Post-Olympics Blues

The London Olympics had their last hurrah on Sunday and already, analysts were quick to come out of the woodwork to say that UK’s recession-hit economy was unlikely to have benefited from the Games – well, except for the fact that the nation’s athletes did very well. [For your info, Team GB finished third in the medal table].

Mary Rance, chief executive of tourism body UKinbound, claimed the 17-day sporting spectacle which had cost the British taxpayer £9.3 billion (RM45.67 billion) to stage have failed to lift her sector. She added: “All the signs are that the Olympics have not delivered addition visitors to London and the UK. In fact, it is expected that numbers may well end up having fallen by well over 30%.” (The Sun, Malaysia, August 123, 2012, p 17).

The Bank of England’s chief economist Spencer Dale was a little more optimistic. He said last week that he expected the Olympics to provide only a small positive contribution to the economy.

Of course, there were already massive investments in infrastructure in London that benefited the construction sector but that was it. Gloom will predictably set in now that the Olympics euphoria is over – I call it the post-Olympics blues.

And yesterday evening, there was the Taman Indrahana Toastmasters meeting where I was one of the speakers, only because two speakers pulled out the day before. I, of course, gladly accepted the offer and promptly texted Karen Cheah my speech title “The Meaning of Life”. On Tuesday itself, just as the meeting was about to commence, I was frantically trying to put together a speech that was worthy of Victor Ong. By the time Jade Lim finished her presidential address, I had an idea. And when LeAnn Tang as Toastmaster-of-the-Evening was done with the introductions, I knew what I was going to speak on. And when my turn came, I delivered a speech that surprised me – it centered around just one letter of the alphabet, “T”. It was a good speech and because there was also humor embedded in it – I am now tempted to use this speech for the upcoming Humorous Speech contest. Of course, I have to write the speech since it was originally developed in my head. Since I felt really good about this speech, I wasn't at all surprised when I was voted Best Speaker. It was also great to know that my speech evaluator, Angeline Loo was similarly voted Best Evaluator.

To be honest, the other speeches were equally good and by and large, it was a fun-filled meeting that exceeded my expectations! I couldn’t have been happier! I am giving it a thumbs-up and a score of a 9 out of a 10. This has been an awesome meeting!