UNBELIEVABLY WORTH THE MONEY

     A last word - from me, anyway - about the Olympics.

     I have always felt a touch ashamed, or defensive at least, about regularly buying National Lottery tickets.  As my wife points out every week, "it's a sheer waste of money."  Oh, I have had the odd £10 win every blue moon but no gambler worth his salt would contemplate taking on the sort of odds that the Lottery offers.  Crazy, of course.

    I have tried to defend the indefensible by quoting that line from "South Pacific," how can you have a dream come true if he don't have a dream?"  And I have pointed out that a half of the income from the Lottery goes to charity.  But it's awfully difficult to cite the exact instance of where and which charity benefits - and, more importantly, where I benefit.

    Now that has all changed.  Caught up in the Games fervour - at first reluctantly but now wallowing in it - I note with pride that the National Lottery has contributed a goodly share of the cost of staging the games.  And so my £5 worth of input every week makes me a sponsor, removing that lurking feeling of guilt about wasting family income.

    I feel as if I've won a Gold.  Well, almost.

    Crabby Postcript.  The one good thing abut the end of the London Olympics is that the nation will now be spared hearing the word "unbelievable" gasped by medalists and commentators something like twenty or thirty times a Television day.  I'm no pedant about words but the adjective isn't accurate, anyway.  Does anyone think that an Olympic finalist would enter the event without belief of victory, even if it is only tucked away at the back of the mind?  Words like "satisfying," "wonderful" or even the awful "awesome" would be more descriptive.  The dreadful repetition, though, causes the most irritation.  It's a relief to know that the damned word will fall away from our screens now...an unbelievable relief, believe me.