Believe, belong, become, boring, bizarre: Brisbane Olympics motto panned as ‘lazy and weirdly evangelical’
If you typed the words “believe, belong and become” into a Google video search on Thursday morning, the first return may have been a sermon by TJ Mauldin, the lead pastor of the First Baptist church of Tifton, Georgia.Directly below the bearded and blue-jeaned pastor’s video under that alliterative banner, you may have clicked through to a sermon by West Florida Baptist church’s Mike Brown, who had those three b-words emblazoned on a snug-fitting black T-shirt.“These aren’t just words on a shirt,” the tanned, fit and immaculately groomed senior pastor proclaims.“This is the message and the heartbeat and the passion of God’s word – and it oughta be the message and the heartbeat and the passion of his church!”From Lewis Center for Church Leadership Rev Dexter Udell Nutall’s Belong, Believe, Become: Engaging Millennials and Gen Z in Faith to Father George from St Anastasia Catholic church’s Introduction to the Three Bs (Belong, Believe, Become) – scrolling down the list on the world’s predominant search engine, every video return on those three combined words, in fact, may have led you to the impassioned word of God.Later in the day, however, after the alchemical undertaking of the algorithms, those same three words may have returned a very different top search result: Believe.
Belong,Become,Brisbane 2032,“This is our time,” the Paralympic swimming and wheelchair basketball champion Ellie Cole says in the two-and-a-half-minute hype reel,“Our moment to believe.
”“Belong,” the sprinter Patrick Johnson adds.“Become,” the Paralympian Madison de Rozario concludes.Sign up: AU Breaking News emailFor this is the “Games vision” of the Brisbane 2032 Olympic and Paralympic Games, revealed on Wednesday afternoon, after what organisers described as “the largest consultation process Brisbane 2032 has undertaken to date”.Led by communication consultancy Rowland, this three-word vision was formed after “more than 6,000 Australians had their say”, according to the press release.For the Brisbane 2032 president, Andrew Liveris – as it was for West Florida Baptist church’s Mike Brown – they were more than just words.
“Our Games Vision has significant symbolism behind it, with the genesis of each word acting as our north star towards the delivery of our Games in 2032 and an exciting era beyond,” Liveris said.The advertising director Dee Madigan, however, reckons those words may have had a different origin story.A regular panellist on Gruen Planet – the ABC show that unpicks the world of advertising – Madigan says the Olympic slogan feels “strange and Christian schooley”.“I think they’ve stolen the school motto from pretty much every Christian school in the country!” she tells the Guardian.Sign up to Breaking News AustraliaGet the most important news as it breaksafter newsletter promotion“Become? Become what?!? Become someone stuck in a traffic queue? Become someone who is paying an inordinate amount of money for a bottle of water?”After an involvement in Labor campaigns, including leading its advertising for the successful 2022 and 2025 federal efforts, Madigan says she understands that coming up with a slogan “where you have got a plethora of stakeholders” is a difficult task.
In 2008 the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the Chinese Communist Party Central Committee announced the motto of the Beijing 2008 Games as the slightly ominous One World, One Dream.Organisers of Paris 2024 seemed to be riffing of a Stanley Kubrick erotic thriller when they created the motto Games Wide Open, while those of South Korea’s 2018 Winter Olympics might have commissioned a wifi provider to dream up theirs: Passion.Connected.“By the time everyone puts their two bobs in, you’ve usually ended with 27,000 words – I understand how difficult that can be,” Madigan says.“But they have done a terrible job.
It feels lazy and weirdly evangelistic,”Madigan says the slogan is a missed opportunity that could have been a promotional tool for visitors, or stoked a sense of pride,It could have been a play on Australian vernacular,It might have been humorous, spoken to the Aussie spirit of Queensland idiosyncrasy,“People are gonna come here and think we’re all holy baby Jesus people,” she says.
UK’s small brewers call for chancellor to think again on business rates
Brewers have joined calls for the chancellor to reconsider changes to business rates that it says could be “the difference between closure and survival” for pubs.In an open letter to Rachel Reeves, the Society of Independent Brewers and Associates, which represents about 700 beer makers, said it wanted to “express our deep concern at the impact of last week’s business rates decisions on the hospitality sector”.Many hospitality businesses are already battling lacklustre trade as consumers rein in spending on non-essentials amid higher household bills, food price rises and tax increases.In her budget last week, Reeves announced she was introducing “permanently lower tax rates for over 750,000 retail, hospitality and leisure properties”, paid for with higher rates on the UK’s biggest businesses, including tech companies such as Amazon.The package included £3
Fossil-fuel billionaires bought up millions of shares after meeting with top Trump officials
Two fossil-fuel billionaires with close ties to Donald Trump bought millions of shares in the company they co-founded just days after a meeting with senior White House officials, who then issued a key regulatory permit that helped expand the company’s fortunes in Europe.Robert Pender, an energy lawyer, and Michael Sabel, a former investment banker, are the founders and co-chairs of Venture Global, a Virginia-based company that develops and operates liquefied natural gas (LNG) export terminals.Sabel was among about 20 people who attended an event in April 2024 at Trump’s private club, Mar-a-Lago, when he reportedly requested $1bn in campaign donations from the fossil fuel industry in return for favorable legislation. Venture Global was among the “top donors” to Trump’s inauguration, donating $1m, according to the Wall Street Journal.On his first day back in the White House, Trump issued an executive order rolling back regulations to favor fossil fuel production, including LNG export licences, while revoking existing climate and clean energy policies
‘Tough market conditions’ hit UK half-year retail sales at Frasers Group
The owner of Sports Direct and Flannels has said sales have fallen at its UK retail businesses amid heavy discounting by rivals and “very subdued” consumer confidence.Frasers, which is controlled by the former Newcastle United owner Mike Ashley, said sales at its UK sports division were down 5.8% in the six months to 26 October to £1.3bn despite growth at the main Sports Direct chain because of “planned decline” at its Game outlets and the Studio Retail online arm.Michael Murray, the chief executive of Frasers Group, which also owns House of Fraser department stores, Jack Wills and dozens of other brands and a number of shopping centres, said “market conditions are tough” and “consumer confidence is very subdued”
Refinancing is delayed at Thames Water. If Ofwat is playing hard, it should keep going | Nils Pratley
A good 20 months have passed since the shareholders of Thames Water declared they wouldn’t be putting another penny into the “uninvestable” company and would rather take a thumping write-off of their investment.So surely, you’d think, we must be nearing the endgame in the attempt by the creditors – the people who lent money to Thames – to rescue the company via a debt write-down and a recapitalisation with new equity. After all, the 100-odd class A bondholders have been negotiating with Ofwat, the regulator, since June. Indeed, they started work on their proposal six months before that, in case the original preferred bidder, the US private equity group KKR, took fright at the political heat on Thames, which is what happened.But no, the water torture goes on
Advertising giant WPP relegated from FTSE 100 after nearly 30 years
WPP has been relegated from the FTSE 100 after nearly 30 years, as the advertising multinational struggles to stem an exodus of clients and match the artificial intelligence and data capabilities of rivals.The market valuation of WPP, once the world’s largest advertising group, has plummeted from about £24bn in 2017 to £3.1bn.The company’s share price has plunged by two-thirds this year and it has been relegated from the blue chip index after a quarterly reshuffle, confirmed when stock markets closed on Wednesday afternoon.British Land, which was the most valuable company in the FTSE 250, was promoted to the FTSE 100 to take the spot vacated by WPP
Post Office avoids fine over leak of wrongfully convicted operators’ names
The Post Office has avoided a fine over a data breach that resulted in the mistaken online publication of the names and addresses of more than 500 post office operators it had been pursuing during the Horizon IT scandal.The Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) has reprimanded the Post Office over the breach, in which the company’s press office accidentally published an unredacted version of a legal settlement document with the operators on its website.The ICO said the data breach in June last year involving the release of names, home addresses and operator status of 502 out of the 555 people involved in the successful litigation action against the Post Office led by Sir Alan Bates had been “entirely preventable”.“The people affected by this breach had already endured significant hardship and distress as a result of the IT scandal,” said Sally Anne Poole, the head of investigations at the ICO.“They deserved much better than this
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