With my running shoes through Old Sydney Town. Or, "Hello, my name is Damian."

[Sweder]

Sir Richard is, not for the first time it should be noted, talking bollocks.
'Train' rhymes conveniently with 'pain', the one married to the other on an endless stream of phone-ins and letters to The Times.

Syders sounds seductive, a Siren city. I've got this horrible feeling that if I were to finally gain some form of financial security (ie freedom from slavery) I would end up there. My seven days in 2003 were enough to convince me of the dangers of returning.

The Olympics. Well, that medal table does bear some scrutiny, albeit with head shaking side to side. I've been half-listening to the (OK I admit) excellent Victoria Derbyshire on Five Live this morning dealing with the usual bleaters and whiners complaining that sport doesn't matter and there are far more important things to spend money on. If you apply that thinking to life you'd never have a pint and Oxfam would get three quarters of your income.

Sport lifts the spirits and God knows Britain needs a pick-me-up right now.
Moment of the games so far was the women's 100 metres final. British youngster Jeanette Kwakye finished in sixth. I was truly gobsmacked to see a Brit in the final having contrived to miss the heats and semis. She looked fabulous in the race, stolen beautifully and comprehensively by a Jamaican triumvirate who, like Usain Bolt in the men's, made this sprinting lark look like a walk in the park compared to my own painful labouring. But it was her post-race interview with 'uncle' Phil Jones trackside that had me taking notice. Her eyes blazed, passion raging within after a life-changing experience, and she wanted more. Many athletes in the past have expressed satisfaction with crawling into finals and semis on the world stage; not this firebrand. She thanked Uncle Tom Cobbly and All, including the BBC team, before skipping off to begin her preparations for the next championships. Watch out.

On a more sober note I stayed up for the Miracle of Saint Paula in the wee small hours of Sunday. It was like watching Doctor Who as a child when the bloody Cybermen came on; a behind-the-sofa experience. You don't have to be Brendan Foster (a man deserving his own gold medal for incompetent race-calling and stumble-clumsy platitudes) to know that running a marathon with any kind of injury is folly bordering on madness. To do so with the echoes of a stress fracture in your leg is to go to a dark and fearsome place. Why did she do it? I know the public reasons but I can't help wondering if perhaps Team Radcliffe had another agenda. I can see no sane reason; she was never going to win the damned thing. Laying the ghost of Athens 2004? Perhaps, though she denies it. It made no sense to me and watching a woman who has redefined women's distance running in the last few years hobbling around the stadium on half a leg was truly painful. I peered through my fingers, heart filled with an ugly blend of worry and anger.