Knights out

“Be careful what you wish for!” is the finger-wagging threat oft-made by maiden aunts, crusty medieval crones and, the generally annoying.

Some years ago plain, vanilla Paul McCartney was ritually referred to in Smash Hits magazine as "Sir Fab Macca Wacky Thumbs Aloft". To this day I don't think anyone knows why he needed a nickname, but he certainly did (and does still) have a tendency to extend his thumbs skyward whenever adoring crowds are near. Anyway, in 1997 - long after the Hits first applied the moniker - Macca became a knight proper for "for services to music". Be careful what you wish for indeed.

Roll on another 15 years, and no sooner has Thumbs Aloft belted out his final "na-na-na-nah" to close the London 2012 opening ceremony, than the show's creative director is being installed by Twitter patrons as "Sir" Danny Boyle.

This was no flippant idea, but an earnest attempt to promote Boyle's investiture in recognition of his incredible tour de force on July 27. Such groundswell inevitably led to newspapers reporting that Boyle would be a shoe-in for a gong come the New Year's Honours list. Boyle himself - a dyed-in-the-wool member of the fraternity unlikely to support such things - has so far simply laughed it all off with a curt "I don’t think so".

Even if Boyle turns down a KBE, there will be no shortage of Olympic heroes and heroines queuing up at the Palace to be entitled. Indeed in the proud national glow that followed the London games, Twitter was "awash" (the modern equivalent of switchboards being "jammed") with suggestions that virtually anyone who pulled on a Team GB tracksuit this summer should get the nod for a meeting with James Bond's new parachuting partner, Her Majesty, The Queen. Fleet Street layout artists have no doubt already prepared their front page splashes for the final week of December to declare "Arise Sir Mo!" or "Arise Dame Jess!".

There have been past precedents for such populist clamour to actually succeed: Bruce Forsyth (for non-British readers of WWDBD?, the nation's pre-eminent octogenarian game show host, golfer and catchphrase merchant) endured years of humiliation with just a CBE to his name before HMTQ  wiped the ceremonial cutlass on his newly-knighted shoulders and said "Nice to see you, Sir Brucie, to see you, nice!".

A similar, but less well supported campaign has been lurking in the shadows to have David Beckham knighted in recognition of his services to hairdressers and tattoo parlours.

Old Goldenballs is, I concede, a national icon. Like Mr Bean replacing Benny Hill, Beckham has replaced Bobby Charlton as a shorthand reference for Britain. You can find yourself in the remotest, far-flung corner of the earth untouched by the English language or modernity itself, and you will still - at the slightest hint of Britishness - be met with a smile and the collection of syllables that is "David Beckham! Yes. Very good!".

Beckham is, of course, more than just an underwear model with excellent ball skills - sorry, that should have read "excellent footballer who dabbles in underwear modeling" - and his charidee work, not to mention salesmanship to help land the 2012 Olympics for London, does mark him out as a worthy candidate for national honour. But I do struggle to see why we should be collectively preparing to welcome Sir David and Lady Posh into the pantheon of great Britons knighted or damed (not sure if that's correct, but it's only one letter short of a curse, so it will do).

There are those in the British establishment who've never quite got over the number of actors being knighted, let alone rock stars like messrs McCartney, Jagger and John (which would make an interesting firm of suburban solicitors), whose knighthoods placed dual stamps in the passport marked Sodom and Gomorrah.

So with this we read that the Public Administration Select Committee, the British parliamentary institution responsible for, er, public adminstration, has called for a change in the honours system. T'committee has called for an independent commission to ensure that any government obsessed with image and spin doesn't do anything ridiculous like awarding all five members of One Direction gongs for whatever it is they do.

More importantly, the committee has called for greater transparency and less influence by politicians and their civil servants in the selection process of honours candidates: "We believe that no-one should be honoured for simply 'doing the day job', no matter what that job is,"  t'committee states.

Well if that doesn't set the proverbial big cat amongst the Clacton pigeons, I don't know what will. Because beyond pop stars and Olympians getting rewarded for generally being excellent and putting a smile on people's faces, there are still too many gongs being handed out to senior civil servants and business leaders on the basis that they are due one.

The select committee's chairman, Bernard Jenkin MP, points out that many Britons struggle to understand why the bulk of honours are handed out, which doesn't help public confidence in the system. "In particular," says Jenkin, "honours should not be awarded to civil servants or businessmen unless it can be demonstrated that there has been service above and beyond the call of duty."


And, capturing the spirit of these beleaguered, austere times he adds: "It is distasteful and damaging for people who already command vast personal remuneration packages for doing their job, to also be honoured for simply being at the helm of large companies. This must stop."

However, a spokesman for the government has denied that establishment figures and celebs dominate the honours system, running the old yarn about three-quarters of awards go to "ordinary" people who do charity work.

That, of course, wouldn't rule out a Beckham knighthood, even if he is also at the helm of a large commercial enterprise - David Beckham....

We lit the flame and we lit up the world - so what happens next?

For longer than anyone can remember, Christmas has been beset by ridiculously sentimental records jingle-jangling away with sleigh bells and children's choirs and the sort of wintry greeting card schmaltz inspired by a time, before global warming, when snow actually fell in December.

Of too many songs in this genre, the one that stands out is Wizzard's dangerously infectious I Wish It Could Be Christmas Every Day. This is because it has, for the last 38 years, presented children with the ultimate dream: perennial Christmas.

Obviously it's a stupid notion. Turkey farms couldn't breed birds fast enough to sustain Christmas 365-days a year, and, secondly, are you going broach the idea with your household's designated Christmas Day cook? Don't even bother thinking about buying presents.

Over the last 17 days London 2012 has lowered a similar mist of fake snow, tinsel and glitter over rational thought. Logic has been suspended as grown-ups have, like open-mouthed cherubs, declared en masse on Twitter: "I wish the Olympics could be on every day".

Well they can't, but that hasn't stopped hyperventilation over what is normally, and we certainly haven't been let down in this regard, considered to be the greatest sporting spectacle on earth.

Even the most sleep-deprived, Pringles-overdosed, couch-affixed football fan would agree that the games knock the World Cup into a cocked hat (although, from an English perspective, staging the World Cup daily would, via the Law of Averages, raise the possibility of England actually winning something).

This Monday morning, as 16,000 athletes and spectators attempt to leave Britain via Heathrow Airport the world is a very different place than it was on the evening of July 27.

We are emerging from the TV equivalent of an all-you-can-eat-restaurant (I know, a highly inappropriate comparison); we have indulged and devoured the sporting feast to end all feasts, feeling like a Nile crocodile that has snapped up one zebra too many at the riverbank. We may be bloated and pallid but also free of any guilt, simply because we have just consumed the most brilliant explosion of warmth and endeavour and collective effort and colour and fun.

Watching it all from a foreign country - and, ironically, the city that lost out to London - has been an experience in itself. French national television certainly has been enjoying itself - and the London-ness of it all. Fair play to them.

Reuters/Stefano Rellandini

Because from kick-off to final whistle, it has just been the most glorious blowout. We've had Usain Bolt demonstrating (and telling us) that he is the greatest sporting personality since Ali; Bradley Wiggins proving that, ultimately, Mods are better than Rockers; the incredible Mo Farah reducing grown men to tears with his gold medals in the 5,000 and 10,000m; Sir Chris Hoy in tears as he eclipsed Sir Steve Redgrave's record of five Olympic gold medals by winning an amazing sixth; Jessica Ennis demonstrating that normality can become extraordinary by taking the world title in a discipline involving seven individual pursuits; Women with French and German names have won medals for Britain in the dressage.

Michael Phelps became the greatest Olympian in history; Ben Ainslie won a fourth gold medal to become Britain's greatest sailor since Sir Walter Raleigh; Laura Trott proved that a succession of childhood illnesses and a diminutive stature are no barriers to Olympic glory; Nicola Adams made Olympic history as the first woman to win a boxing gold medal; Andy Murray beat Roger Federer on the Center Court; let's read that again - Andy Murray beat Roger Federer on the Center Court; and HRH Queen Elizabeth II parachuted out of a helicopter with James Bond. For real. Well, almost. And those are just the highlights.

It has been brilliant to see all of this - and much, much more - taking place in my home country, my home city and even, a couple of bits, in my home neighbourhood. For a nation so self-deprecating that it usually sees itself as the slightly crap kid handling out leaflets to parents on school sports day rather than taking part in the relay race - London 2012 has been Christmas every day, ever since Danny Boyle unwrapped his glittering parcel of magic in the opening ceremony.

Britain has demonstrated itself to be a country of remarkable cyclists, an island nation at strength on the water and in the water, and, with the right coaching, the right training facilities, and the right gumption, capable of competing with the very best in the track and field.

Britain has also projected (what we knew anyway) its charm, its sense of humour, a capital city to be proud of. Who would have thought it possible, 12 months ago, as youths used the mask of their apparent disaffection to set fire to British city centres and help themselves to LCD TVs and pairs of high-end Nikes. Britain, then, was broken. Two weeks of sporting excellence, sadly, doesn't mean it is now fixed.

Now the party's over, as Bryan Ferry crooned, what happens next? Actually, the London 2012 party isn't quite over - the Paralympics continue for the rest of the month, and while their profile won't reach anywhere near the level of the main games, the endeavour and achievement will be no less impressive.

It's what happens after August 29 that really matters: the so-called 'Olympic Legacy'. Before the closing ceremony had even taken place last night there were already politicians applying their customary reptilian skills of predation to opportunistically grab the moral high ground on how Britain builds on London 2012.

This is partly a discussion about what to do with an indoor cycling centre, a large swimming pool, all that sand on Horse Guards Parade, and preventing Olympic Park from returning to the toxic East London waste ground it was on June 6, 2005 when London declared victory in its Olympic bid. And it is partly about where Britain's next Hoy, Pendleton and Ennis will come from.

The two are partly connected. The issue isn't just about whether the £1 billion worth of London 2012 construction projects were worth it in the current economy, but whether or not encouraging Britain's indoor-rooted, Xbox-addicted youth to get off their fattening backsides is an important enough political priority when the nation has other challenges to contend with.

London 2012 didn't happen just to encourage kids to take up sport and thus prevent a future meltdown of the NHS due to cancers and cardiovascular diseases. But since it did happen, and given everyone both a good time and the initiative to squeeze into Lycra cycling shorts, then why shouldn't these Olympics stimulate the return of physical education to being a fixture, not a forgotten option of school life? Why shouldn't it mean the British government thinking again about its programme of selling off school playing fields? It's just a thought.

To this comes the topic of funding in general. There are some who were uncomfortable with the professionalisation of the Olympic disciplines to start with. More, in Britain, have been discomforted by the amount of National Lottery funding and commercial sponsorship.

Sponsorship is fine - when it comes from appropriate sponsors - and the Lottery should do more than provide Saturday night TV with 15 minutes of Dale Winton-presented inanity. Hats off to whoever dipped a hand to pay for Mo Farah's training in America, or the facilities for Britain's incredible band of cyclists, or Team GB as a whole to win a record 65 medals including 29 golds.

Back in 2002, Tessa Jowell, the-then minister for Culture, Media and Sport, read a report suggesting that a British bid for the 2012 Olympics would be unviable. Too expensive, was the civil servants' advice, and Paris had already sown up enough votes from IOC members to virtually have the 2012 games in the bag. Jowell chose to pursue it anyway.

Whether stunning arrogance or obstinate belligerence, her signature approving the formal launch of an Olympic bid set in motion an effort that has given London, Britain and the world a momentary high at a time when it could most do with it. No one knew in 2002 that the global economy would be in its fifth year of recession by the time these games came about, and that the UK could probably afford these games as much as any other country. Perhaps it has just been one of the best - or worst - examples of retail therapy, but man, has it been good.

It's now down to those custodians of the London 2012 legacy to make sure that our purchases will last, and that, unlike the Olympic facilities in Sydney, Athens and Beijing, London's purpose-built venues don't fall into disrepair - but keep on generating incredible people prepared to put their lives on hold for four or more years, getting up at 5am every day to train, train, train and train. Participation has been everything. Winning has been something else.

And if there is to be a legacy from 2012, it should be that in 2016 and beyond, there will be people from every country with the same hunger and ambition to make the Olympic Games the greatest show on Earth. Every four years, of course.

Forgive us if we get a little Churchillian

"Let us therefore brace ourselves to our duties, and so bear ourselves that, if the British Empire and its Commonwealth last for a thousand years, men will still say, 'This was their finest hour.' " - Winston Churchill, House of Commons, June 18, 1940

In the time it took for my companion to visit and return from the pub toilet yesterday evening, Great Britain had added another gold medal - the second of three won within the space of an hour. 

We had only called in for a quick pint to refresh a bike ride on a warm Paris evening. Well, I'd called in for a quick pint, but that's not the point: while we were in there we witnessed scenes of unprecedented jubilation not seen since Chelsea's unlikely Champion's League Final victory, on another Saturday evening in May.

In an hour we witnessed all five-feet-five-inches of Jessica Ennis complete the heptathalon with a storming 800-metre run in two minutes 8.65secs, winning the gold medal by a massive 306-point margin; and then, while my friend was taking care of business, Greg Rutherford was delivering a 8.31-metre long jump.

And then came Mo: Mo Farah, who came to Britain from Somalia at the age of eight to escape civil war in his homeland, to devote himself to becoming the first Briton to win the longest Olympic track discipline, the 10,000 metres. It was a genuinely tear-jerking victory. At the end of a day when the tear ducts of many in Britain were getting a very handsome workout indeed.

Those three medals, earned in front of the full 80,000 crowd at the Olympic Stadium, might have been enough to satisfy, but they followed three British gold medals picked up earlier in the day thanks to the women's and men's rowing at Eton Dorney, and another stunning cycling performance, with the women's pursuit team setting a new world record in the Velodrome. Even the departure of Team GB's football team - a quarter-final defeat at the feet of penalties (sound familiar?) - didn't dampen the euphoria of the day.

For a country that prides itself on self-depreciation, that regards The Great Escape as a success story (even though it all ended in abject failure), and which revels in the foreign view that we are a nation collectively lacking self-esteem, these last few days have been days in which it's been OK to be proud to be British.

It's something we've lost the art of. Perhaps we didn't even have it. Whereas Americans have got national pride down pat (a chant of "U-S-A, U-S-A!" can break out spontaneously for the most trivial of events), we Brits can't wave a union flag without feeling ever so slightly gauche.

Britain is, "Like shy party guests who drop their guard and find themselves having an unexpectedly good time," to quote the Sunday Times' James Gillespie today. I would emphasise the "unexpectedly". And he's right. Seb Coe might have slightly pompously branded London 2012 "the People's Games" (surely that was Beijing?), but it does feel like Britain is pitching in to have a good time.

Political correctness has confused national pride with jingoism, that by waving the flag of union is some sort of anachronistic throwback to an imperial past and the shame of colonial abuse. Or worse, that it is a nationalistic symbol at odds with the country's multi-cultural present.

Those who can't help getting their knickers in a twist about this sort of thing are welcome to carry on experiencing discomfort in their lower regions. While they do, the rest of us will be getting on with celebrating an incredible eight days, eight days when the national pastime of moaning about one thing or another has been put on hold, and the eyes of the world have been on London like never before.

And while we're at it, let's celebrate the fact that, the stadium that had played host to "leftie, multi-cultural crap" (A. Burley MP, Cons) in the Olympic opening ceremony just over a week before, last night witnessed a Yorkshire lass of mixed ethnicity, a ginger bloke from Milton Keynes, and a former Somali emigré who calls Feltham home, winning gold medals on the most amazing sporting Saturday night ever.  

But most of all, let's celebrate the fact that Britain is having a good time. The country may be knee-deep in recession, and heading for a third dip in the economic mire, but there seems to be - from this side of the English Channel, at least, the smile of enjoyment on the nation's visage. 

It is still only Day 9 of London 2012. By the same stage in Beijing, Britain had just seven gold medals. Today it has 16, the best British performance in 104 years. Even if Team GB doesn't pick up another piece of gold, silver or bronze between now and August 14, I doubt you'll be able to wipe the smile off British faces. After which, we'll return to our cynicism, our unemployment, our class divisions, our transport chaos and all the other things that seem to make Britain happiest when it is moaning about them.