18/09/12

Diary of an Olympics doubter

by David Philpott, chairman of IoD Kent branch

July 6, 2005. OMG. London has won the bid to host the 2012 Olympic Games. Disaster! No other country has such a penchant for self-humiliation when it comes to the big stage. Note to self. Book overseas holiday in July, 2012, and pretend to be Australian.

March 2, 2012. Informal discussion breaks out following Institute of Directors executive committee meeting. All telling each other what Olympic tickets they had managed to get. I despair. I predict disaster. Trains on strike or stopped because of the wrong sort of sun. Terrorism, God forbid. Bruce reprimands me. “Show a bit of faith,” he says. “It will be the best Olympics ever.” Yeah right.

May 4, 2012. Sweet joy fused with despair. Boris Wif Waf has been re-elected Mayor of London. Lots of laughs guaranteed but is this really the face of London that we want the world to see when it descends upon our grimy capital in two months time?

July 27, 2012. The matrix signs on the M20 are telling me to avoid London during the Olympics and black cab drivers are all up in arms about not being able to use Olympic lanes. Make a mental note not to visit London during the “Humiliation Games”. Games opening ceremony tonight. Yawn.

July 28, 2012. Mesmerised. Arise Sir Danny Boyle. What a spectacle! McCartney disappoints; only downer on an upbeat night. Despair turning to cautious optimism. If the opening ceremony is anything to go by, maybe – just maybe – we might pull off a pretty half decent Olympic Games. No real hopes of medals though.

August 4, 2012. Rule Britannia. Four gold medals in track and field. Great to see the Union Flag reclaimed from BNP. Belly laughs as GB’s overpaid, underperforming footballers’ crash out to the mighty South Korea (aka North Korea in Scotland).

August 7, 2012. Break my own rule and agree to a meeting in Pall Mall during Olympic festival. High speed train fills at Stratford with Olympic spectators returning to central London. Lovely atmosphere. Southeastern have it all sorted at St Pancras and passengers guided with ease by railway staff on Happy Go Lucky Pills. Why can’t it always be like this? Eerily quiet in West End, but smiling soldiers and purple and pink volunteers everywhere.

August 11, 2012. Sixty five medals, 29 of them gold. Talk of Yorkshire being more successful in these games than Australia. Alex Salmond must have despaired seeing Sir Chris Hoy drapped in Union flag. Loving beating the Germans and French. Whatever happened to the Russians? When I was a boy that Anna Bolic Steroid lady seem to win everything.

August 12, 2012. Closing ceremony. Spice Girls on Zimmer frames! Who could ask for more? Roger Daltrey pulled it off. My Generation worked, unlike Hey Jude three weeks ago. Cringed at all the back slapping and didn’t we do well stuff in Seb’s speech. Nobody likes a show-off. What now for him? The Duke of Stratford? His Holiness?

August 13, 2012. Phone Bruce. “You were right. I was wrong” says I. He chuckles. “Told you we were the best in the world” he says.