Matthew Norman : An Olympian exercise in patriotism

Now that Boris Johnson has accepted the torch on London’s behalf – and try not to become inured to the surreal splendour of Boris’s debut as a global political statesman – the time comes to reflect on the Olympic efforts of the broadcaster surely poised to restyle itself as Team BBC. Today, the first and business-class airline seats are doubtless replete with BBC executives congratulating one another about the excellent ratings and splendid coverage.

There’s no denying the former, but my thoughts on the latter are deftly encapsulated by a remark from Michael Johnson (along with Gabby Logan, Adrian Chiles and Clare Balding, one of very few saving graces) many minutes after Wednesday’s women’s 400m hurdles final. “And Melaine Walker broke the Olympic record,” muttered Mr Johnson, “if anyone’s interested.” But of course they weren’t. All that concerned them was the bronze medal run by British athlete Natasha Danvers, and had Ms Walker stopped on the final bend and given birth to a Thomson’s gazelle, they wouldn’t have been interested in that except in so far as it would have upgraded Tasha to the silver. The notion that the Beeb’s tone when covering international sport should tend towards the neutral, as exemplified by the grievously missed Richie Benaud, is clearly outmoded, and no one could expect anything but the usual adolescent cheerleading from 5 Live. But it still came as a surprise to find the Beeb’s television output so frantically and exclusively devoted to covering British success in the tone of 14-year-old girls at a Robbie Williams gig. That sort of thing is fine for Americansand Australians, but it just didn’t feel like us. Somewhere buried in these pompous, middle-aged reflections lies, perhaps, the distinction between the essences of Great Britain and Team GB.

PARTICULARLY DISTRESSING was a remark by commentator Alison Curbishley in the wake of Christine Ohuruogu’s doughty win. Turbo Curbo, as Alison was optimistically known in her running days, was entitled to rage about know-nothing writers who won’t accept that only scattiness kept Christine from those drug tests, but did she need to single one of them out? She did not, yet she introduced one segment of her critique with “The likes of Des Kelly ?” Disgraceful. Apart from holding what was once believed to be the longest Wikipedia entry in journalistic history (now sadly truncated; mention of a Irish house sale has vanished), Mailman Des is a former deputy editor of the Mirror and deserves a modicum of respect. And even if he doesn’t, is this a seemly time to kick him just as his girlfriend Carol Vorderman (at least we think they’re back together) is about to lose the income from Countdown? A dreadful business that won’t lightly be forgotten.

AS FOR The Daily Telegraph voice of common sense Jeff Randall, and a summa cum laude graduate in Snug Bar Philosophy from Peter Alliss College, hats off to him. On Friday, Jeff produced a comparison between our Olympic heroic athletes and our feckless England footballers, coming down firmly on the side of the athletes. I haven’t read this piece nearly enough in recent days, although given that it’s such a joltingly original line of thought perhaps one could never be fully sated. Well done, Jeff!

ON EVEN MORE cracking Olympic form, meanwhile, was the man without whom no media diary is ever quite complete. As the excitement builds towards the release of his latest magnum opus, the wondrously entitled It’s Called Great Britain, Not Rubbish Britain (Hardcover Books, £18.99; publication date, October 16), The Sun’s Jon Gaunt tantalises the palate for his work with tasty little morsels. “Now that they have put the Great back into Britain,” he writes of our athletes, “can we all remember just how fantastic this country and its people are?” Certainly we can, Gaunty. We can, we must and we shall. “Let’s wrap ourselves in the flag, not only for the homecoming parade on 16 October but every day.”What a coincidence, that Gaunty’s book should be timed to coincide with what will be a Vesuvial eruption of jingoist pride. The cunning old sausage.

IT’S ALWAYS fun to note the breaking of new ground in political writing, and seldom more so than in a report by that fine old pro Philip Webster s. “A senior cabinet minister told colleagues yesterday to avoid the impression of ‘jostling’ to succeed Gordon Brown ?” began a report by The Times political editor, and here was something fresh, the minister in question being Culture,Media and Sport supremo Andy Burnham. “Senior” has long been an epithet used to make stories based on the musings of obscure backbenchers seem more portentous, but I’ve not seen it applied before to someone who entered the Cabinet little over a year ago, and whose only subsequent contribution to national life since was making such an arse of himself by peddling sub-gossip columnist innuendo about Shami Chakrabarti. Exactly what someone would have to do to be regarded as junior in this context by Philip is hard to say. Sit underneath the cabinet table flicking through the Beano and sucking a gobstopper, perhaps?

WORDS CANNOT express, finally, the joy of Mark Frith’s The Celeb Diaries, as serialised in the Mail.Whoever would have guessed that the longtime editor of Heat would reveal himself as an engaging amalgam of D-lister manqué, blasé bully,spectacular crawler and straightforward simpleton?

Sometimes I think it’s only the challenges to one’s lazy preconceptions that gives the process of wading through newspapers its savour.