Crisis? What Crisis?

Has Olympic fever completely taken a hold yet? Not quite – the temperature has certainly risen – but that’s the weather – a high of 32 centigrade signalled that summer really is here.

So far so good – ish.

The traffic chaos isn’t quite as bad as predicted as the dedicated Olympic road lanes are in put into action. But drivers are getting frustrated as VIP’s and official vehicles speed past as they queue in reduced number of lanes, risking a £130 ($85) fine if they stray into the exclusive channels.

As visitors and competitors continue to flood into our airports, there has been a national sigh of relief as the border agency staff have called off their strike, planned for tomorrow. The government challenged the legality of the balloting process leading to the call to industrial action and the PCS union came to their senses as the weight of public opinion was leaning heavily against them. But this victory was tempered by the embarrassing story of an 11 year old boy who found his way through UK security, passport check and boarding scrutiny (not) to take off on a flight from Manchester to Rome, with no ticket, no passport and no boarding card! Even more embarrassing was the fact that the diminutive stowaway was spotted by fellow passengers as airline staff failed to notice that he didn’t even have a seat! Oops..

Rather oddly, the sport started in earnest today – with the women’s football tournament kicking off – three days before the opening ceremony on Friday evening. The good news is that Team GB started with a 1 – 0 victory over New Zealand – go girls!

But again this positive start was nearly overshadowed by another ‘oops’ moment as the North Korea vs Colombia match was almost cancelled as the flag of South Korea, not known as a best friend of their neighbours North Korea, was shown in error alongside the team announcements. The North Korean women stormed off the pitch and could only be persuaded to return after an hour’s grovelling. I know it is a serious issue, but I can’t help smiling as I imagine the heart stopping moment as officials were told of the faux pas….

Still, as my grandmother used to say. ‘Worse things happen at sea’. Everything seems to be on track - apart from our triple jumper Phillips Idowu, Team GB’s triple jumping medal hope, who is not only not on track, he seems to be nowhere near any track as he failed to join the team at their training camp in Portugal.

As the Nation holds its collective bated breath and start to enjoy the greatest show on earth, we can only hope that any other ‘oops’ moments will be equally minor. Crisis? What crisis? All is well – after all – us Brits are usually pretty good in a crisis any. Aren’t we?....