I suspect I’m not the only one here in Britain who surprized himself by getting carried away by those Olympics. I watched them on television whenever I could but didn’t actually go to any of the events as I’m not a fan of crowd scenes. I did though travel through London a week ago and encountered some of those now famous “volunteers” who were every bit as delightful as everyone is saying. London glowed with an enthusiasm that I had never seen there before. I was crossing the city to catch a train from Liverpool Street Station to Norwich on what was threatening to be a nightmare journey due to the Olympic crowds. Far from being a nightmare, it was a genuine joy to witness if only from a distance such collective celebration. My train went very near to the Olympic Stadium which was buzzing like a bee hive – wonderful stuff. I was thrilled to see it in action.

I suppose, as cynics will tell us, that the Olympic glow will gradually fade and that Britain, will wake up to its austerity hangover but, if only, we could hold on to some of that camaraderie and, yes, I know it won’t happen but, if only one day……yes, I know, it won’t happen but if only all those nations could unite like the two guys above. You may say I’m a dreamer but I’m not the only one.

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After a wonderfully exciting Olympic Games here in Britain and, believe me, I have loved it, there was a disappointingly dull closing ceremony with a lot of old has-been rocksters dad-dancing and the reunited Spice Girls making me wonder how they ever made it in the first place. The politicians came out of the woodwork again and began to preach sport and the UK is alive with Olympic chatter. Sports are the thing of the moment. Our prime minister watches it on TV, well when there’s a camera around,  he plays tennis and goes to baseball games when there’s an American president around and last week he found billions of extra pounds for sports in schools promising to make it a compulsory part of the curriculum.  There’s always money in the exchequer in austerity Britain – David Cameron just needs a tabloid story to give him an idea and, hey, here’s a new policy.

One day, I suspect he dreams, we will all have tennis  courts in our gardens and we’ll all be possible candidates for some future Olympic Games. In my case it will be in the games announced just after Hell freezes over. David Cameron, as I’ve often noted on these pages, is undoubtedly a nice guy, naive, certainly, blinkered, without a doubt but undoubtedly nice and enthusiastic about things. I’m not knocking his enthusiasm about all those British gold medals or the euphoria the Games have created in the UK. Most of us, even the most cynical of Brits have been inspired over the last two weeks. It has been life enhancing seeing the amazing feats that the human body and spirit can achieve at the highest level of sport. I just worry that Mr Cameron, who lacks the Midas touch, will turn potential gold into lead.

Here are some of those super men and women who won gold and who achieved an excellence in these Games and thrilled us, well me anyway,  as I slumped on my sofa –  without any press cameras clicking away at my enthusiasm.

I still can’t quite believe than anyone can do some of these things….

….or why they don’t just keel over and die after all that exertion….

…I also wonder what it must feel like to be the first over the winning line….

….or breaking a world record….

…or some Olympic ones……

…how can some people be so good at so many different sports……

..or be so magnificent and yet stay cool…..

…or be so little and yet so, well, devastating….

…or mould themelves into one human-horse ballerina….

……and how anyone can even climb up to that high diving board, let alone jump off it doing all those twists and turns with such body control……

…I wondered too how anyone could be so brilliant and yet still be so surprized when they win…..

….it was great to watch the big guys box and win……

…but somehow even more amazing to see that small jubilant woman become the first woman Olympic boxing champion….

…the stories continued right to the end when that charming man from Uganda beat all the favourites to the winning line in the marathon run around a smiling cheering London.

So those empty gyms will start filling up this week as we all rush to find a bit of that adrenalin for ourselves – or will we? The schools will be going back soon too and the hope is that the new generation of kids, with the new money from the government, will all be instilled with the Olympic spirit. It would be wonderful if that were possible. Even looking at that empty gym, I remember all those days of misery spent in them when I was a child.

If our schools are to start compulsory football, netball or hockey, let’s hope that it is taught in the spirit  of fun and not as a form of torture for those who will never when an Olympic medal or, in sports terms, never win anything at all except injured pride and humiliation.

It would be wonderful to help winning kids win but what about the losers and the non-starters?

I hope that there won’t be a new generation of children who are just going to be taught that it is always other kids that are good at stuff.

I hated sport at school…hated it enough for it to become a political issue. I learnt to resist the bullying elitism of the gymnasium and the rugby field, the blind adulation of the team, the smugness of the champions, and the callously preferential treatment offered out to the most talented athletes. Because it was always compulsory, I learnt how to duck and dodge and how to keep my independence. I owe that to compulsory and badly-taught school sport but I don’t wish it on the new generations.

Neither do I wish them obesity. We all need to keep our bodies fit and we also need to learn that fitness can be not just fun but exhilarating and rewarding. I discovered how much I liked it when I left school and could choose what form of exercise I would like to try. Over the years I have surprized myself at a number of sports – squash and fencing at university, then weights training at the gym and  running and, yes, roller-blading and, finally, and maybe most rewardingly Kungfu. I was never going to be competing at the Olympics but I learnt to enjoy the “burn” and the satisfaction of mastering to a small extent my natural lack of co-ordination. Everyone, I believe, if not put off at school, can learn to love the sensation of their body pushing itself to its limits. I would never have chosen to play football, hockey or netball as I just never had the ability. I played these sports often enough – the bottom teams in football where everyone, even the teacher, was bored except for two or three kids who did all the running around. I got used coming last in all those races at school sports days, I endured  humiliation in the gym when I seldom managed to jump over the “horse.” At school I learnt how to be a loser – nowadays, sometimes, I even win. So, if the prime minister is going to throw a few billions into sports at school, let’s hope that every child gets a chance to learn the physical activity that they can do best. Maybe it’s dance and not football, or maybe kungfu and not hockey.

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Of course I’ve loved the Olympics – it may have been over-hyped, over-marketed and over-sneered at but those sportsmen and women (and please note British journalists, not just the British ones) were truly inspiring. Literally in my case because they got me down to my gym again and I’ve been going there for two weeks now. So, yes, it was an inspiration and Britain felt fun having it here. So as it comes to an end let’s remember not to take it too seriously. There were some very silly faces being pulled –  these are some of the most ridiculous. Sadly I don’t think I will ever be inspired by synchronised swimming but that make-up must be truly water-proof. Wonder if it will catch on.

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It is great idea, the Olympic Torch Relay – inspirational in an epic way. The flame of the Olympic spirit lit in Greece and then carried through Britain, brought to the people in advance of this the “People’s Games” – the great 2012 British Olympic Games.

Everyone would get to see it – Prime Minister David Cameron made it for the photo opportunity at Woodstock near his country retreat…

The Queen was amazed by it at Windsor Castle and Prince Philip was thrilled – or was he being ironic?

London Mayor Boris Johnson did his inimitable bit for the press….

..and everyone’s hero David Beckham did what he does best. He stood there and smiled for the cameras.

The cameras were out in my home town of Lewes too this week when it was our turn to thrill to the excitement of actually seeing the torch relayed through our streets.

The crowds gathered….

Everywhere, in the run up to the actual games which start in a couple of weeks, everywhere we are confronted with the big guys of this festival – the Olympic Sponsors. The crowds roared, well they’d been standing there for nearly an hour awaiting the exciting moment. First, in blazing red, the Coca Cola coach blaring pop out pop songs on its tinny speakers….

 …then more cheers as along came Samsung with a troup of rather desperate-looking people in Samsung uniforms….

and finally, everyone’s, er,  favourite these days, the bankers….Lloyds TSB with some nice people from the bank waving and looking slightly embarrassed, even surprized as the small children waved and cheered. I suspect everyone was just willing to cheer anything that went by in anticipation of the great Olympic Torch sighting. Don’t blink though at these events because, after all the big coaches and the music….

a bloke with a torch flit past and then, seconds later, it was all over. A shame that his effort was so upstaged by those giants from the big bad world of corporate sponsorship who, here in Lewes at least, showed just how much they misunderstand the original spirit of the games. We wanted to see the torch just like we want to see the Olympic athletes when the time comes for the games proper. I hope that we can contain the vulgarity and commercial cynicism of the sponsors, who are stamping their authority and their branding on the proceedings with unprecedented aggression.

Maybe that man in Henley was more in the spirit of the original games when he streaked in front of the torch with Free Tibet written on his back.

After-all the original Greek athletes performed naked but that would never be allowed these days…..

…where would the sponsors stick their logos?

The idea behind the Olympic Torch Relay started with the infamous Berlin Olympics and there too, a noble idea was soon branded with distasteful imagery that had nothing to do with the Olympic spirit.

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Here in Austerity Britain, our Prime Minister, the ever-charismatic David Cameron has announced that he is doubling the £40 million budget for next year’s opening and closing Olympic Games ceremonies. I make that £80 million for a bit of sparkle and glitter.

These Olympic dancers looked thrilled and I am sure it will be a lovely show if you like camp crowd scenes and lots of lighting effects.

Mr Cameron was urged to double his money after seeing what a mere £40 million gets you in Olympic ceremonial and he is making big claims for how many billions of pounds will come flooding in to Britain after the whole World watches his two variety shows which will be given a “Britain Is Great” theme. I am not convinced. Maybe there are better uses for all that money. For instance, instead of starving the BBC of funds and endangering the future of the BBC World Service,  they should just show a re-run of the BBC’s Strictly Come Dancing and put the rest of the money into the beleaguered broadcasting corporation’s depleted coffers otherwise, before long, British broadcasting will just be an advert showing the World that “Britain Was Great Once.”

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