I suppose I still have quite a naive, romanticised view when it comes to the Olympic games. It seems to me that they are festivals of world unity unlike any other: periods when, every couple of years or so, the attention of the entire world is focussed on one city or region, and we can all enjoy the sports and festivities together. I still think back fourteen years to London 2012. Just to have been here in London that year was incredible. The metropolis had a buzz to it; it felt like the centre of the entire world as we played host to human civilisation. To see Lyn performing at the paralympic closing ceremony will always be one of the greatest moments of my life. For those few weeks, humanity felt as one, centred around London. It wasn’t just a sports event, but a celebration of culture and place.

I freely admit this is a highly naive view which (probably deliberately) ignores all the overt corruption and scandal which underpins the olympics. In a way I think it ties into my love of travel: I like how it gives a city the opportunity to show itself off before the world. From this perspective, olympic opening and closing ceremonies are effectively performances, not just to be enjoyed but read and analysed. What do they reveal about a city’s culture, and what is the community trying to say to us? Thus, in an ideal world, I’d like cities from all across the world to host the Olympics and Paralympics, so that the global community can focus on them and they can show theirselves off to us, as London and Paris did. I also think it would be cool to see more such mega-events, just as gigantic, but focussed on other disciplines such as arts or technology.

But again, I’m being naive. The world is far from ideal, especially at the moment. The olympic games take billions of pounds to put on, money which many countries do not have; so obviously only the most affluent cities get to show themselves off like this. More to the point, the world of 2012 or even ’24 is long gone: we stand at the brink of a profound global catastrophe. Thus as intrigued as I am to watch the Winter Olympic Opening Ceremony in Milan this evening, I can’t help thinking there are now more pressing issues at hand. Celebrations of human unity are all well and good, but at a time when we may well be about to blow ourselves apart, it feels like fiddling while Rome (or Milan) burns. I”m not saying that I think the games should be cancelled or delayed, just that to hold such an event right now feels like we are wilfully ignoring wider, darker issues, giving rise to quite an unseemly mismatch or juxtaposition.