The Olympics - £10,000 million, for what?

I am surprised no-one has yet suggested making it a hate crime to be less than enthusiastic about the London Olympics, writes Peter Rhodes.

There is still time.

In the meantime, we learn this week that a special police squad has been formed to investigate match-fixing, the drug testers are on full alert and 4,000 BMW limousines (as British as bratwurst itself) are arriving soon to ferry the "Olympic Family" of organisers, sponsors and hangers-on along special Olympic roads which will be closed to ordinary Londoners.

I imagine someone is organising a few thousand North Korean-style weepers to line the Mall and wail and gnash their teeth in grief when the whole thing is over.

Eventually, we will wake up to the fact that it has cost our bankrupt nation £10,000 million to discover that some African runner we neither know nor care about is 0.002 of a second faster than some American runner we neither know nor care about.