Was the Torch Extinguished Today?

I watched the news highlights today of the Olympic torch being carried through London and I honestly didn't know whether to laugh or cry so guess what happened... I started to feel a bit angry. What an embarrassment. I like the French although I have to admit that I felt nothing but raw nationalism the day, even the moment we defeated the French to win the bid for 2012.

Since then my scepticism has grown along with my fear that we will not be able to deliver on time or on budget and if we do it'll be on plywood and copydex. In fact all that will happen is that a lot of powerful people will do a lot of business while the rest of us get ripped off in the process. This can surely be the only possible outcome, particularly with the involvement of our very own Tessa Jowell.

Anyway, to describe today's events to anyone who didn't see the coverage, I would start by saying that with the odd exception, Denise Lewis, Steve Redgrave, Kelly Holmes, the people carrying the torch today were quite puzzling. They had Trevor McDonald in Trafalgar Square, Blue Peter presenter Connie Huq, violinist Vanessa Mae and a bunch of other people who you just wouldn't associate with sport or the Olympics and probably wouldn't even be invited to a C-list celebrity party let alone go if they were. Where was the razzle dazzle? Ok, it was snowing, it was cold and miserable but there was also the issue of the protest and the police.

The runners were surrounded by Chinese guys in tracksuits who I am presuming were some kind of Chinese Olympic secret service organisation and quite eerily they all looked like they were in fact clones of each other (good job they weren't wearing white helmets otherwise we would all be forgiven for thinking that George Lucas was promoting his new film). Surrounding the Chinese Storm Troopers were our police force all wearing cycling helmets for some strange reason.

I have to explore the reason for the cycling helmets because their presence was quite amusing to me. The only reason I can think that they were wearing them was because they wanted protection in case the unruly crown started lobbing things at them. Fair enough! But why cycling helmets. Do the police not have full on proper riot gear any more or can we not afford it? Were they trying to portray some kind of sporting image because of the job they were doing today? Did they all cycle to work today? Or were they desperately trying not to be seen on international news reports in full riot gear for the reputation of the country? A bit redundant when you consider the scenes of over enthusiastic UK Bobbys bundling women and cameramen to the floor and in some instances kicking them while they were down there.

One thing that made my blood boil is that all the politicians and "celebrities" who I saw interviewed kept saying something along the lines of, "...at least we live in a country where we can protest about these things." What planet do these people live on? You cannot march on Downing Street or Parliament Square any more for "security reasons", you have to be careful that you don't fall fowl of terrorism laws under which the government is proposing the longest detention without trial in the civilised world. Children have been charged and every time there is a march, a minority hardcore goad the police who don't need much goading anyway into smashing skulls where ever they find them. I agree that we don't have state sponsored murder yet unless you consider Jean Charles de Manezes as an example and I agree that what is happening in Tibet is far worse an abuse of human rights than anything we suffer here in the UK, but were not spotless and that is why today was just utter nonsense and we wasted a lot of time and resources doing it. What a shame! What a shame!