Olympic dream will be a nightmare for some.

Even if no modern games has managed to live up to the Olympic Ideal that is no reason to succumb to a lefty knee jerk anti Olympics reaction. There is much to be said for sporting achievement, for the coming together of international athletes and a couple of weeks of thrilling entertainment and sometimes nail biting drama. Having said all that though it has to be admitted that time after time we find the Olympic Dream tainted with the reality of human rights abuses as the poor, the disadvantaged, the dissident and the unwanted are bulldozed out of the way lest they tarnish the gold and glamour. This years Vancouver Winter Olympics looks like being attended by the usual spiteful social cleansing as the homeless are removed from the streets in preparation for the games. Here in London we have just two years before our own carnival of sporting excellence, social engineering, large scale corruption and security psycho-drama takes to the road. Chariots of Fire it won't be.