More knock on effects of the Olympics.

VisitBritain admitted ahead of a report shortly to be published by the European Tourism Operators Association that tourism would suffer during the Olympics. Makes me wonder if VB did this because they knew the ETOA was about to issue its report.

The dismal record of mega event evictions, media manipulation, lying and overspends continues. Sochi is striving hard to compete with Delhi and Beijing as the most brutal event in recent years.

Stories of environmental disasters continue to surface with a new report that Sochi lacks sites to dispose of garbage and construction waste. At the moment waste is dumped on a site which frequently sees blazes and the waste is said to be polluting the Pitkha River, which runs into the Black Sea. Environmentalists are also protesting at development plans which threaten the landscape of parts of the North Caucasus which are protected as natural UNESCO World Heritage Sites.

Hey, what's new? Another Olympics another overspend! This time it was Singapore's Youth Olympics. S$107 million ($80 million) ballooned to S$387 million.

Locog just can't keep track of the time. They've already got an Olympic clock in Stratford to countdown to 2012 but now it wants another one in Trafalgar Square. Stratford's icon deficit has already been remarked on and this is further evidence that East London is losing ground in the Olympic icon wars.

Just a few miles up the Lea Valley in Edmonton, Olympics TOP partners (ie top level sponsors) have a factory. This report of the current strike is reposted from Harringey Solidarity Network

The Olympic Bid - Blair explains what it was really about - having an alibi at the scene of the crime, winning with the help of his friend Silvio, manipulation British style and avoiding humiliation at the hands of the French!

An Olympic source has said organisers are having 'fruitful discussions' about how much to charge for tickets with some in LOCOG and the government favouring £3,000 for the best seats at the opening ceremony and other key events. However, it seems some idiots have been making "public statements that the tickets would be affordable and that is causing some disquiet.”

We're now all quite familiar with the fact that Mega Events invariably go way over budget. insideworldfootball has the latest, revealing FIFA under-17 World Cup cost more than double the budget

insidethegames reports that Alan Pascoe's company, Fast Track, has been dragged into the corruption scandal dogging the 2010 Commonwealth Games.

Clare Sambrook - co-author with Andrew Jennings of The Great Olympic Swindle - was kind enough to email us recently pointing to a post on her site (now listed in our Blogroll) linking to her article at open Democracy written following the death of Samaranch Senior -