Well - as a Brit, I'm gutted that we've got the games. It's a waste of money, time, effort and will drain fiscal resources that could and should be spent elsewhere.

I fear for our ability to actually deliver in time at all. One of the more recent civil engineering projects in London was the superb Jubilee Line Extension, pitched as a 3 year, £900m project that took 6 years and more than £3.5B. An excellent demonstration of our ability to manage such projects.

Or perhaps the Millenium Dome - the £399M Millenium dome that ended up costing £800M and wasnt actually finished before the Millenium (dont worry, that cost equates to only £133 per visitor ...and it was crap)

Maybe the fantastic £40M Scottish Parliment Building, which cost £195M is a good example. Let us take the most appropriate example - the new Wembley Stadium - £757M it will cost by the time it's finished. For Euro 2004, Portugal spent £333M and built SEVEN new stadia. The largest, a 65,000 seater, cost £79m, and three of the 7 have UEFA's highest rating.

Of course - hosting something like the Olympics will require some great IT infrastructure, like the Swanwick Air Traffic Control centre. That was only 6 years late, and £273M over budget.

Given this nations fantastic record of being over budget and obscenly late with just about any and every major engineering or IT project in the last two decades.and that in the case of the Olympics it catagorically HAS to be done on time, I simply expect money to be thrown at it until it is, and that will result in it going something like 25-50% over budget - minimum.

Doug