The Evangelismos hospital in the fashionable area of Kolonaki in Athens is being painted - or rather the backside of it is. Why? 'For the Olympics'. Such a state of ultra preparedness sits uncomfortably with what we have all been led to believe about the disaster that will be Athens 2004. If they have time to paint the back of a hospital, then they have time to build everything else, right?

Yet the reality of Athens 2004 defies such optimism. They are painting the backside of Evangelismos, yet the rowing lake at Marathon, as of last month, stands as a big pond in a building site. There are no spectator stands, indeed no facilities at all around the rowing lake, which was itself declared dangerous to compete in during the practice championships last year. One team ended the competition then by dragging their boat across the finishing line.

Am I telling a story of unnecessary doom and gloom? Of course, when the Olympics start, everything will be finished and ready - that is 'everything that needs to be done for the Olympics to run' - a list that is being continuously revised downwards. The race to the finishing line is not helped by the fact that there was a general election here in Greece on 7th March. Everything became a political argument as a result, including how best to get ready for the Olympics.

Despite this tension over finishing dates (and they have just been put back again as one of the building companies for the roof of the main stadium has gone on strike), The International Herald Tribune described Athens several weeks ago as having a "pre Olympics shimmer". The Times announced Athens' "spring clean". Sure, the prospect of the Olympics has drawn a vast amount of investment into Southern Greece, especially Athens. The difference is most palpable in the former run down area of Psirri, near the central flea markets. Many ultra trendy bars, restaurants and clubs now stick out like a sore thumb admist the general dilapidation of the area. Athens definitely sparkles, but the worry is that the pre Olympics 'shimmer' could turn out to be a post-Olympic shiver as all this investment fails to find a long-term market large enough to support it.

It is this feeling of wariness that has left the Olympics feeling like a bitter taste in the mouths of many Greeks. Greece has changed considerably in the last 20 years, mainly due to the impact of Western European and American culture, attitudes and policies - something that the ruling party Pasok, which had held power for almost as long, had been actively propagating. As a result Greece finds itself in a drawn out painful period of change, for which the Olympics has become something of a symbol. Despite the publicity sound bite that the Olympics are coming home to Greece this summer, some feel that it is the movement which the Olympics epitomise that is instead robbing them of what home they have left. This has been clearly demonstrated by the results of the recent general election: with Pasok loosing the election to their newer more conservative rivals, New Democracy. The upshot of a change of government will not solve the Olympics' problems. Many Greeks fear that the new government, instead of helping to make the Games a success, will simply blame its failure on the previous government.

Michael Scott