We have quite a multi-cultural news team here at More4 News. We asked Thomas Adamson, who is half greek, to cover the story of the empty Olympic stadia in Athens. This is his report on what it's like working in his home from home:
"In Athens, it's no accident that the first words tourists tend to learn are swear words. Though the Greeks are generally warm-hearted people, trying to navigate around the city requires a little bit of resolve on the part of the traveller. I myself am half-Greek, and know the Athens well, but still this didn't stop me gulping nervously at the thought of making a film about the state of the post-olympic facilities.
Be warned - though it seems things must be well-organised by the amount of bureaucracy you've to go through to get anything done, more than anything, this is a technique authorities use to dissuade people from meddling in Greek affairs. Authorisation passes get lost or forgotten, phone enquiries get passed around in a hall of mirrors and officials are rude and obfuscative. My filming at the Olympic Stadium was a case in point.
The fact I got access to film was a miracle in itself: after 3 week's wait and after a bombastic appraisal of how great the Athens authorities were in their handling of the Games. When we arrived at the Stadium at the allocated time - email authorisation in hand, it was a ghost town. After 10 minutes of waiting, a chain-smoking security guard appeared from a cloud of smoke, eyeing up my cameraman and I suspiciously. Were we the first people to have visited the stadium since 2004? We may well have been.
Naturally, he had no record of our permission to film. What ensued was a 30 minute series of phone conversations, involving me mainly, ad nauseum, repeating the same information ... When we eventually got in, it seems Zeus was still against us.
A particularly embittered lawnmower man, who was setting up to mow the Stadium grass, quite simply ignored us when we politely asked him to allow us to film for a few minutes in peace. Take 1, Take 2, Take 3... All wasted because of the sporadic machine buzzing in the background. When the grass was finally crisply cut, we were able to film. Why had the Olympic facilities remained derelict after 2004 ? - well with organisation like this, it's little wonder.
Excellent report and a reminder of the perils of false justifications .Of course they needed it just like we need a billion pound sports event to finish a few roads and open a rail link .
Posted by: YJ adams | Thursday, 17 August 2006 at 07:45 PM
Are you going to be excommunicated from Greekness for this?
Posted by: fatima | Thursday, 17 August 2006 at 10:24 PM