I had been planning to ignore the fact that a lot of athletes seem to be gathering in London at the moment to take part in a sporting event. I don’t care about racing, jumping, throwing, kicking or hitting. I remember the horror of sports day as a child on the track at Parliament Hill with its gritty red surface and impossibly distant finish line. I always thought that one of the great things about becoming an adult was that you would never have to think about running or vaulting over horses ever again.
Only now I find that not thinking about sport isn’t an option. The Olympics have colonised what I see, read, watch, how I move, what I drink and what I wash my hair with. Some of this isn’t too bad: I don’t really mind the fact that the Diet Coke can in front of me has five rings on one side, as I can turn it the other way and find the delicious chemical concoction inside tastes the same as ever. I can also forgive the flags and the bunting; indeed, they are quite jolly.
What is harder to forgive is the fact that I work in a travel “hotspot” and that from Thursday, 800,000 extra people will be on the Tube. Things aren’t going to be any better on a bicycle: you get fined £130 if you go into one of the cursed Olympic lanes on the road, and you can’t go down the Mall at all, as it’s closed – apparently to help congestion.