Each to their own, what floats one boat doesn’t float another etc. etc, but the simple fact of the matter is that I just can’t get excited by the Olympics. And I don’t mean the Olympics that people who are happy to wear cheap imported clothes keep moaning about. I mean the one that’s happening right here, in the good old City of London come the year of our Lord, 2012. And, I think that my lack of excitement boils down to the fact that I’m bothered by something.

Now, I’m not particularly bothered about the cost. The moment the unknown fat man in the suit announced we’d won the games, it was obvious to anyone with a degree of nonce that the final price of hosting the games will be about 20 times the initial published figure. I’m also not bothered by the fact, that despite wonderful predictions about regeneration, what we’ll be left with (apart from some useful transport links) is a load of odd shaped buildings that hardly anyone will use. These, incidentally, will all be locked up by 2014 and left to rust (much to the chagrin of people on radio phone-ins). I’m not even bothered about the obvious legacy of debt, or the fact that some folk are misguided enough to believe that a load of athletes coming to London and doing a bit of running for two weeks will increase the price of their homes.

No, none of the above bothers me. What bothers me is that I have a creeping feeling that the Olympics just don’t really matter anymore. In short, we’re outgrowing the Olympics in the same way that we’ve already outgrown the circus with its scary clowns and wearisome acrobats. The Olympics, seem to me, a spectacle where its component parts just don’t hold wonder and awe for us the way they did in the good old days of history. Gone, I fear, are the times when we would all gather around our rented TVs to marvel at bald Duncan Goodhew swimming quite fast, or swoon as Eddie the Eagle Edwards showed us how rubbish he was at jumping off a ramp with some sticks attached to his feet. Hell, we don’t even need a new Torvil and Dean anymore; not when we’ve got the real ones huffing and puffing through short routines on a makeshift studio ice rink and giving out useful skating tips to minor celebrities.

Be honest with yourself. What do you watch when the Olympics are on TV? The 100 metres final? Beach volleyball? Some obscure event that gets exciting only when it looks like Britain has a chance of winning a medal? The honest truth is that things have moved on. We live in a world where sport is defined through the artistry of multi-million pound footballers and their lifestyles, a world where any answer or need is instantly available online, a world, in short, which offers its inhabitants billions of multi-coloured pleasures for the taking, right here and right now. Put all that up against watching Paula Radcliffe wheezing along a road wetting herself, and you have to admit, I have a point.

There will be many who disagree with the above, and the arguments they counter are valid. Yes, the Olympics are a visual symbol for uniting a turbulent and divided world; yes the Olympics are the premier showcase for the world’s greatest athletes, and yes, the Olympics show us all what can be achieved with determination, focus and belief. But ask yourself these questions. Do you really care? And, come 2012, will you be tuning in to the TV more than occasionally? Probably not I reckon.