I was lucky enough to go to the Olympics, twice, mainly because my wife is adept at getting me to do things I’d never do if left to my own devices. The atmosphere, as everyone keeps saying, was fantastic; in fact, feats on the track notwithstanding, it struck me as being our greatest achievement. After all, if you take a medium-sized country with a sporting tradition of sorts and chuck money at it, common sense would suggest you’ll get a crop of Gold and other medals (I’d like to take this opportunity to thank people who have less money than me for buying all those Lottery tickets; even though it is depressing to see such a woeful collective misunderstanding of the way probability works). Of course we were likely to do well. And we duly did.
But the volunteers were something else again. I have heard people say that their conduct was a triumph of multiculturalism; actually I wonder whether the reverse is the case. As I walked around the Olympic Park what struck me about the cheery, slightly self-conscious, self-deprecating humour emanating from the faces in the queasy taupe and magenta Games uniform was, notwithstanding their bewildering variety of colour and racial feature, how British they all were.
It’s rare for me nowadays to have the slightly welling-up feel-good surge that Liberals must have all the time when they consider immigration policy and its consequences, but I did last week. Or nearly. These people, or more likely their parents or grandparents, came to this country from all over the world. But nevertheless their culture, expressed in their attitudes, demeanour and language, was palpably mine.
I am sceptical about most things, as befits a grumpy old man, and downright pessimistic about a world mired in consumerism and debt, complacent about population levels and at best only a stone's throw away from barbarism. But within that pre-apocalyptic context I actually feel quite optimistic about Britain. Our capital, it seemed to me walking round Stratford and Greenwich, was not in London; it lay, if you'll forgive the pun, in the culture which is all around us.
