Grumpy Old Woman

I'm worried I might be turning into a grumpy old woman.

I am not usually known for my cynicism but recently I have found myself increasingly at odds with the world in some respects.

For example the governmental promises to shower our successful Olympians from the Beijing games with honours.

Now don't get me wrong. I have huge admiration for the sports men and women who represent their country at the peak of their game. But I struggle with a government that has spent most of its term in office discouraging competitive sports in state schools and selling off the sports fields, now championing the cause of beating everyone to glory.

And what are we doing hosting the games in four years time? For goodness sake. We are a tiny island.

What makes it even worse is that once again everything is being centred around London.

Hey guys - the Millennium Dome, paid for by all of us, was a flop because it was too expensive and difficult for most of us to get to. London really is not the centre of the Universe. Trust me.

Now we are all going to have the privilege of paying towards the next Olympics with every likelihood that there will be minimum, if any, positive impact on the lives of the average Brit.

I suppose the one potentially good thing is that someone somewhere has spotted that there are quite a lot of footy fans on these fair isles. Definitely an audience worth capturing. Which would explain why Sir Alex has apparently been asked to manage a British Football team.

My theory is that people have looked at what happens in this country when there is a major international football tournament (one we manage to qualify for that is!) and thought "We need some of that. In fact a lot of that"

They're unlikely to get it with a bit of pistol shooting or dancing horses I suspect, no matter how good they are.

I will wait with interest to see if football can be the vehicle that will galvanise Britain into popular support for the Olympics. If not, then I fear another Dome but on a vaster, and more expensive scale.