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World Cup QF - Ruined by Private Enterprise & The BBC



May 10, 2013
9
Cliff Richard was the first to note that everybody has a summer holiday and yesterday was ours. We had a long and sweaty drive down from Oxford for a day at Brighton, in order to look at the university where our daughter, Lilly Longtongue, will go in September to become a paramedic. Once the talks and demonstrations had finished, we got the No.25 bus to town and then on to the beach.

We thought there might be a big screen on the beach to show the big world cup game and sure enough, there was. But it was private. All fenced off and with mesh screens tied to the fence to prevent plebians and oiks from seeing through and watching their national team on the free-to-air BBC. Couldn't have that, could we? Where's the profit incentive?

I'm not sure who fondly believes themselves to be "the owner" of the public beach and felt justified in allowing this private company to fence off a large stretch of it for their noxious enterprise, but it caused all sort of problems.

Firstly you have to picture it if they'd done the right thing and just made the big screen free for everyone to watch. You have to picture the families sat around the whole beach enjoying it. Everyone included. The haves and the have nots too. After all, it's the national football team - it doesn't only belong to the middle classes. The food and drink outlets doing a roaring trade and making a great profit (a profit that could have perhaps been used to fund the screen?). Plenty of bins around for the rubbish. Plenty of portaloos for the people to use. It could have been great.

Now see what actually happened - a expensive, private enterprise fiasco which caused discomfort and nuisance for almost everyone there, irrespective of whether they were a privileged "insider" or (like us) "outsiders".

The cost of the screen must have been dwarfed by the acres of fencing all around, designed to keep the riff-raff out. The fence was draped with the aforementioned anti-visibility mesh nets and patrolled (inevitably) by hired private security goons in hi-vis. As people arrived, a huge queue formed all down the beach of those waiting to get in. The people sweated in the broiling sun, waiting in the enormous queue, whilst a private enterprise lady screeched over the (very loud) loud speakers every 30 seconds "ALL SOLD OUT! ALL SOLD OUT! IF YOU HAVEN'T GOT A WRISTBAND IT'S ALL SOLD OUT!".

As the time of kick off approached, a fairly large crowd of us ne-er do wells had gathered by the fence outside and comrades began to rip down the anti-visibility mesh. The goons tried to stop them, but since it was only held up with garden cable tie things, they had a hopeless job. We now had fairly good visibility, blocked only by the garden sheds (honestly) that they had lined up inside and were sadly renting to the super-rich for about £1500 a pop, in order for them to have a luxury big match pampering experience.

It's sad to report that amongst our number outside the fence, were some teenager dicks. They liked the drinking and they liked shouting about England, but they weren't really that interested in the football. There were about a dozen of 'em in front of me, all in their strict uniform of tennis shoes, shorts, no shirt, gold chain, hair shaved short on the back and sides and pints of lager. After about 5 mins of the game, half of them were facing the other way with their back to the screen, disappearing for a pish ("in the sea!" they chortled) or getting into impassioned discussions about their girlfriends in ways that made me think: "what a bunch of dicks".

Anyway, first goal went in. Huge cheers from inside and outside. Everyone's happy. At half time, the BBC shows supporter celebrations around the country and the people are throwing beer and glasses up in the air. Which area of the country is best? Lineker and Shearer don't know. Ha ha ha. Throwing beer eh?

Second half starts and now it's a bit rowdier. The boys try to assault the barricades and go over the top, giving one another leg ups to vault over the top. "Like cats" they were said my wife, Cifriana. Very impressive the agility. The goons sprung into action with frantic calls on their walkie talkies and running around grim faced and desperate, trying to catch the acrobats.

Others, less agile but no less determined, used the "Great Escape" method and tried tunnelling down into the beach and underneath the barrier. We saw two lads come along and take a copious pish against the fence, followed a few mins later by an unknowing gentleman who started tunnelling with his bare hands right where they'd been urinating. Yeuch!

When the second goal went in, the boys presumably thought if they threw enough beer around then they might get shown on the telly by Mr Lineker. They'd been set an example and they didn't want to be outdone in what were evidently the de rigeur celebrations. Unfortunately however, since we were free and unregulated thanks to the private enterprise efforts, all our drink was in bottles and tin cans rather than in plastic glasses. It was very dangerous with a hail of these falling back to the beach and quite a number of the bottles smashing on the shingle. We withdrew at this point, because of the kids. I had a little battery radio and so we listened to the remainder of the game on that.

After the game, without wanting to sound holier than thou, we helped a couple of girls to pick up as much of the rubbish, cans, bottles and broken glass as we could and put it into some of the carrier bags that had been used to bring the booze and then left abandoned to blow over the beach. The broken glass in particular was very dangerous because it sinks in between the stones on the beach and you could hardly see it. There were no bins around at all because no provision had been made for non-payers.

So that was it. A good thing made bad by private enterprise's greed and determination to separate those who can pay from those who can not, along with the BBC's crass stupidity in repeatedly showing celebrations involving throwing glasses and beer and commenting on it approvingly.

I will try to get the effort up to write a letter of complaint to Brighton council, but it's hard to find the motivation when you know you'll be ignored completely in the interest of private profit for some git somewhere. It was some of our family's first visit to Brighton and Cifriana said she thought that Brighton and its people were "rough". I argued that these were probably not Brighton people, but tourists, but her mind was made up. She said some of the people were on bicycles, so they must have been local. It's a shame that a bad impression is made of a place that doesn't deserve it, simply because of the baleful efforts of some capitalist enterprise jackleg.
 


Tom Hark Preston Park

Will Post For Cash
Jul 6, 2003
69,880
Cliff Richard was the first to note that everybody has a summer holiday and yesterday was ours. We had a long and sweaty drive down from Oxford for a day at Brighton, in order to look at the university where our daughter, Lilly Longtongue, will go in September to become a paramedic. Once the talks and demonstrations had finished, we got the No.25 bus to town and then on to the beach.

We thought there might be a big screen on the beach to show the big world cup game and sure enough, there was. But it was private. All fenced off and with mesh screens tied to the fence to prevent plebians and oiks from seeing through and watching their national team on the free-to-air BBC. Couldn't have that, could we? Where's the profit incentive?

I'm not sure who fondly believes themselves to be "the owner" of the public beach and felt justified in allowing this private company to fence off a large stretch of it for their noxious enterprise, but it caused all sort of problems.

Firstly you have to picture it if they'd done the right thing and just made the big screen free for everyone to watch. You have to picture the families sat around the whole beach enjoying it. Everyone included. The haves and the have nots too. After all, it's the national football team - it doesn't only belong to the middle classes. The food and drink outlets doing a roaring trade and making a great profit (a profit that could have perhaps been used to fund the screen?). Plenty of bins around for the rubbish. Plenty of portaloos for the people to use. It could have been great.

Now see what actually happened - a expensive, private enterprise fiasco which caused discomfort and nuisance for almost everyone there, irrespective of whether they were a privileged "insider" or (like us) "outsiders".

The cost of the screen must have been dwarfed by the acres of fencing all around, designed to keep the riff-raff out. The fence was draped with the aforementioned anti-visibility mesh nets and patrolled (inevitably) by hired private security goons in hi-vis. As people arrived, a huge queue formed all down the beach of those waiting to get in. The people sweated in the broiling sun, waiting in the enormous queue, whilst a private enterprise lady screeched over the (very loud) loud speakers every 30 seconds "ALL SOLD OUT! ALL SOLD OUT! IF YOU HAVEN'T GOT A WRISTBAND IT'S ALL SOLD OUT!".

As the time of kick off approached, a fairly large crowd of us ne-er do wells had gathered by the fence outside and comrades began to rip down the anti-visibility mesh. The goons tried to stop them, but since it was only held up with garden cable tie things, they had a hopeless job. We now had fairly good visibility, blocked only by the garden sheds (honestly) that they had lined up inside and were sadly renting to the super-rich for about £1500 a pop, in order for them to have a luxury big match pampering experience.

It's sad to report that amongst our number outside the fence, were some teenager dicks. They liked the drinking and they liked shouting about England, but they weren't really that interested in the football. There were about a dozen of 'em in front of me, all in their strict uniform of tennis shoes, shorts, no shirt, gold chain, hair shaved short on the back and sides and pints of lager. After about 5 mins of the game, half of them were facing the other way with their back to the screen, disappearing for a pish ("in the sea!" they chortled) or getting into impassioned discussions about their girlfriends in ways that made me think: "what a bunch of dicks".

Anyway, first goal went in. Huge cheers from inside and outside. Everyone's happy. At half time, the BBC shows supporter celebrations around the country and the people are throwing beer and glasses up in the air. Which area of the country is best? Lineker and Shearer don't know. Ha ha ha. Throwing beer eh?

Second half starts and now it's a bit rowdier. The boys try to assault the barricades and go over the top, giving one another leg ups to vault over the top. "Like cats" they were said my wife, Cifriana. Very impressive the agility. The goons sprung into action with frantic calls on their walkie talkies and running around grim faced and desperate, trying to catch the acrobats.

Others, less agile but no less determined, used the "Great Escape" method and tried tunnelling down into the beach and underneath the barrier. We saw two lads come along and take a copious pish against the fence, followed a few mins later by an unknowing gentleman who started tunnelling with his bare hands right where they'd been urinating. Yeuch!

When the second goal went in, the boys presumably thought if they threw enough beer around then they might get shown on the telly by Mr Lineker. They'd been set an example and they didn't want to be outdone in what were evidently the de rigeur celebrations. Unfortunately however, since we were free and unregulated thanks to the private enterprise efforts, all our drink was in bottles and tin cans rather than in plastic glasses. It was very dangerous with a hail of these falling back to the beach and quite a number of the bottles smashing on the shingle. We withdrew at this point, because of the kids. I had a little battery radio and so we listened to the remainder of the game on that.

After the game, without wanting to sound holier than thou, we helped a couple of girls to pick up as much of the rubbish, cans, bottles and broken glass as we could and put it into some of the carrier bags that had been used to bring the booze and then left abandoned to blow over the beach. The broken glass in particular was very dangerous because it sinks in between the stones on the beach and you could hardly see it. There were no bins around at all because no provision had been made for non-payers.

So that was it. A good thing made bad by private enterprise's greed and determination to separate those who can pay from those who can not, along with the BBC's crass stupidity in repeatedly showing celebrations involving throwing glasses and beer and commenting on it approvingly.

I will try to get the effort up to write a letter of complaint to Brighton council, but it's hard to find the motivation when you know you'll be ignored completely in the interest of private profit for some git somewhere. It was some of our family's first visit to Brighton and Cifriana said she thought that Brighton and its people were "rough". I argued that these were probably not Brighton people, but tourists, but her mind was made up. She said some of the people were on bicycles, so they must have been local. It's a shame that a bad impression is made of a place that doesn't deserve it, simply because of the baleful efforts of some capitalist enterprise jackleg.

Care to expand on that? ???
 






May 10, 2013
9
I did write to the council and I did get a very polite and considered reply.

As the chap pointed out, Brighton council has had its funds cut and austerity-bashed by this Tory government like everyone else. It was a choice between either council expenditure, paying out for a public big screen, or council income in hiring out the space to these private bloodsuckers. Not much of a choice really, under the circumstances.

A real shame and another condemnation of neoliberal capitalism and how it divides us rather than uniting us, as well as being dangerous and polluting into the bargain!
 



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