So I Was Smacked Up On The

If The Government Announced That It Was Going To Allocate A Vast Tranche Of Education Funding Purely To The Pupils At The Best Public Schools, There Would Be A National Outcry - And Yet This Is Precisely What The Olympics Represents In Terms Of Sports Funding.

Sometimes It Occurs To Me That The Job Of A Serious Cultural Critic Mostly Consists In Telling The Generality Of People That Their Opinions - On Films, On Books, On All Manner Of Widgets, Gadgets And Even The Latest Electronic Fidgets - Simply Aren't Up To Scratch.

Most Of Us Have Had That Experience - At Around Puberty - Of Realising That, Despite Whatever Efforts We Put Into Our Chosen Sports, We Will Become At Best Competent.

The High Arts Of Literature And Music Stand In A Curious Relationship To One Another, At Once Securely Comfortable And Deeply Uneasy - Rather Like A Long-term Marriage.

You Don't Need To Know This - But Here Goes: Due To Some Acquired Infantilism, I Feel Compelled To Fall Asleep Listening To The Radio. On A Good Night, I'll Push The Frail Barque Of My Psyche Off Into The Waters Of Lethe Accompanied By The Midnight Newsreader - On A Bad One, It's The Shipping Forecast.