So far the only “stories” about the French management of the Olympics, have been negative.
Finally! A positive story:
Nothing could go wrong: The story behind the Paris Olympics cauldron balloon
It’s so popular that Parisians want to make it a permanent attraction.
It used water and lights to simulate “flames”.
Fascinating.
The French do good torches.
ralph
There is an annual holiday in Portugal, the night of 23 June, when they launch paper hot air balloons, sky lanterns.
The Captain
Carefully lovingly copied by Disney as the crux fall in love scene of the gorgeous animated film Tangled
d fb
I was listening to the Slate Money podcast yesterday and they talked about the way the French built many of the venues. Instead of spending billions on special purpose facilities that are largely underused after the games, they opted for temporary facilities in public spaces. Much of the seating will become construction scaffolding and sent all over France. They chose to build some venues in areas where they had planned to be build them in the future. Another interesting thing they mentioned was that the mapping software we all use, Google Maps or Apple Maps or whatever, may not give the tourists the shortest route to their venue but will give them one that will place less stress on the transit system. The reasoning for this is that the residents will know the shortest ways to get to the places they need to go and the added tourist load will be lighter than it might otherwise be. It was a good episode.
Reminds me of the great White City – the Chicago Columbian Exibition of 1893 planned by Daniel Burnham. 26 million visitors and it actually turned a profit.
DB2
And gave us a psycho killer.
