The Olympic Games: hooray for bread 'n circuses!

And now for the Olympic Games.

London will be crowded with tourists who have come to watch chemically-induced runners, jumpers and throwers strutting their stuff. That should do the economy a power of good, although not nearly enough to recoup even a smidgen of the astronomical cost of this circus.

It should all be great fun; here are some of the security measures that will be put in place:

‘Scanners, biometric ID cards, number-plate and facial-recognition CCTV systems, disease tracking systems, new police control centres and checkpoints have all been planned as part of the Olympic security strategy. In addition, Londoners and Olympic tourists can look forward to seeing an aircraft carrier that will permanently be docked on the Thames; surface-to-air missile systems will scan the skies; unmanned drones that will hover above the stadiums; RAF Typhoon Eurofighters; a thousand armed US diplomatic and FBI agents; and 55 dog teams will patrol an Olympic zone partitioned off from the wider city by an 11-mile, 5,000-volt electronic fence’.

Of course, they will all be removed afterwards. Won’t they?

We will have taxi-drivers being told that they will have to make expensive diversions because their route has been closed to all but the IOC committee. We will have owners of suburban b&bs rubbing their hands because the IOC has booked 45,000 room nights at the best inner-city hotels, and we will have Romanian truck drivers banned from the motorway to the south coast because it is a Zil-lane for the sailing events.

It will be perfectly legitimate  to harass Asian corner-shopkeepers for displaying Pepsi adverts if the sponsoring soft drink is Coke, and to order the Landlord of the ‘Dog and Pessary’ to take down his pub sign because it advertises beer that is not included in the approved list of suppliers to the ‘Games’.

We will be able to observe Bonker Boris slavering over the minimalist running kit of the female competitors, and, as our greatest living classicist, we might expect his column in the DT to extol the virtues of the original Grecian Olympics when competitors performed in the nude.