- Work on 1,300 signals will start on July 1 to make sure it is all up and running in time
- More misery for commuters because they have already been warned to avoid trains and tube if possible
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Motorists will have to avoid central London from up to a month before the Olympics start so its hated VIP 'Games Lanes' can be up and running in time.
From July 1 more than 1,300 traffic lights will be adjusted to automatically turn green to speed chauffeur-driven dignitaries to venues, while millions of ordinary drivers face gridlock.
These 30 miles of road, part of a wider 109-mile circuit called the Olympic Route Network, will whisk VIPs from their hotels around Park Lane and Mayfair to the venues across the capital in luxury BMWs.
Commuters using public transport have already been warned to take holiday, work from home or travel early or late to avoid chaos on the trains and tube in the same period.
Traffic: Routes like this one, Shaftesbury Avenue, in central London, will have Games Lanes added to allow VIPs to travel without traffic
Transport for London said today they must start work on the traffic lights and new road barriers by the start of next month to make sure lanes are running properly two days before the opening ceremony on Friday, July 27.
They also claim that despite more red lights for normal motorists a ban on roadworks will improve the situation as long as fewer motorists drive into London.
And that the traffic will start to really build up two weeks before the Games when athletes, media and dignitaries arrive, culminating in the London legs of the torch relay in the days running up to the main event, they say.
'During the Games, London will be turned into a massive sporting and cultural venue. We have plans in place to get all athletes, officials and the world’s media to their Games events on time and to keep London moving and open for business,' TfL's commissioner Peter Hendy said.
OLYMPIC ROUTE NETWORK: WHAT THE COLOURS MEAN
Yellow route: Roads on this route will have a dedicated 'Olympic-only' lane for athletes, officials, VIPs, sponsors and media. The lanes will be in force from 6am until midnight.
Red route: Roads on this route, the busiest "core section" of the VIP network, will be affected by major restrictions to speed up traffic but will be fully open to the public. Measures could include bans on parking and right-turns, suspension of pedestrian crossings, phasing of traffic lights and no public entry from side roads.
Blue route: Roads on this route will only be affected on competition days. They will run from the athletes' accommodation to venues such as Wembley Arena, Earls Court and Wimbledon.
'From mid-July, central London and areas around Games venues will be much busier than usual. The ORN, which is part of the host city contract for the Games, will be a vital part of managing the busy roads and delivering a great Games.
'It will come into operation on July 25, a couple of days before the opening ceremony.
'Our advice to motorists is clear. From mid-July, avoid driving in central London, around the ORN and Games venues.'
Plan: Much of the the route will run people to the Olympic Park, pictured,
Busy: Commuters have already been warned to take holiday, work from home or travel early or late to avoid a packed tube system
The ORN and the Games Lanes will be enforced from 6am to midnight. They will shut again a couple of days after the Games and will not run between the Olympics and the Paralympics, which start on August 29.
The designated lanes will be set aside for athletes, coaches, administrators and even 25,000 'marketing partners', meaning regular drivers will face traffic jams and travel delays on their way to work.
The 25m Olympic Route Network (ORN) will be operational for 17 days of the event, covering the fortnight-long competitive period and a number of days before and after.
The Paralympics will also result in restrictions but they will cover a much shorter period.
Millions of drivers and commuters in London and the South East around the M25 will be hardest hit as jams and journey times increase by a third, traffic on key routes slows to just 12 mph, with the rush-hour traffic peaking 90 minutes earlier at 5.30am and 3.30pm, adding an average 20 additional minutes to a one hour journey.
But this could easily double to 40 minutes in the worst cases. In the 'worst case scenario' the Olympic opening ceremony could be held in 'a half empty stadium' because the other half are stuck in a jam.
Fleet: These luxury BMWs will chauffeur VIPs around London during the Olympics
Source: www.dailymail.co.uk
Kent County Cricket Club's clash with Sussex abandoned due to rain - Kent Online
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Kent's hopes of getting their opening game of the Friends Provident t20 competition against Sussex Sharks were thwarted by rain.
The match, moved from Tunbridge Wells to Canterbury due to heavy rain in west Kent earlier in the week, was abandoned shortly before 7pm as a result of a damp wicket and water in the surrounding areas at St Lawrence.
It will come as a significant blow to the county who have already anticipated losing as much as £50,000 as a result of the rain-ruined Tunbridge Wells Festival Week.
The Spitfires are due to return to action when they take on the Surrey Lions at Beckenham on Friday.
Tuesday, June 12 2012
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Source: www.kentonline.co.uk
London 2012: Olympics opening ceremony details revealed - BBC News
The Olympic Stadium will be transformed into the "British countryside" for the opening ceremony of the London 2012 Games on 27 July.
A cast of 10,000 volunteers will help recreate country scenes, against a backdrop featuring farmyard animals and landmarks like Glastonbury Tor.
The opening scene of the £27m ceremony will be called "Green and Pleasant", artistic director Danny Boyle revealed.
He added the show would create "a picture of ourselves as a nation."
"The best way to tell that story is through working with real people," said Boyle, who has reserved a role for NHS nurses in proceedings.
There have already been 157 cast rehearsals and Boyle added: "I've been astounded by the selfless dedication of the volunteers, they are the pure embodiment of the Olympic spirit and represent the best of who we are as a nation."
The set will feature meadows, fields and rivers, with families taking picnics, people playing sports on the village green and farmers tilling the soil.
Real farmyard animals will be grazing in the "countryside", with a menagerie of 70 sheep, 12 horses, three cows, two goats, 10 chickens, 10 ducks, nine geese and three sheepdogs.
One billion people worldwide are expected to watch the opening ceremony.
Boyle, best known for directing Oscar-winning film Slumdog Millionaire and Trainspotting, said the show was inspired by The Tempest and would be about a land recovering from its industrial legacy.
The world's largest "harmonically-tuned" bell, weighing 23 tonnes and measuring 2m tall x 3m wide, will ring inside the Stadium to start the Shakespeare-inspired spectacle, featuring 900 children from the six Games host boroughs.
The bell, which was produced by the Whitechapel Bell Foundry and is inscribed with a quote from The Tempest's Caliban: "Be not afeard, the isle is full of noises", was installed in the Stadium last week.
Boyle said it was appropriate because: "That's how communities notified each other that something important was going to happen...after the war the bells were rung in London to announce the peace and we will begin our Games with a symbol of peace."
Among the other features will be two mosh-pits - one representing the Glastonbury festival and another the Last Night of the Proms - filled with members of the public.
Tickets for these positions are yet to be allocated, with organisers still to decide how to distribute them.
The set will feature real grass, an oak tree and "clouds" suspended from wires above the stadium - one of which will produce rain, provided the British weather does not provide its own on the night.
Meanwhile, the home nations will be represented by Maypoles topped with a thistle, a leek, a rose and flax.
A full dress rehearsal will be held for a capacity crowd of 80,000 in the Olympic Stadium, which will be fitted with a million-watt sound system.
The production team at 3 Mills Studios is completing work on nearly 13,000 props, while staff in the production department are creating 23,000 costumes for the four Olympic and Paralympic ceremonies.
'Fantastic celebration'Seb Coe, who chairs the Organising Committee Locog, said it would be one of the biggest sets ever built for a show.
"I'm sure [it] will be a fantastic celebration that will welcome the 10,500 athletes from around the world and make our nation proud," he said.
The three-hour ceremony will begin at 21:00 BST with "an hour of culture", followed by the athletes parade, then the lighting of the cauldron and a fireworks display to bring down the curtain.
Boyle is collaborating with electronic musical duo Underworld, whose 1990s rave classic Born Slippy featured in Trainspotting. They have already mixed two tracks at London's Abbey Road studios.
Asked about timings for the ceremony, Boyle said the music will be used to help dictate the pace of athletes parading around the stadium.
The director, who said it would be impossible to keep details of the show secret, said he was trying to represent something of everyone's dreams in the ceremony and hoped viewers would "find something of themselves" in what they saw.
Source: www.bbc.co.uk
Expat Experiments in London Fuel Drug Sales in Japan - Businessweek
Tadasuke Takahashi, a London hair stylist, supplements his income by taking part in medical studies that offer him about $1,000, bento box meals of rice and fish, and Japanese comic books during a 6-night hospital stay.
During his time in London clinics, Takahashi, 33, takes experimental drugs so researchers can determine if his reaction is any different than that of Caucasian volunteers. These overseas tests are part of an effort by Japan’s government and the pharmaceutical industry to speed up approvals in a market where a complex regulatory process had delayed treatments for an aging population for years after U.S. and European clearance.
The changes are now yielding results. They have spurred double-digit growth in sales for Pfizer Inc. (PFE) (PFE) and GlaxoSmithKline Plc in Japan, as the debt crisis depresses revenue in Europe and growth slows in the U.S.
“It has been a terrific two years for Pfizer Japan, as we have had over 20 submissions” for approval, said Jorge Puente, president of Pfizer’s Asia Pacific and Canada regions, in an interview. The country’s drug regulator “has become flexible, in my experience, and is open to engage in discussions to try to understand the position of the company.”
Demand for diabetes, cancer and dementia treatments is rising in Japan, the world’s most rapidly aging nation with people 65 or older representing 23.3 percent of the population, according to a government report. Growing social acceptance of medical treatment for mental illnesses is also driving sales of depression and schizophrenia drugs, according to market researcher IMS Health Inc., which says Japan will remain the world’s second-largest market behind the U.S. in 2015.
Sales Surge
Revenue at New York-based Pfizer, the market leader, rose 11 percent to 576 billion yen ($7.3 billion) in Japan last year as the overall market grew 6.9 percent, according to IMS. Glaxo’s Japan pharmaceutical sales jumped 28 percent last year, a trend that continued in the most recent quarter ended March. The London-based company recorded the steepest growth in sales last year among the top 20 drugmakers in Japan, IMS said.
Sales there will help drugmakers offset a decline in Europe, whose share of spending on medicines will drop to 19 percent in 2015 from 27 percent in 2005, Danbury, Connecticut- based IMS said. Glaxo’s sales fell 4 percent in the region and were unchanged in the U.S. last year. Pfizer’s European sales dropped 5 percent, while U.S. sales slid 7 percent.
New Rules
Revenue is rising in Japan because the government is trying to get its aging citizens access to the latest treatments as their health declines. Lawmakers implemented a pricing program that pays more for new medicines that offer a significant improvement in patients’ quality of life and health compared with older therapies. In another change, drugmakers can avoid repetition of expensive studies by recruiting expatriates like Takahashi, a native of Nagoya in central Japan, from London to Hawaii, speeding approval times.
“The Japanese government in the last ten years or so has made it so drugmakers now go through a much less onerous process to get approval,” said Jonathan MacQuitty, a Menlo Park, California-based partner at health-care venture capital firm Abingworth. “That has coincided with Asia becoming a more important market, where growth is going to occur.”
Abingworth invests in SFJ Pharmaceuticals Inc., which helps companies including Pfizer introduce drugs in Japan.
Pricing Program
Under a pricing program that began in 2010 and was renewed in April, new medicines that offer a significant benefit to patients over existing treatments may command a price as much as 120 percent higher than those of older drugs, according to Alan Thomas, director of Japan business planning and analytics, for IMS.
Japan’s biennial price-cutting plan also was revised, resulting in more than 400 compounds receiving lower price reductions or being exempted this year under a new set of criteria, Thomas said.
“That system is stimulating the right behavior,” Glaxo (GSK) Chief Executive Officer Andrew Witty said in an interview. “It’s attracting people to bring innovation into the Japanese marketplace.”
Before regulatory reform in Japan, U.S. and European drugmakers conducted the three required phases of clinical trials in Western countries. Once approved in those markets, companies had to repeat the entire process in patients in Japan, creating a “drug lag” and ballooning costs, said Robert DeBenedetto, chief executive officer of San Francisco-based SFJ Pharmaceuticals. That lag was as long as nine years after U.S. and European clearance, IMS said.
‘Drug Lag’
The trials had to be repeated because of concerns about side effects in Japanese, who tend to have lower body weight and may require lower doses than Caucasians, said Colin Vose, who led strategic business development for Japan and South Korea from 1999 to 2005 at Quintiles Transnational Corp., the biggest provider of testing and drug-trial services.
That changed in 1998, when Japan accepted the concept of bridging studies, which pave the way for clinical data gathered in one country to be used in regulatory filings in another. Bridging studies are small trials that observe both healthy Japanese participants and Caucasian subjects to study whether there are any differences in how a drug is processed in the body.
London Trials
Hammersmith Medicines Research, a London hospital center, recruits expatriates like Takahashi, the hair stylist, for bridging studies. Takahashi is monitored for adverse reactions at the hospital while he watches television shows and reads books in his native language.
“I do this two or three times a year,” Takahashi said in an interview. “I know there are risks, but most of these drugs have already been tested in Caucasians, so I’m not too worried.”
If a bridging study shows the drug’s safety is equivalent in both Japanese and Caucasian people, those results can supplement data from trials done in other countries to avoid repeating mid-stage studies in Japan. Late-stage trials are still required to be conducted in Japan for most therapy areas, according to IMS.
“That has allowed us to reduce the regulatory package that is needed and to reduce costs,” said Klaus Beck, head of research and development in Japan for London-based AstraZeneca Plc. (AZN)
Japan’s example may have implications for drugmakers trying to expand in China, whose regulatory guidelines will probably evolve in a similar fashion to its neighbor, according to Quintiles’ Vose.
“One would hope we will have learned by our experiences in remodeling the way we’ve approached Japan,” Vose said.
To contact the reporter on this story: Makiko Kitamura in London at mkitamura1@bloomberg.net
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Phil Serafino at pserafino@bloomberg.net
Source: www.businessweek.com
London most expensive for night out - Jersey Evening Post
London is the most expensive city for an evening out, a cost comparison of the world’s major cities has revealed.
The capital tops the list in a cost comparison of an evening out for two people in key tourist cities around the world.
Hanoi in Vietnam offers the most affordable night out for British travellers, with a total cost of £89.93.
At more than triple the cost of Hanoi, London topped the list as most expensive with a cost of £330.45.
The TripAdvisor TripIndex is tracked against the British pound and is based on the combined costs for two people of one night in a four-star hotel, cocktails, a two-course dinner with a bottle of wine, and taxi fares.
“TripIndex helps travellers to see where their pound goes the furthest,” TripAdvisor spokeswoman Emma Shaw said. “The list shows that many Asian cities, along with some European cities – like Warsaw and Sofia – are very affordable once you’re on the ground.
“Some cities traditionally considered expensive – like London, Paris and New York – actually cost three times more than the cheaper cities in the list for an evening out.”
Hotel costs were the pivotal factor in determining the cheapest and most expensive cities on TripIndex.
The cheapest average hotel room goes to Bangkok at £51.68 per night, while the most expensive goes to London, at £230.39 per night.
Europe dominated the most expensive list with seven of the top 10 destinations, with London taking the top spot. Oslo, Zurich, Paris, Stockholm, Moscow and Copenhagen took second, third, fourth, fifth, seventh and eighth places respectively.
Source: www.thisisjersey.com
London 2012: Could the Olympics be rained off? - The Guardian
Here's a thought. What if, when our impeccably planned Olympics start on July 27, the weather doesn't co-operate? Some long-range forecasts are encouraging, and London has fewer rainy days in July than any other month, but isn't it possible that high summer in England could be as wet and dreary, frankly, as it usually is?
It rained right through many of the Olympic test events. It rained ferociously more-or-less throughout the jubilee weekend. It even rained in Athens during the torch-lighting. While the ever-jovial Danny Boyle, director of the opening ceremony, has promised that synthetic rainclouds will be included "just in case it doesn't rain".
The position at the London Organising Committee is simple: rain will not stop play. "We're a fairly sturdy lot," a spokesperson says. "Beach volleyball will continue in the rain, archery will continue in the rain – just like Beijing, where there were a number of events that continued in the rain." Indeed, lightning will be needed to stop most things.
A few events, such as the BMX and tennis competitions, might be delayed by rain, but the organisers are confident they could handle the rescheduling. So, for the record, if it does not stop raining from the moment the opening ceremony begins until the moment the games are supposed to end, will everything still be completed? "Yes," they say.
Continuing is not thriving, however. Outdoor competitors are used to rain, but they often perform worse in it. Usain Bolt, for one, has registered some early excuses. "He'd have to have the right conditions [to run 100m in less than 9.5 seconds]," says his coach Glen Mills, "and I'm not sure London is going to be kind."
Broadly speaking, then, a wet Olympics will see fewer records, but this varies by event. "For the endurance athletes there could be an advantage relative to hot conditions, in that it can help to keep them cool," says Peter Stanley, who coached Jonathan Edwards to a gold medal, and is now a mentor at England Athletics. "For the throwers, however, turning quickly in a circle that is slippery due to rain is more difficult… You could say a normal British summer would benefit a normal British athlete, but we will have to wait and see."
In truth, the people who would suffer most in a wet Olympics are probably the spectators. Yes, the toilets at the velodrome and the handball arena (which harvest rainwater) will be flushing well. But the roof at the Olympic stadium covers only two thirds of the seats, and there is no roof at all on the Riverbank Arena, where the hockey will be played, nor over all the seats at the beach volleyball, the BMX track, the equestrian events, or on The Mall for the road cycling. So if you've got tickets for one of those, bring a cagoule.
Source: www.guardian.co.uk
London 2012 Olympics: Athletes let down by UK sporting system over selection for Team GB - Daily Telegraph Blogs
Athletes by their very nature like to be in control of their destiny, which is why, on the eve of the London 2012 Olympic Games, there have been so many selection appeals – in taekwondo, fencing, triathlon, rowing, rhythmic gymnastics, diving and modern pentathlon.
Many are opportunistic and understandable or wild last-minute stabs to ensure no stone has been left unturned in the battle to make the GB team.
But many others have great legitimacy. Many athletes, not just those involved in high profile cases such as taekwondo player Aaron Cook, can rightly feel that the UK sporting system has failed them badly.
This is because some of the country's top athletes have had no control. Their sporting careers have been determined by blazer wearing officials whose opinion overweighs any objective criteria.
Circumstances in taekwondo over the past fortnight have exposed the flaws in this system. UK Sport has being missing in action – it has distanced itself from any responsibility over national governing bodies – even though the taxpayer and national lottery player are contributing the £100 million a year to keep many of these sports solvent.
For nearly four years UK Sport has been monitoring each sport to extract the optimum chance of Olympic medals but now, on the eve of that performance, worryingly significant governance issues are bubbling to the surface.
The British Olympic Association has tried to enforce some responsibility, by demanding adherence to the various selection policies, but its power is largely limited to Games-time operations once the team has been selected.
The Minister for Sport Hugh Robertson has been relatively quiet too, claiming to want to have the best team to win medals, but his Ministry has been lax in its oversight of many of the smaller sports procedures.
In this vacuum of scrutiny, many national governing bodies have instituted secretive, and on occasion, completely subjective policies where there is zero accountability.
Seemingly the one fundamental value – athletes' rights – has been overlooked within these policies. The sports appeals system restricts objections to whether the selection policy has been implemented fairly, but then sends the selection back to the same group of selectors for more clandestine meetings.
What happened to the notions of justice, procedural fairness and transparency? Surely the Olympic team shouldn't be a function of how good a lawyer an athlete can hire?
In the United States most of the team selections are objective. It is a cruel one-shot chance. Compete in the Olympic trials, finish in the top two (for swimming) or the top three (for track and field) and you are in the team. Injury or illnesses are not considered.
World rankings, Olympic medals, having a relative as a sponsor / selector / coach are immaterial: it all comes down to a single performance. Athletes in combat sports earn their place with victory at a selection tournament. Such a black and white approach has its failings of course, notwithstanding that the country's best medal hope might dip out by 100th of a second, but athletes are accepting of such a model simply because they know where they stand.
In Australia and Canada many of the sports have adopted a similar performance-based system. But those that haven't are required to publish their selection criteria openly on websites. Appeals are heard by quite separate selection panels. It may well have been the case that Cook's rival, Lutalo Muhammad would have been selected by both selection panels if such a system existed here in the UK, but at least Cook, and the public, would have some faith that the system was fairer.
GB Taekwondo has come in for particularly harsh criticism of late and rightly so. Even after three selection meetings, the taekwondo selection policy has remained secret. As outsiders we are puzzled by the decision and can only infer it has included an overweight “subjective'” component. For how else could a relatively inexperienced Muhammad, ranked 59 in the world, earn the Olympic berth repeatedly ahead of the world number one Cook?
Source: blogs.telegraph.co.uk
The Olympics are becoming a never-ending nightmare. The orgnisers have lost the plot.
- Despairing, London, 13/6/2012 01:45
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