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Be sporting - don't forsake The Games


"STAY AND ENJOY THE GAMES OF A LIFETIME" the Evening Standard implored us weary Londoners today. There is something thoroughly British about the urge to run in the opposite direction when the spotlight falls anywhere near our merry island, but this is not the jolly, robust, stiff-upper-lip Britishness that even Hitler himself admired; there is something much more disdainful about the thought that we, as a country, are so cynical about the Olympics, we are prepared - nee, eager - to boycott, to forsake our national brethren at the time when they most need our support, because basically we can't be arsed to put up with two weeks' worth of disruption and all those "bloody foreigners". The Olympics coming to London may well only happen once in our lifetime, and yet it seems to have become the national pastime to grumble and chide and book the first Easyjet flight outta' Dodge.

We seem to have a nationwide aversion to anything organised, fun, flamboyant, not strictly necessary, expensive...ok, so I can get on board with the argument that we are spending £2 million on a diving board and when people are losing their jobs and their homes. But if we never spent a penny beyond what Joe Public deemed solely in the national interest, the country would become a dire place indeed - and presumably one without the cinemas and fried chicken shops that much of JP has become so very fond of.

I speak as one of the hundreds of thousands of Brits who do not have the luxury of high-tailing it to Majorca when the Olympics comes to town. In my case, admittedly, it is my devotion to the dialysis machine that keeps my feet (very literally) on the ground, but, hard as it is to believe, there are untold multitudes who have jobs to work, dependent relatives to care for, houses to tend and a whole variety of commitments to foster who can't just up and leave because London will be standing room only for a fortnight. I am appalled to realise we need headlines and Stephen Fry to convince us not to abandon the Olympics. Even if I could leave the country, I wouldn't want to - and I don't need to screaming headline to convince me.

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