Coca-Cola’s Vision: The Real Thing at London2012

23 million soft drinks will be consumed at the London2012 Olympic Games. That’s some mountain of tins. Also the largest Macdonald’s restaurant!!!! Not for HD really but HD will not be paying for his drinks or burgers!!!!

Report:

While the athletes pursue Olympic glory, those behind the scenes can expect eight weeks of relentless physical graft. Rebecca Smithers met some of the staff shaping up for the task

The staff topping up the drinks machines at the Olympic Aquatics Centre do a double take as a fresh-faced young man takes three bottles of Diet Coke and – insisting they are not all for him – promptly stuffs them into his bag.

Their surprise is understandable as the young man in question is Great Britain’s Olympic diving hopeful Tom Daley, thirsty after a morning’s hard graft at a test event at the Olympic Park (even though he would later manage only seventh place in the final of the synchro Fina Diving World Cup).

Amid the inevitable jokes about not recognising him with his clothes on, the Coca-Cola staff continue with their own training, getting to grips with the logistics of the centre that will host thousands of spectators of swimming, diving and water polo, all in a thirst-inducing temperature of 28C.

When the beverage giant and Olympic sponsor was planning how it would serve soft drinks to the millions who will take part in, and watch, this summer’s games, it decided the best way was to learn from past experience.

At the 2008 Olympics in Beijing, its workforce was 800-strong. But for London it has decided the operation should be slicker and more efficient, with those chosen better trained to cope with the eight-hour shifts and tough physical work.

In a top-down hiring strategy, Malcolm Plows, the company’s UK venue operations director, hand-picked 21 people from Coca-Cola’s core business to take with him to the 2010 Olympic winter games in Vancouver – all have senior management roles for the forthcoming operation in the UK.

“We were very selective,” Plows says. “It was arduous because we wanted people who were absolutely passionate and committed about making the 2012 games a success. Those 21 were sent out to Vancouver to get their hands dirty.”

There they undertook what Coca-Cola calls “activator” roles – everything from filling shelves to filling coolers. Among them was Jason Burkinshaw, Coca-Cola’s venue operations controller and previously national insight manager, who says: “The aim was to really understand the nuts and bolts of the operation. The overriding thing we came back to the UK with, was: it’s really hard, physical work, so when we did our recruitment for London, we had to drive that message home. We can’t afford people arriving who then say: ‘This is not for me’.”

The big differences between Vancouver, Beijing and London were around space and cost and, as Plows says, a summer Olympics is five times bigger than winter.

Coca-Cola will effectively be a foster parent for its 500 employees working at the park for between four and six weeks (eight if they are on duty during the paralympics, too). During that time, they will both work and sleep under the corporate umbrella, with accommodation provided at the Holiday Inn in Cromwell Road, on the other side of London, where meals and general wellbeing will be taken care of.

As Plows says: ” We are taking 500 people from the 3,500-strong GB business to work for the Olympics at one of the busiest times of the year, July and August, when sales of soft drinks go up by at least 25%.”

Staff were signed up a year ago and have since undergone physical and technological training. Plows adds: “As well as making them aware what jobs they are going to do, we have been trying to get them fitter. We have told them that everyone on the park is going to have to walk between 6–10km a day; that they are going to have to lift 100 cases a day (each containing 24 bottles and weighing 12.5kg). They will need to get themselves used to that, particularly if they have been in office jobs.”

Staff will be lugging a lot of heavy equipment around and shifting cases from refrigerated “reefers”, or containers, at key positions on the site. Not that it is just jobs for the boys; apparently women outnumber men in the final tally.

All will have training in manual handling (to help them shift bulky objects) and health and safety, while extra tips on “how to get fit without going to the gym” have been provided by Dave Redding, head of performance science at the British Olympic Association and former England rugby fitness coach. Burkinshaw, himself no physical pushover as an “iron man”, says: “We will have 500 people doing what more than 800 did at Beijing, so we will need to go that extra mile.”

The GB business will supply 325 staff, swelled by workers from future host countries. Coca-Cola’s operation in Russia, where the 2014 Winter Games will be held, will send around 20. There will be a similar number from Brazil, summer host in 2016. There will also be team members from the company’s activities in France, Netherlands, Norway and Sweden.

Also in the contingent are students and 45 youngsters aged between and 18 and 21 from disadvantaged backgrounds – through Coca-Cola’s collaboration with sporting charity StreetGames – and all subject to the company’s “one team, one T-shirt” philosophy of equal treatment.

At the Aquatics Centre test event, sales of drinks are already 10% up on forecasts, as I tour the venue with two of the trainees who are being deployed from elsewhere in the business. The two activators are being shown how to check the stock in the machines and carts, and how to place orders on iPads, using ground-breaking technology being used for the first time and which could save 1m pieces of paper.

Plows reels off what are, indeed, Olympian-sized figures: “We expect to be serving 23m drinks over the eight weeks of the Olympic and the Paralympic Games. Yet it’s an operation you would never know about unless you dig a little bit deeper. It is part of the sponsorship that doesn’t get very well documented.”

Among other mind-boggling forecasts, it is estimated that the 2,000 participating athletes will drink an average of eight to 12 soft drinks a day. The Olympic Park is expected to host 200,000 to 250,000 visitors each day with a peak of 300,000 at the start of the athletics events.

Inevitably, the logistics of what is being dubbed the UK’s largest peacetime catering operation are huge. Coca-Cola will be helping to quench the thirst of the athletes, their families, the Olympic workforce – including the media – as well as visitors (who will pay for their drinks).

The park will house 10 enormous restaurants (including the UK’s largest McDonald’s) and 1,800 kiosks and concessions such as mobile carts and “ambient racks”, and none must run out of drinks. Coca-Cola recently at the centre of a scare in the US over the carcinogenic content of the colouring of its flagship beverage has, in the UK, been stung by criticism of its near-monopoly at the games, which means people cannot bring their own drinks into the park.

Adding to the complexity of the operation is the largest range of soft drinks ever offered by the company at an Olympic Games. Plows goes on: “At the last London Games [in 1948] all we offered was Coke. Now we have 17 products, including Innocent smoothies and juices. One in four will be a sugar drink, likely to be Coke, while the rest will be water, juice or non-sugar. And most drinks will be consumed on the go, or in the stadium. The staff will be working closely with the caterers and workforce managers to make sure that everybody has the chance to have a soft drink if they need it.”

Coca-Cola has form as a sponsor, as Plows explains: “As a business, Coca-Cola has been sponsoring the Olympic Games for donkey’s years – since the Amsterdam Games in 1928 – and our co-operation with each local organising committees and the IOC [International Olympics Committee] – has evolved over the years. The way we help backstage has developed as we have learned from every Games. The culmination was at Beijing, when we had more than ever – over 800 people – helping out.”

But back to the logistics, and Plows insists that what is provided is “a very bespoke beverage service. It is unique because everything is in line with Olympic security. We will be moving about 23m servings over the Games, of which 40% is back-of-house, 60% front-of-house.

“Our staff will be responsible for putting all the merchandising equipment and menu boards in place. What isn’t visible is the way we keep topping workforce areas and putting drinks in areas like the doping areas.”

By day, the staff replenishing the outlets must be sensitive to the huge crowds moving through the venues, while night deliveries must be organised via the one-way ring-road which is only open to them between 12.30am and 7am.

Life for the Coca-Cola Olympic workforce is designed to mirror that of the athletes in the Olympic Village. The gruelling shift patterns and hard physical grind will be rewarded at the hotel with a dedicated lounge manned 24/7 with football games, Wii and television, where they will have fresh fruit, energy bars and soft drinks, even a massage area. Plows says: “We need our staff fit, well, healthy and ready for action the next day.”

The majority of the staff will be between 25 and 40, and likely to end up working a six-day week, or even more: Burkinshaw recalls: “In Vancouver people often worked on their day off because they had the major perk of a backstage pass.”

Tom Daley’s surprise appearance at the drinks stand highlights the risk of staff being “star struck”. But Plows says: “Staff are forbidden from asking for autographs and sitting in seats at any event. We have a zero tolerance policy for getting drunk or misbehaving at the hotel.”

During my visit, two regional Coca-Cola managers – Neville Saunderson and David Ison – were being shown the backstage areas not seen by the public, including the athletes’ lounge, their own warm-up area and even the long bank of hairdryers. Ison says: “It’s one of those things that I will probably only get to do once in a lifetime.”

 

Giant of an Article on Europe’s Little People

To place such a creature as Silvio Berlusconi in charge of a major European economy is comical Photo: AP

HD had often noticed how small people make good comedians. Arthur Askey, Ant and Dec, Sid Little (of Large fame), Charlie Drake and so on….so he laughed a lot when this article appeared today(Sunday) adding Berlusconi and Sarkozy to this list of comedians …HD does not normally reprint newspaper stuff, but makes a tiny exception for this Telegraph piece.

‘God: an apology. Several weeks ago, I cited Mr Tony Blair as the finest evidence available to humanity that the deity, contrary to mainstream theological opinion, has an impish sense of humour. Following recent events in Europe, I apologise unreservedly for underestimating Him…’

It would be funny if it was not so serious. The world never relied so heavily on small comedian before, so it’s dangerous it has to rely on such tiny people for its economic success now!

Read the article, it’s so funny!

 

…and tell me, why do these dorks dye their hair so black it’s obvious it is out of the bottle? Argh yes, it’s Grecian 2000, but what good did the Greeks ever do for us?

London Riots: Parallels From the Past

The blaze that engulfed a Sony DADC warehouse in Enfield could have a catastrophic effect on independent record labels. Photograph: Luke Macgregor/Reuters

I’m too old these days to wander round the streets of London. After many years of street photography I have witnessed and recorded much aggression vented. From the BNP Welling riot of 1993 to the snapping of fast cars going around Brands Hatch racing circuit, it has been recorded on celluloid and now gathers dust in a box somewhere in the spare room.

Today I do not even wander round , after say, 6pm at night the streets of the sleepy place in which I have lived for the last 6 years. Not because I fear a riot breaking out here you must understand. It’s more the fear of not finding my way home again given that dementia could set in at any time as I grey and shrivel up in my old age.

 

The latest riots on the streets of our cities, observed from the comfort of my armchair and plasma TV screen (bought and paid for with hard earned money I might add), reminds me of two former lives whereby I witnessed both riot and youth dissatisfaction, although not always at the same time.

 

If you want to know the time ask a policeman. Ilford HP5 400, copyright the author 1993

Firstly the Welling disorder that broke out on the Anti-Nazi League march on the BNP headquarters, then in Welling south east London. Determined to make a stance against the BNP’s overtly racist stance, the ANL planned to march to the doors of the BNL. The police on the other hand, had other ideas. If you ever wondered where the notion of ‘kettling’ came from, look no further than the junction about 200 yards from the BNP building further up a hill to the south. Four roads met and three roads became blocked by police determined to not allow the marchers to move any other way than back to their coaches to the north of the junction. Even a memorial garden to the west was blocked off with chicken wire put up to deter protesters the opportunity of finding sanctuary from charging police horses. The wire did not last very long and the garden eventually became a medical point for the treatment of the many gashes and scrapes that occurred during police baton charges. Later in the afternoon I was to  use this area for my own purposes, namely to escape the house bricks of the anarchists that had infiltrated the march and the counter measures so effectively carried out by the police lines. ‘Take the high ground’ I was once advised and it certainly worked that afternoon.

Whilst reloading the camera I overheard one black youth shout ‘There’s not enough blacks here. If there were more of ‘us’ we could rush the ‘filth’ and break through. Then in what I can only describe as a fit of sarcasm, he proceeded towards one police line to ask a policeman for the time, gesturing wildly to his wrist in the process.

Old Man taking stance against the police line at Welling, London. Copyright the author 1993. Ilford HP5 400

This cat and mouse affair continued for another two or so hours. At one point during a lull in the fighting, an old man appeared from almost nowhere to take his stance against the police lines as missiles were thrown over his head towards the police. Onlookers were in awe of this man who must have been in his 80s. There was a small contingent of holocaust survivors in the ANL march and I can only assume that he was one of them. His defiant look is inspiring.

From this point on I was getting both tired and bored and in addition was down to my last few rolls of film. Something digital cameras do not have to worry about these days. I made my way to the rear to be greeted by more police lines funnelling the marchers through the graveyard to the north of the junction. There was a reason for this. They had set up a film camera to photograph all marchers passing out of the crossroads. They had previously filmed all the photographers and press prior to the confrontation. This became a milestone in covering riots and confrontations with police. On the following Monday police started to call in all the film and still photography for inspection and if I remember it well enough went to court to get some photographers to give up their film.

 

This was the point at which I decided I would no longer go to such confrontations. I truly thought that it was the start of a slippery slope to a police state. Up till last week however, this had not happened of course, but I was not to know how that would pan out. With the explosion of digital photography, mobile telephones and social networking, there is no way of knowing how right or wrong I was 17 years ago. The jury is out on that one right now.

 

The second experience that comes to mind following the London riots, is my youth during the early to mid 1960s. The era of mods and rockers. Not that I think there is remotely anything similar in the disturbances that occurred in the 60s to those of the last week or so. What does resonate with me is the feelings of being young in an ever increasing consumer world. I too wanted that pair of Levis, that button-down  shirt, that twin vented mohair suit!

 

The difference is, I would not have had the remotest idea of wanting to loot the local store to obtain them. I knew that saving up was the way to go. Going without, despite the peer pressure, was the norm in our household. Then my parents had gone without many things during World War Two and after with rationing still being applied during the early years of my life too. We had form in that respect.

 

So when I observe from the comfort of my armchair I am both angry at the violence and saddened at the absence of discipline in some of our urban youths. Wanton looting and destruction cannot be condoned, but at the same time it also has to be understood in the context of today’s environment both culturally and economically. I do not profess to have the answers, but I suggest a long hard look at our recent history will go some way to understanding where we have come from since WWII.  We can only be a better society for it in the months and years ahead.

HD

 

 

German Right on the rise Again!!!

Soon Germany will have to make a decision whether to stay in the Euro or not. Germany is getting economically strong again. A strength historians and others have said would cause security issues across the world again. Be afraid, very afraid.

Today it is reported that racist remarks have once again entered the language of the German economy.

“All Jews share a particular gene, Basques share particular genes, that differentiate them from others.” Thilo Sarrazin, a member of the six-man board at the powerful Bundesbank

Margaret Thatcher once said of the reunification:

“We do not want a united Germany,” she said. “This would lead to a change to postwar borders, and we cannot allow that because such a development would undermine the stability of the whole international situation and could endanger our security.”

As HD said, be afraid, very afraid.

Thatcher report

Thilo Sarrazin report

A Rant to be ignored….




The ramblings of a probable lunatic:
The market will find its own low anyway. A period of strict money control will be good if a bit painful.
It's New Year already!!! Are you joking? How many new years to Jews want? Do they get them wholesale and move them on at will? Microwave ovens!
The Day of Atonement is an apt time to contemplate the next move so maybe the new year will pass without a hitch.
Question: How come Visa and Mastercard are not in trouble? Or are they? Is it because they franchise it out to the banks and rake off a commission from both sides?
I suppose some were moving money out of B&B today since they already had money in Abbey or A&L. Where to go? Co-op?
Co-op Divis! I liked the divi! I also liked the pipes in the Co-op stores where they put the money and it went to a cash desk and back again with the change and receipt. I was so impressed, then I was only 6 or so and it was so magic to watch.
Catechismic the man just said on the Beeb. I think they mean cateclysmic unles I am missing some Christian meaning here! Not even easy to say let alone get my head around it.
So it's all down to 9/11. I can accept that. Prop up a failing capitalist system when you get kicked in the balls. Yes, reaction to 9/11 is to blame for all this stuff. It's the echo of two planes crashing into the Towers.
Even Gandalf understood the importance of the two towers, or Tolkein or both.
And today the far right took a hold of Austria. Nobody gave a second thought. Anyone want to move there? Take your jackboots and get yourself a gun since Austria has the most guns in circulation in the EU after France, but France is a backward rural country I think!
They never even paid back much of the Nazi loot they took did they and now it starts all over again.
Did any Austrian bank go bust today? I doubt it, they stash it all away in Switzerland don't they? Along with the Nazi loot.
Why is a Belgian bank (Fortis) so important to Europe? Good heavens it's Belgian! Anyone know an important live Belgian? I don't. If I did I'd shoot them probably, can't have anyone upsetting the jokes equilibrium.
That 700 billion would be enough to give 300 dollars (although my maths is poor) to every man, woman and child on earth. Just imagine how that would change the lives of most African children.
All this on the day Dave's second in command gives us a promise of no council tax increases for 2 years or more.
Did you get the sub-plot? 'If the councils join the scheme..' he quietly added. What scheme? The one that will cancel the free bus travel? Who knows with politicians. Never trust a politician.
Mind you I'd love to see a Pepsi advert with Barny Frank (US) and Gordon Brown.
'…PEPSI…Lip Smacking Gob Dropping Good For Yer…'
HD

Quids In!




I'm so glad I kept my nerve on my huge pot of euros (pronounced ewrrrrrro's).
The quid is at an all time low I hear. Now my maths is not that good so I have to get the calculator out and find if I gain or lose.
I gain!!! Last time tempted to sell, sell, sell! it was 80p an euro. Now, today, this very minute its 85p a euro!!!
My 30 euros are now worth 25.64 GBP.
Thank you Mr Darling, why not have my babies? Gobber Brrooon gets my vote!
HD