“These Greek vases are classic – in every sense!”

A colleague lured me to the boozer so I missed the Real Actual Opening Fandango but arrived home in time to see the parade get going – British Virgin Islands and their only competitor passing as I type. However a BLIGHT has settled over the opening ceremony, namely DIGITAL CAMERAS and PICTURE PHONES being waved by competitors from the first world countries. Australia’s team were particularly bad for this, every second athlete stopping to take pictures of the crowd with their top-of-the-range Nikon. This meant that their parade went to pieces and ended up looking like a bunch of tourists wandering down Oxford Street. One member of the French team meanwhile was actually ON HIS PHONE as he walked into the arena – “I’m at the Olympics! Hi!”*.

The German team organisers have worked out how to avoid this international indignity by issuing their entire team with comedy hats to wave about, thus cutting down on the camera phone nonsense. Gut for them.

*except in French I assume.