11 Golds is nothing

I mean, don’t get me wrong, the Brits are doing well in Beijing. It’s just that it’s hard for me to get excited because I remember the 1908 Olympics in London. You know how many Golds we won then? Only 56!!

I remember Lillie [Langtry - ed.] talking about it at the time, saying some spoil sports (literally) were trying to say it wasn’t fair, because we included some games only we knew the rules to. It’s true that rackets is only played by English public school boys, but other countries could have learnt it in time if they’d only tried hard enough. And as for tug o’ war (won by the City of London Police in 1908), what a magnificently Olympian sport that is! In 2012,they should drop the synchronised knitting (or whatever the latest non-sport is) and re-introduce tug o’ war. I’m going to write to Boris...