what that the sporty thing wants, whether it is actually thought to be somehow good for the city as a whole, or just for the businesses that can profit from it, and so on.
And WHY should one bloming sporty thing, large though it might be, be permitted to mess up the daylights savings time of the actual residents who have normal lives to get on with and probably couldn’t give a toss? Grrrr.
Oops, stop ranting, Celyn. Past my bedtime, I think.
- except when Scotland wins at Rugby.
O happy day.!
The only interest I have is that the Games are going to play havoc with our already less-than-optimal public transport system, which means I am probably going to be a Very Pissed-Off kambuckta for two weeks in March.
Oh, it hasn’t only affected daylight saving but also our school-terms this year…kids are getting the Games-time as first-term holidays, but they’ll only have been back just six weeks since the Xmas hols. Which means the trains and trams and buses will not only be full of flakey tourists, but school kids as well, which will just add even more fuel to my Pissed Off level.
It’s funny really. As much as the various media outlets and other Authorities have tried to whip up a frenzy of enthusiasm for the games, most events and venues still have plenty of available tickets. Nobody is particularly interested. It’s not something that has even come up as a topic of general conversation with friends and workmates.
We’re sporting philistines here…unless you’re talking about footy of course. 
I hear this time around the medals are going to be chocolate and wrapped in gold foil.
Ah, Kambuckta. So the main effect is to disrupt normal life, even although you actual residents of the host place are told to get into a right old frenzy of excitement about it? And it messes up transport. Hmmm. I wonder if the local authorities ever tried to tell you that somehow getting the games would help bring about an improvement in public transport? Nah, perhaps your lot can be trusted more than mine.
I suspect it eats money from local taxes too.
I was working in Petaling Jaya, Malaysia, during the 1998 games held in Kuala Lumpur. Malaysia was the first Asian country to host the games and it became a national obsession. As a dumb isolationist American, I had rarely heard of the Commonwealth Games. We have the World Series, right?
Home owners from all over the city - from the airport to the venues - were required to paint their houses in some approved color spectrum, at their own expense. When I expressed the “WTF?” question to my cow-orkers, I was roundly shot down. This was a matter of national pride and individual hardship was not a concern.
The Australians dominated the games but the Malaysians finished first in at least ten events, a respectable outcome.
The people I worked with, predominately Chinese-Malay, were less concerned about the outcome of the games as the recognition that they were selected to be the host city.
I was sort of hoping one of the street events (bike races etc) might go down our street, then we could skip town for two weeks, rent out our house furnished, and make a million. No such luck though …
There have been some moderately pathetic attempts to raise a bit of hype locally (“Commonwealth Games - 100 days to go!! Get ready!!!”) but they never had any effect on me
Wot she (Celyn) said.
We had the Commonwealth Games here in Auckland in 1990. The experience has led me to make sure that when I visit Melbourne next month, I get the hell out of that city before their silly season starts.
I’ve had folk ask if I’m going over there to see the Games, and I look at them as if they’re deranged. Sorry you’ve got it in your backyard this time, Melburnians. Hope you recover from it soon.
I’ll watch the rugby - apart from that, there’s nothing that would interest me. There’s no huge sense of national pride in seeing a medal being won for diving, or badminton, or whatever.
Last time around I was living in Manchester, so it was a different story entirely - the city really took it seriously, and had a two-week party.
Not interested in anything that will actually be happening sports wise.
I work at the “non-paris” end of Collins Street, kind of near Telstra Dome, so I expect nothing but shitty freakin’ problems with traffic over the next 4-6 weeks.
I believe Swan Street bridge is already being closed periodically.
Can’t wait for it to be gone even before it’s here.
Now that would be a way to gain some enjoyment and benefit from the whole thing. I think that’s quite popular with people in Edinbrugh - rent out to visitors who want to do the Festival thing, and bugger off somewhere else for a peaceful quiet time… And a landlady of mine in a village outside St. Andrews once mentioned having been offered a very big sum if she would go away and rent out her (rather lovely) house to some famous golfer or another for the golf Open.
Aspidistra, if you would like to borrow with my cynical view of the way things get organised (I’ve got enough of it to spare, after all ), then you can just keep your fingers crossed that there will be some unforseen hitch that entails a quick change of route, then bikes go on Aspidistra’s street and $million is made.
(What’s going to happen here in Glasgow is that the possibility of Commonwealth Games is going to be used as a good reason to get rid of people (i.e. ME :mad: ) who already live in one of the two suggested locations for an athletes’ village. Should the Games not come to pass, no problemo, 'cos then the people in rented hosues are gone and all of a sudden there’s a big patch of land, close to the city centre, easy to drive quickly to pretty countryside, and the motorways and the railway and really quite convenenient to build yuppie homes or lots of pricey office space. Most convenient, once the present residents been disposed of.)
Urban “redevelopment” under the guise of mass sports adoration? That really sucks, Celyn. I think what they did here was reuse housing specially built for the athlete’s village as state housing once it was all relocated after the Games were over. Just about the only positive side to the deal.
Well, I could get behind that, just about. So I’m glad there was a positive there.
It’s all such a load of rubbish - we heard the same stuff about the London Olympics thing( and I reckon a lot of Londoners are not too happy either) to the effect that somehow this will all be magically wonderful for every - jobs (bah! |TEMP jobs), improvements in sports amenities blah blah. They try to dress up building of great bigt sporty-things as somehow being a Good Thing for the health and fitness of all ciitizens. No, actually, things for day-today improvments would be better - make it safer and nicer to walk or cycle and then the non-sport peeps would have a realitic choice to take more exercise in daily life - I call that a bit more useful than what is essentially encouraging people to watch sport, or the the sub-group who are keen on it to travel across the city to get to some bright new posh “velodrome” or some such nonsense.
Jeez, I do fear I am hijackiing Cunctator’s thread here, so I am sorry about that.
Not a problem at all.
I’m in Melbourne today and I must say that the city is looking quite festive in preparation for the Games. The traffic has been something else though - this morning’s run in from Tullamarine took over an hour. Should be fun during March!
As usual I seem to be at odds with the majority here, being the only one who has posted so far who enjoys the Commonwealth Games.
I can understand the frustration of those living in the host city but as I’m not living in Melbourne, yeah I’m looking forward to them.