As you probably know, today marks one year exactly until the British Olympics get underway. No doubt you’re place of work has allowed you to dress up for the day, there are Olympic themes for the afternoon and perhaps you’re excitement runneth over so much that you’ll be heading to Trafalgar Square to boogie on down with Mayor Boris and Lord Seb, impatient for the javelin and Greco wrestling to get underway. 

Or, you know, perhaps you don’t give a rat’s ass. 

The truth is of course, this is the London Olympics rather than the UK Olympics so it’s no wonder that Scots, Geordies, Liverpudlians and Mancunians etc are a bit sniffy at a £9bn party that they won’t see any discernible benefit from, aside from a football game or two. Scots have the option, if they really don’t like it, to vote accordingly in the upcoming independence referendum but, in the meantime, they are going to have to lump it.

However, for me, the world would be a poorer place without a quatro-annual Olympic Games held in it and that opinion alone dictates that a country like the UK needs to take its turn every now and again. So ‘value for money’ and an even geographical gain take something of a backseat. After all, you don’t throw a party in order to make a profit and you don’t congregate evenly across a function’s space. Stratford won a watch for 2012, it is the party’s kitchen and the disco’s dancefloor. North of Gretna is the third bedroom on the left; it may play host to a few exploratory revellers but it won’t be the soul of the party.

The Glasgow Commonwealth Games should provide a natural fairness though question remarks do remain over how fair it is for Scotland to pay for 2014 when there are no Barnet consequentials from 2012. Still, mustn’t grumble 

We’re getting a round in for the world next year and we Scots already have a bad reputation involving long pockets when it comes to that. Let’s not grumble too much about taking part in the greatest show of earth then, even if it is largely just paying for it.

And are we paying for London 2012 with this £9bn or, in a way, for every Olympics since the last one we hosted?     
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