Just when you think that the arrogance of the Olympics can go no further:
Mole Valley district council in Surrey sent emails telling people they should plant displays and hanging baskets with a “vibrant colour palette” after receiving guidelines from the London Organising Committee for the Olympic Games [LOCOG] which even specify which flowers to use.
Richard Roberts-Miller, the chairman of Mickleham parish council, said he was not impressed with the “order from on high” on how he should be doing his garden next year. “Some people might wonder whether this should be high up the council’s agenda,” he said.
Judy Kinloch, the chairman of Mickleham and Westhumble Horticultural Society, added: “I was not totally happy about telling people what colours they had to use.”
The emails sent to residents’ associations told them that LOCOG has “tight control over how the Games will look”.
Home owners and businesses along the Olympic cycle road race route, which passes through Surrey, are being advised how to ensure the petunias, roses and other flowers in their front gardens match the colours of the games.
If scorched earth is too distressing an option for the gardeners of Mole Valley, the best alternative would be to grow flowers blessed with the colors of companies that are not supporting the Olympic scourge, a scourge, incidentally, that Nurse Bloomberg and President Obama wanted to inflict on New York City and Chicago respectively. What a surprise.