Tonight:
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What an undiluted pleasure it was to see Mayor Boris cock up the flag-handing-over at the closing ceremony of the Beijing Olympic Games.
While the dour Communist apparatchik handled the banner with savage regimentation, Boris was cheerily incapable of waving the thing even in the windless surroundings of the Bird's Nest stadium. It made my heart swell with Cockney pride. As did the arrival of the hokey old London bus, complete with a "queue" of cheeky chappies and chappesses, all frantically gurning and gyrating.
For me, this all signalled that yes, the London 2012 games will indeed be a different affair from the Chinese ones. They were all efficiency at any cost, and opening and closing ceremonies that, far from being " beautiful", were in fact a demonstration of the ant-like de-individualisation suffered by the ordinary citizens of this eastern despotism.
The Chinese may execute thieves in their stadiums but Bumbling Boris doesn't look capable of swatting a fly in one of ours. He may affect a sweatband and ride a fold-away bike, but never in your wildest dreams could you picture the Mayor as a poster-boy for physical beauty.
Frankly, Ken would have been a far more frightening-prospect as Gamesmeister, what with his sharp suits and brazen embrace of demagoguery.
I have a sneaking suspicion that Boris doesn't really like all the corporate ballyhoo that's already surrounding the London Games. Moreover, a formidable classicist himself, he cannot be unaware that the modern games once had rather more high-minded aspirations: to foster excellence without regard for narrow, nationalist considerations.
As it is, the past few days have seen the exposure of the hospitality lavished on our Olympic wonks by contractors in search of lucrative business, while the usual suspects - my Lords Coe and Moynihan - are already beating the drum for more of our money to fund their beloved elite sportsmen and women.
But if the British contribution to the closing ceremony was affecting, how much more moving it was to see 40,000 people turn out in the Mall to see a Queen tribute band - or was it the Queen herself? It's so difficult to tell nowadays - belt out We Will Rock You, cheer some returning Olympic medallists and watch the obligatory fly-past by the Red Arrows.
No, I wasn't there - but then neither have I attended any of the other royal rockfests over the years, events that are only ever attended by the usual suspects: people who will daub red, white and blue on their cheeks at any opportunity, those for whom flag-waving is akin to a nervous tic.
That is why my doubts about the whole business reman intact. What the Olympics are truly all about is money, nationalism in a patriotic garb and a spurious kind of self-congratulation.
The fact that someone else can run, jump, row or throw superlatively has absolutely no bearing whatsoever on the normal activities of normal people. Lord Coe is still trumpeting about the great regeneration of Stratford, and this when the contractors for the Olympic village have just pulled out of a scheme on Merseyside because they were worried they weren't going to make sufficient profits. He points to the 2,000 long-term unemployed who are already employed on the 2012 site, but I say: you're going to have to do better than that for your £9billion.
No, our only hope lies with Boris. Let this be your finest hour, I say! Let your unworldly manner be a flaming beacon of hope in a world crazed by excellence, profits - and power.
Striking gold with La Moss
To the Goldsmiths' Hall in the City, where I helped the artist Marc Quinn manhandle his life-sized gold statue of supermodel Kate Moss on to a plinth.
We were propping the one million quid's worth of gold upright when who should happen along but an actual goldsmith. I thought City livery companies were exclusively the preserve of rather dull men who make money out of financial derivatives, but this chap was wearing a buff apron and showed great interest in the casting of the piece, as well as discoursing knowledgably on the application of gold leaf to London monuments.
It was in marked contrast to the time I was at a buffet at the Fishmongers' Hall on London Bridge and asked one of the "fishmongers" the correct way to prepare a lobster. You could have heard a claw drop.
• I fear that Jeremy Paxman - whose skills as an interrogator I much admire - is falling victim to the creeping bigotry of advancing years. His latest outburst to the effect that TV is dominated by women, and that if you're white, middle class and male you don't stand a chance, is as erroneous as it is intemperate. True, there are a handful of women in powerful positions in British TV but the vast majority of controllers and commissioners are still white men and, by definition, middle class.
It's worth asking: would it be such a dreadful thing if women really did run TV? Perhaps then we wouldn't have the body fascism that means women's front-of-camera careers are over once they hit a certain age. Perhaps, also, we wouldn't have so much of the voyeuristic smut that passes for "entertainment".
It may interest Paxman to learn that there is only one BBC controller from an ethnic minority; a situation so singular that his friends, including me, refer to him as "the Black Controller". Full irony intended.
Reader views (1)
I am fascinated by this so called black controller who Will says is a good friend of his. Who is he? I'm black and I've worked at the BBC for 20 years at the heart of TV and Radio channels and networks and I've never ever come across a black controller. Who is he?
- Kriogal, London, 27/08/2008 10:45
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