Seeing off the Cynics

There was, apparently, some item on the Today programme at the beginning of this week asking how long it would be before Britain returned to its old cynicism. (That'll be the cynicism that greeted the winning of the Olympic Games in the first place... and the waste of money... the fact that Lord Snooty was in charge, etc.)

As an Australian might say (as he grimly totted up his nation's swimming medals) 'Ah, look...' as long as there are Camerons and Borises giving all us regular chaps a hearty pat on the back for our good works then cynicism won't be far behind. I find the neglect of Ken Livingstone in all this a little baffling. Think of his speech after 7/7 and you won't find a more statesmanlike response to serious adversity.

Boris's popularity is enough to bring out the cynic in anyone. He's like the bastard child of a golden labrador and Hugh Grant, with a Latin reader tucked under his collar.

But no matter how hard they try they cannot rob us of the one thing I'd forgotten I had: national pride. Just when you thought that the bullet-headed secretly-swastikaed fuckwits had taken permanent possession of our national flags, along come a swathe of dedicated and talented and Gawd help us multi-ethnic individuals to sweep it back into general ownership.

Seldom has a summer of sport so elevated and transformed a people. There are those who reckon this is just another example of bread and circuses, but this was no ordinary circus. The Paralympics seemed almost to surpass the Olympics in terms of its drama and capacity to move. From David Weir - arms like Popeye, voice like Becks - through to Ellie Simmonds who is possibly the most astonishing athlete I've ever watched (yes it is probably because she's tiny but goes like a fecking jet-ski) every day of competition held something to admire.

The Paralympics is wonderful precisely because it is a celebration of ability. It's all very well to have soggy well-meaning folk telling you how every person is important and capable. It's another thing entirely to have it demonstrated: to watch folk regardless of any apparent impairment do things way better than you could ever manage.

It is also - and this applies to sport at its best - a celebration of honesty. The reason I like running and jumping so much is that gamesmanship is very hard to impose. All right, a sprint final might begin with a pantomime of posturing that wouldn't look out of place in Lion King the Musical, but ultimately it's eight blokes in eight straight lines and the fastest one wins.

In a longer race there may be jockeying for position, some team tactics, the odd spike in the calf, but in the end it's whether Mo Farah can lengthen those threadlike limbs despite being hunted down by the ravening pack behind him.

Andy Murray's Grand Slam win has come at a time in the game when bellowing at umpires and trashing equipment is a thing of the past - if you think a decision's wrong, call up Hawkeye and it'll give us a peachy little thrill to boot. I could do without the oceans of time that seem to pass between Djokovic's serves, and I once managed to read an entire Indian takeaway menu between a first and second serve from Rafael Na.... bounce, bounce, bounce, tug at bum crack, bounce, bounce, mop brow, tug, tug, bounce... dal.

Some of the usual sporting blights have been kept to a minimum. There doesn't seem to have been too many failed drugs tests, although if there were ever an event for weightlifting cyclists we could solve any employment problem for health professionals overnight.

But now, Ryder Cup apart, it's over. No more blind footballers (although seasoned Shaun Wright-Phillips watchers might disagree); no more wheelchair rugger buggers; no more cerebral palsy sprinters...

And so it's back to...

Last night England drew 1-1 with Ukraine and I thought they did okay. One way to avoid scepticism with the national team might be to acknowledge that we're not very good. Hodgson gave a few new boys their head last night. Given Messi is a Tidy footballer, maybe Woy should pick Tom Stupidly in the number 10 shirt next time.

I don't much mind that the lad had a mare, really. I'd rather we had 11 Oxo-Chambermaids gifting possession and trying fancy flicks than an overhyped bunch of slackers just trying to ease through 90 minutes and wait til Saturday comes.

1-1 was okay. And okay is the team we've got.

If you need a reason to get down and dismal then look no further, boys n girls, to the Premier League. Here's a place where money speaks louder than words, words mean nothing very much, much is made from very little and little is given back to those that create the atmosphere that makes football the game it is. (You might even call the fans the Gamesmakers.)

Yes sir, every shirt tugged, every linesman shoved, every nightclub brawl, every highboard fall, every bollocked ref, every coach gone deaf, every single time it crosses the line and no one checks on the telly, every utterance that falls, mind-numbing and obvious, from the plonkers panel on the pundits couch, we're going to be thinking longingly of a Hannah or a Jess or an Ellie or a Johnny and wondering whatever happened to the dignity and integrity of sporting endeavour.

And yet, and yet... we still might end up with some barrel-chested millionaire Argentine nicking the title with the last flail of his right boot and you know what? All the money in the world can't rob that of its jaw-dropping wonder.

[Can you hear that? That's the sound of the mighty cynic within my soul thumping on the door and demanding to be let out.]