Elizabeth was not slow to complain if she felt her accommodation had not been appropriate, and did so even about two of the largest prodigy houses, Theobalds House and Old Gorhambury House (both now destroyed).[8]
Sir Nicholas was a prolific builder and spent five years replacing the Gorham’s old home with the house whose ruins we see today. When Queen Elizabeth visited in 1572 she is reputed to have remarked, ‘My Lord, what a little house have you gotten’, to which Bacon smoothly replied, ‘Madam, my house is well, but it is you that have made me too great for my house’. Nevertheless, Sir Nicholas built a galleried extension to create a better impression for her second visit in 1577.
I have not yet figured out whether Gorhambury in 1572 counted as small. Quite a lot has been written on the Royal Progress,
The point of the Olympics is not just the sport - it’s to celebrate the hosting country and hang a huge “open for business” plate on it. For all the talk of peace on Earth, the modern version was invented in times of rampant european nationalism, and they remain fundamentally that: a way for the hosting country to signal immense wealth and let the money flow. This is why they get the budgets they get. (There is an argument that even the original Olympics were a way for Athens to signal moral and diplomatic superiority across the Greek world. Plus ça change…).
Fixing the Olympics to one country would immediately crash the budget, since no government would be interested in glorifying another country for a millennium. This would kill any interest for hosting minor sports, the loss-making ones that struggle to have their own meaningful world-championships; which in turn would make it less significant as a “universal” event for major ones. It would become a minor oddity.
So no, “fixing” the Olympics would not achieve anything except killing it as a concept. We need better governance for all itinerant sport events where significant money is at stake, from the FIFA World Cup to the Olympics to world championships of major sports (swimming, track & field etc). Rich countries have a moral obligation to sort out the mess they created when they instituted these things, politicians should sit down in places like the UN, EU, G8 and the likes, to come out with a better governance structure for sports, something that can do away with corrupt bodies like IOC and FIFA. That will take care of everything else, like a snowball.
Selling broadcasting rights and sponsorships. I used to be a real Olympics skeptic. I have become more involved in sport in recent years and see how that money from broadcasting and sponsorship gets shared around. Each sports association providing the athletes (the entertainment), gets a big cut of the income from those rights. That money helps pay for development of junior athletes, operation of annual championships, etc., etc…
It’s easy to fall for the negative headlines used to see newspapers if you are a casual observer.The economic dream days of the late nineties and early aughts, where organizations thought it great to give a fast developing country like Brazil a chance are over for now. Everyone is looking for low-risk.
LA and Paris both wanted these games very much and made multiple bids over the years. Both are planning very economical games with zero or very limited new building. (Paris is putting a new pool in an area they are already developing).
Pre-internet it was hard for a city to get noticed. You needed to get on TV somehow and the Olympics were a good way to do it. Now getting publicity is not so difficult. The cost of labor has gone up, so hosting sports is more expensive. Other agencies like ISIL look at ways to piggyback on your deluge of media coverage.
So its not surprising the Olympics are less popular.
Unless you’re thinking of the Munich Olympics attack as piggybacking on the media coverage deluge caused by the Olympics, I assume your ISIL doesn’t stand for the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant.
“Boston’s bid was also withdrawn after a palpable lack of support the same year.”
That is somewhat incorrect. There was a outright vigorous local opposition to the Boston bid. The general attitude of those in the nay camp was that the bid was being rammed through by certain monied interests with only lip service to the actual citizens of Boston.
Also, the fact that we’ve been unable to be particularly successful running the local subway system probably played a part.
Apart from the scandals, the simple fact that the IOC demands tax exceptions and special laws to accommodate them, should make all democracies reject the idea of hosting the Olympics. With less competition to host them, I hope Paris and LA didn’t promise to sell out their democratic systems.
I’d like to know why you believe this. Is it just speculation based on your assessment of the desirability of the the Olympics or do you have some insider knowledge that the City of Los Angeles would have been happy to take the Olympics without the funding?
I think your understanding of The Terror is perhaps a bit lacking. The majority of those killed were not aristocrats. Moreover, are you seriously suggesting that wide-scale genocide was justified in revolutionary France? Should we be engaging in genocide now?
Sir Nicholas Bacon planned the futures of his sons and daughters meticulously. Having risen to become the holder of an office that generated vast sums in profits — estimated at about £2,600 in 1560 and rising to something over £4,000 per annum before his death in 1579 — the Lord Keeper systematically purchased lands which were entailed on his five surviving sons, to maximise the likelihood of their acquiring wealthy, though not necessarily titled, brides.
so perhaps spending £577 to entertain the queen for a few days, and therefore secure his office (Lord Keeper of the Great Seal) counted as a shrewd investment.
It looks as though many of the later books on the subject are written by women; while the conventional wisdom has been dominated by men.
returning to the main thrust of this thread,
The fact that NBC was able to buy the broadcast rights for the Olympics so far into the future has always rubbed me the wrong way.
Aside from the fact I actually do know someone on LA’s Olympic committee (I live in New York, but was out in LA a couple of weeks ago and he gave me a tour of their offices), I’ve been following these Olympic bids for years, so this is not something I just picked up on recently. And remember something important… host cities always get funding from the IOC. Where else would all that sponsorship and TV money go. So this is not something unique that LA is getting money where Paris is now.
When the whole process started 2 years ago (4 1/2 years ago for the US cities since the USOC had their own process to pick a city… how they chose Boston remains a mystery to me), all the cities were bidding for the 2024 Olympics and only 2024. Not until several other cities backed out of the running and the IOC was left with just Paris and LA was it suggested that they award one city the 2024 Olympics and the other city the 2028 Olympics. If not for that (it was the IOC’s idea moreso than the cities), than there would have been a vote between Paris and LA for who would host the 2024 Olympics and the loser would have walked away with nothing except a “thanks, try again for 2028.” And the IOC basically told Paris and LA “we’re good with this, you figure out between yourselves who gets 2024 and who gets 2028.” Paris was very outspoken from the start that they were only interested in 2024 and not 2028. LA tried to take that line as well, but it was less important to them which year they would host.
So essentially the LA committee had 2 choices. Either reject the deal and risk going head to head with Paris where the winner gets the 2024 Olympics and the loser gets nothing (and IMO the Euro-centric IOC likely would have gone with Paris). Or let Paris take 2024 and focus instead on 2028. Do you think they would have said no to that if the IOC didn’t offer them incentives? That they would have put in all this time and money and effort for 4 years to come away with nothing? Try selling that to go through all this again for 2028 at the risk of getting rejected a 2nd time.
This committee representing LA obviously finds the Olympics extremely desirable. They were after the prize of hosting an Olympics long before the IOC found itself in a position (because of the terrible state of their situation… that’s an accurate assessment, but that’s not LA’s fault) where they were going to change their rules and offer concessions for the trouble of pivoting from a 2024 bid to a 2028 bid. They had an opportunity and they took it. To call it a bribe almost implies this was LA saying “give us something or no deal.” That’s not the case here. The IOC could have rolled the dice and hoped LA or whoever else would bid in a few years for the 2028 Olympics. Instead, it was more “let us throw a few dollars at you for your troubles so we get this done now.” Thank NBC in part for that for pledging their billions since they already have the rights to the 2028 Games, so this is huge for them. This is a giant game of politics, but don’t lose sight of where everyone started from before they started playing that game.
Like I said, to call it a bribe implies that LA would not have accepted this outcome without the money. They wanted the 2024 Olympics, but would have had to compete with Paris. The IOC comes in and gives them some cash (and again, Paris does not get nothing as host of 2024) to get them to change plans and host 2028. Can’t fault LA for that. Neither side did anything wrong here. The IOC, Paris, and LA came up with something that works for everyone. It’s a win-win-win situation.
