Monty's Gaming and Wireless Outlook - Issue 149

"What the hell do I want to go to a place like Mombasa? ... I'm sort of scared about going there ... I just see myself in a pot of boiling water with all these natives dancing around me."

These were the racist words uttered by the Toronto mayor Mel Lastman before a visit to Kenya as he tried to drum up support for Toronto’s bid for the 2008 Olympics. Mmm, I wonder if the African IOC members voted for Beijing after hearing that little remark.

Lastman’s words were fatal to Toronto’s Olympic chances in the same way as Paris’s triumphalism ruined its opportunity for 2012. Note to prospective cities… Don’t close roads and turn the city into an Olympic pageant costing three million Euros BEFORE being awarded the Games, those type of displays are always going to bite. You. In. the. Arse.

As London mourns its dead, nobody will care about the Olympics for a while and the country’s mobile operators matched an incredibly efficient performance from the emergency services.

Understandably, extra capacity was given to the Police and other services, but calls got through reasonably quickly. While some mistakenly thought the networks had been shut down in case a mobile phone detonated another bomb, the best advice in times like this is to text, not call. It's quicker and it doesn't clog up the networks.

While London was burning, the English cricket team was slaughtering those game Australians again. It seems regular defeat is making these Aussies lose their sense of humour. This week its telecom watchdog banned the use of mobile porn on handsets. While this is upsetting news to operators who need to recoup 3G costs, the porn industry will be in turmoil. Time to throw another pimp onto the barbie, mate?