Sometime over the coming week, the tide will turn. There won’t be a bat signal to let us know when to abandon our anti-Games curmudgeonry and adopt a red, white and blue blindfold, but it will happen.
It’s not our fault that we’re programmed to tug forelocks when required, but here it is: as soon as The Queen is activated, we will jettison all the complaints about G4S, crumbling transport networks, exclusive VIP lanes and brand bullying, and settle down like good little subjects to proclaim the glory of the Olympic Games.
Sure, right now we may be doing our best to predict Apocalympics – a running, jumping and throwing epic fail that will see our once-proud nation reduced to an international embarrassment. But to imagine that our collective Great British Grumpiness will last until beyond the opening ceremony is to underestimate our sense of subservience, and as Ronnie Corbett’s working-class character in the Frost Report sketches put it, “I know my place.”
The athletes will get stuck on cablecars taking them from one awful piece of rubble on the south of the Thames to one equally awful piece of rubble on the north of the Thames. And we’ll look the other way. The tourists will be ripped off left, right and centre by staggeringly horrific prices and mountains of roadside tack. We’ll laugh because it’s not happening to us. The spectators will be brutalised by a series of bewildering security checks. And we’ll stand in queues and love it, because it’s “what we do best”.
Oh, Britain, Britain. England. London. Britain. Whatever. I wish I could say that you’ll maintain that fabled “sense of humour” as the madness grips the nation, and all critical media outlets put their very best Rule Britannia goggles on – coincidentally, at exactly the same moment as the deluge of FREE STUFF begins to arrive in newsrooms from sponsors. (“These games are a shambl… wait, a free Wenlock and Mandeville bath mitt!”) But we won’t.
I know how it’ll be. Some of us, perhaps looking forward to the sport but dreading the commercialism, or looking forward to the commercialism but dreading the sport, will start to get that funny inkling that happens from time to time – that post-Diana moment when you looked around and started thinking “Has everyone gone entirely bananas, or is it just me who feels like that bloke from Day of the Triffids?”
Too late. This time next week, the patriotism begins in earnest. If you thought the Jubilee was faintly nauseating, that will be a trifle compared to what’s about to come. Gold! Medals! Wenlock! Mandeville! Rings! Official sponsors! Unofficial sponsors! Sponsors! Running! Jumping! Throwing things! Jessica Ennis on every page of every newspaper, forever!
I’ll resist it for as long as possible, but of course I’m no better than anyone else. I’m bound to succumb sooner rather than later – probably around Thursday afternoon, when I head off to the Olympic football at Cardiff. Bring on arriving two hours early and seeing nothing of any great import; bring on the wall-to-wall TV sports day. There’s no beating it, so I’m joining it. Sorry.
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