pumpkinstrokemarrow

It is fairly irritating for this cash strapped country to be pouring £20bn or so down the drain on the Olympics. A drain fitted with a divert to the family homes in parts east of all those chaps and chapesses from parts east employed thereon.

Further irritation in the form of some red steel monstrosity.

Then still more yesterday to learn that £20m or so is to be spent on a full size working replica of the lid of a kitsch jigsaw puzzle (originally from Waddington, late of Leeds). OK, so if there are to be games I dare say there has to be an opening ceremony. It is the same as films; you can't just dive straight in, you need some framing flannel. But I am sure that if I was given the job, I could come up with something a good deal cheaper and a good deal more dignified. Perhaps involving the monarch giving the signal by lighting something. And while I was at it I would prune out some of the more exotic sports, boob bounding for one.

And the balance could be spent on subsidizing arty jigsaws of a more interesting olympic event. I would even buy one myself, despite having had a repro. of the picture for many years. A jigsaw makes one pay attention.

PS: I think I have mentioned before that it would be a lot simpler and a lot more sensible to have a permanent site at Olympia. Apart from anything else, an earner for the poor old Greeks. So long, that is, that they didn't just flog the franchise to Virgin so that they could carry on sitting around in the sun,