Posted 30th July 2002   Yes, OK, I was totally wrong on this thing I wrote a week ago. And bizarrely, I'm hugely pleased to say I was wrong - I'm not one of the naysayers who'll just delete the bits they said that were proven wrong. It happens, and when it does I'll bloody well admit it.    I don't know how they've managed it, but to my knowledge there hasn't been a single huge traffic problem so far with the Commonwealth Games. It's been a stunning event all the way through so far, and I have to say that I think it's been an amazingly well organised thing.   The stadium is awesome. Yes, it's almost being used as a political point as well - since the UK Governments absolute refusal to consider a National Stadium outside London (a move which has cost millions, fucked Wembley for the foreseeable future, and been a total cock up from start to finish), Manchester has built this new City of Manchester stadium (and a very funky little Java Applet to show the scale of the bloody thing), and it couldn't be more of an offensive gesture to London and Government if they'd persuaded the architechts to put all the supporting pillars in giant V gestures/structures. Just about every single person asked for comment during the athletics and events in the stadium has said "this venue is marvellous, and the attitude of the audience inside it has pushed {the athletes} towards doing their absolute best".   And yes, standing in the open park area at the bottom of my street on the Thursday for the opening ceremony, seeing the fireworks/pyrotechnics (fireworks for some reason still says to me "Shit party in a domestic garden on 5th November") was an awesome sight. And yes, seeing it even then made me think "bloody hell, this is going to be good".   Of course, that hasn't stopped the IOC and UK Government saying "Manchester will not be the host city for the Olympics, we'll be doing it in London." - and for that, considering the hassles that Sydney had, and that we're looking ten-ish years down the line from now, I think the traffic problems we worried about here will be a total certainty for London. It's a traffic nightmare anyway, with regular total gridlock, so what are they going to do to manage an extra quarter million or more cars/vehicles and I guess a million people extra per day? I caqn't see it happening, but then again, common sense has never seemed to be part of the bid process, let alone the selection process.   Ah well - we'll cross that bridge (or not, in the case of a decent gridlock) in a couple of years time, when the bids go in. Rest assured though, it'll be a bit of a comedy moment...