Youngsters in Blackheath and Woolwich will have a different Olympics show to visit during the 2012 Olympic Games. Ground-to-air missiles are rumoured to be going to be deployed in Oxleas Woods at Shooters Hill and on an unspecified spot at Blackheath Common, Greenwich.
As the use of such missiles would cause extensive collateral damage across London, presumably they are further examples of tub-thumping by the Coalition over security and the Olympics. And the local kids will probably test the security services in ways they hadn’t expected as precious metals thefts are at unprecedented levels in Woolwich, Lewisham and Greenwich.
An aircraft carrier is to be berthed in Greenwich and will be home to thousands of armed forces personnel providing security at the Games. Presumably it will be loaned from the French government and adequately insured.
Helicopter gunships hovering over London have been easily outclassed by the synchronised displays by the Special Boat Service zipping backwards and forwards around the Woolwich Ferry. Good job. The Thames is almost completely sterile of any freight trade, otherwise these glorified rubber dinghies would be scrap by now. Nelson would be proud of the deployment of Britain’s finest in the wake of one Aussie swimmer’s disruption of the Boat Race in April! ■