It's now a week since the glitzy spectacular at the home ground of Benfica announced the 'new' wonders of the world. In case you missed it, the lucky seven are:-
The Great Wall of China
The stone city of Petra
Christ the Redeemer, Rio de Janeiro
Machu Picchu
Chichen Itza, Mexico
The Colosseum, Rome
The Taj Mahal
Reaction has been decidedly mixed - whilst the organisers claim an unmitigated success, with over 100 million votes cast, critics have weighed in from all directions. The Egyptians are still piqued about the original inclusion of the Giza pyramids, UNESCO are seething that this 'competition' has run against their lengthy world heritage listings, and of course representatives of the losers are wondering how the top 7 made it. In fact, the people responsible for looking after two of the winners - the Chichen Itza ruins in Mexico and Machu Picchu in Peru - have described their fears at escalating visitor traffic leading to increased erosion.
As I said in my previous post, the voting was decidedly sketchy in places. The voting was conducted for free online, or by SMS messaging, which was unlimited but with a charge. Block votes could be bought by any individual, organisation or government. The situation in Brazil was a good example of what happened - according to an investigation by Newsweek, Brazilian banks spent millions of dollars buying votes, and the Brazilian telecommunications sector waived the fee for telephone voters to get public support. At one point, every Rio resident with a phone got a text asking them to send a free vote for their local nominee. 10 million votes later, the statue of Christ the Redeemer was a New Wonder of the World.
Actually, I don't think there's anything wrong with that at all. Holding a public vote - accessible only by those with phones or the internet - is such a baseless way of conducting a survey that it encourages the wealthy and clever to come out on top. The Queen of Jordan repetedly went on television there urging her people to vote for the stone city of Petra. In the end, 14m votes were recorded from the country (which has a population of 7 million). I can never imagine her doing so, but if our Queen went on primetime asking us to vote for Stonehenge, it would have received far more votes. But she was too busy storming out of photo shoots (or not). This kind of thing always happens in public votes - we got an email round at work requesting our votes for one of the contestants on the BBC's Joseph talent show thing, because his cousin worked in our building (or something). Any dream will have to do for him, as he didn't win.
But assuming I did value the New7 exercise, I think I would probably have voted for the following:-
The Great Wall - impossible to argue with this choice
The Taj Mahal - the story alone would be enough, I think
Machu Picchu - I've not been there but it looks impressive
Easter Island Moais - baffling as to how they didn't get in the list
Stonehenge - older than the original seven wonders
Eiffel Tower - it defines one of the world's greatest cities
The Sydney Opera House - I used to walk past it on the way to work
There you go, I think the best anyone can ay about the New7 contest is that it was a harmless exercise. Ignoring the widespread buying of block votes, of course. As I predicted last time, on opening the travel guide in yesterday's weekend paper, there was an article about the stone city of Petra, one of 'the new seven wonders of the world'. All the New7 might get more visitors as a result, but I don't think any of the losers will get substantially fewer - and this might suit a lot of them, as tourists increase everywhere. Still, it got people talking and gave me something to write about, I guess. Next time it's my much anticipated 'real' seven wonders of the world - I'm still waiting for the votes to come in...(and if any representatives of Blackburn Rovers are reading, I'd be willing to include Ewood Park in my top 7 in exchange for free tickets).
Oh, and with blinding inevitability, the New7 organisers used the glittering finale to announce a fresh competition - to find the New Seven Wonders of the Natural World. It closes on the 8th of August 2008, so get those texting fingers ready!
