Believe it or not I still look back with glee to London 2012. If you think about it, what happened to me that summer was awesome: somehow I found myself living in city hosting the olympics, at the beginning of which we saw the queen parachute from a helicopter with james bond*, and at the end of which my future wife played before the world. For the rest of my life I will be able to say I was there in London, in 2012, and point to the pictures and the videos; that to me seems very special.

Now, though, something more intriguing is about to take place. London 2012 may still fill me with glee, but Sochi 2014 interests me on a completely different level. We are about to see Russia’s olympics, Putin’s olympics, an event wrapped in controversy and politics. Many people see to predict that Vladimir Putin is going to try to make the forthcoming games his own, using them to showcase russia to the world. How will he do this, exactly? No doubt he will make the most of the opening and closing ceremonies, but I can’t wait to see precisely how. Inasmuch as you can read such ceremonies as you would any other artistic text, I can’t wait to see how this tsar in all but name does, how he will try to present his country to the world, and what he will try to play down. Indeed, given the revulsion in the west over Putin’s homophobic laws, I also can’t wait to see the reaction here too, both from the mainstream media and social networks; it too will probably be very telling.

Interesting days ahead, then, for a media junkie like myself. I mused once over the possibility of the Brazilians making their own version of ‘Happy and Glorious’, but possibly even more interesting is the thought that Putin could take up the meme and use it to somehow show off his macho-man image. The thought that russia could have created their own version of the Paraorchestra interests me too: what will it look like, and how will disability in general be presented given the frankly hellish history of people with disabilities in Russia. Such questions will have to wait a week or so, but I’m afraid to say that my interest in Olympic affairs has been reborn. Plus, now that we Londoners don’t have to worry about pissing off the IOC vis-a-vis a forthcoming bid, we can be a bitchy as we like. Chance, then, to let loose on their corruption, corruption in russia, and the whole sordid affair in general.

This should be fun.

*I still think that is the coolest thing ever, at least of it’s type. I mean, space travel is probably just as cool if not cooler, but you know what I mean. It’s the queen with bond, for smeg’s sake.