I digress. However, last night’s opening ceremony directed by Danny Boyle utterly rid me of any cynicism I had been brewing for the past four years. It reminded me that it is possible to be ‘proud to be British’ without treading down a tatty, chlichéd and slightly racist trail of Shakespeare, Red Arrows and ‘we won the war’. Unless you’re Conservative MP Aidan Burley, that is.

The most leftie opening ceremony I have ever seen – more than Beijing, the capital of a communist state! Welfare tribute next?

Aidan “please don’t think I’m from somewhere as working class as Burnley” Burley recently tweeted that the opening ceremony was “the most leftie opening ceremony he’s ever seen, “more than Beijing” which, he goes on to clarify, is “the capital of a communist state”. Thanks for the clarification there, Aidan.

Now, before you immediately drop him in the, admittedly large, racist knob pile, let’s take a different view. What if he meant it as a compliment? The poor guy, born in 1979, has oly had the chance to appreciate nine Olympic opening ceremonies, and he’s still excitedly waiting for North Korea to host.

Of course others interpreted this slightly differently. Boyle decided to add a section as a tribute to the NHS. This rousing albeit surreal passage featured the unmistakable sight of thousands of nurses jumping on beds arranged big-art-attack-style to spell NHS. This was just one public service tribute too many for our friend Aidan.

Later he realised he may have caused offence so issued what could be described as an apology. Correctly, he realised his tweet “may have been misunderstood”. He was “obviously” talking about the “way it was handled in the show, not multiculturalism itself.” I guess that’s fine then.

I’m worried for our Aidan. I think his issues may lie with his aversion to elitism. This was also the reason he voted for the increase of tuition fees to £9000 per year. Or maybe we just need to worry about Aidan Burley MP having more power than you and me.

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Neither of these points are enough to convince me it’s a bad idea. London has an odd airport strategy. In most countries around the world, they either have one central airport or they have external airports to increase traffic but they all have fast and cheap transport links to the city you’re actually trying to get to. In my recent visit to Shanghai, they have the fastest connection in the world to Pudong, the city’s financial district, via a maglev. While it’s impractical to have a ‘city centre’ airport in a country with a higher population density than nearly other major country in Europe, most other places make up for this with railways and roads so that the arrival time on your plane ticket isn’t a day away from when you’ll actually arrive at your destination.

I don’t really understand why this is hard to grasp. Manchester has a good system, with TransPennine Express running trains from major northern cities direct to the terminal at Manchester airport. However, London has never really got the knack of this. They’ve tried, bless them. Heathrow has the tube and the Heathrow Express. The Tube takes 40 painful, sweaty, standing minutes and the express service is an elitist £19 smack in the face to tourists and travellers who have just touched down in our wonderful country and wondering why they’re still Miles away from London. Still, it’s better than the 45 minute drive into the city. They also have Gatwick, Stansted and, if you’re being a little loose with the facts, London Luton airport. but all of these lack the mainline rail links a service like this needs to be efficient and helpful to the traveller. Bless, they’ve all tried with their little railways made to link them to certain places, but I’m convinced that an efficient transport system relies on an airport with a railway station that has direct transport links on a mainline serving many cities, not just the nearest one.

Another issue raised is how nearly all of the above airports are at capacity. This is a real problem for the British airline industry as it means two things: British flyers will have to pay to airlines that have monopolies on routes due to rivals not being able to compete side all the landing slots are taken. It also means that for people looking to travel long distances, where as Britain was once a useful changeover between east and west, other major capitals like Paris and Amsterdam have taken over thanks to an efficient system. Not least to mention how both of these cities’ main airlines are now part of one big airline, Airfrance-KLM.

The main gripe I have with all this is that it, or even something like it, won’t go ahead for some time. However, had we not just blown £10 billion on an egotistical parade of our recessing nation, this might seem more feasible. The olympics has never been a profitable event, and in very few cases has it actually left a beneficial wound on the country it just trampled on. If the main reason was to motivate the nation to get more active and tackle obesity, then why not invest £10bn into actually doing that? Buy sporting equipment, start an NHS initiative and make gyms free, still with spending money for a post workout pint. Don’t show other people how unsporting we are and in the process ruin our economy. Even if our motives were pure, which Ken Livingstone has vouched against, isn’t this a bad way of going about it?

Some may argue that the olympics may have been the thorn to prick the sides of Boris’ intent for a new transport hub. So why not make that part of it? The only way to make a national sporting event beneficial is to use it as an excuse to upgrade the country. Make the nation and the citizens benefit by including investment into infrastructure across the nation, not just in the East End of the capital. Speaking of which, Lord Lloyd Webber has announced that this year will be the worst year for the country’s booming theatrical West End in years. Why? Because the people who go to the olympics don’t go to the theatre, and the people who want to go to the theatre can’t afford to since the average hotel room price is up tenfold. If one of the major benefits of the 2012 olympics was to promote tourism and the economy, then that is clearly to become another of its many failings.

In case it wasn’t already clear, I won’t be going to the olympics. Despite a certain lack of sporting interest, I also didn’t fancy tackling the hurdle of hugely risking debt by buying a team of tickets. Having satisfied my quota for dreadful sporting puns, I shall leave you with the thought that while the government was hoping that they would have a “build it and they will come” effect, when really the resounding effect is that of “build it, but how will they get there?”

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“£22 on prescriptions in one week fyouuu nhs.”

It is mainly talking about the BBC, the British Broadcasting Corporation, which is one of my greatest loves. For those of you who aren’t old enough or British enough I’ll preface this with a little warning that you may not totally understand why I have invested my time in this, and why you would want to invest your time in it.  The BBC is responsible for its TV channels BBC 1, 2, 3 and 4 as well as BBC Parliament, cBeeBies and CBBC. The last two are both children’s channels. It is also behind BBC Radio 1,2,3 and 4 as well as Radio 5live and Radio 6. Not to mention the enormous amount of local radio stations across the country. There is also the truly wonderful BBC website which has news updated every minute, resources, weather and the wonderful iPlayer; the BBC’s online catch-up service. Now you have a vague idea of what kind of beast the beeb is, I shall begin.

On Thursday the 7^th of January, 2010, Jonathan Ross, or @wossy, announced that he would not be renewing his contract with the BBC when it terminates in June of this year. Sad news? For me, yes. I love Friday Night with Jonathan Ross as it captures all the greatness of a “Late Night with…” that you get so many of in the US. I think it started about 13 years ago and ever since I started watching it I have loved it since. There is comedy, in-depth questions, live music and some more comedy. Some people don’t like the show because Ross made the show more about himself than a Michael Parkinson would. (Parkinson, by the way, is a legendary chat show host that I absolutely adore.) This was the absolute norm for a Jay Leno or David Letterman but more obscure for the UK as it was deemed that the interview should be about the subject, not the interviewer. Sadly, Parkinson’s show ended a few years ago when he retired. I believed that this could, and probably would be, the end of the chat show as we know it. This only really left Jonathan’s programme as a show devoted to interviews. Yes, you could argue that breakfast shows do celebrity interviews, but none as well as Parkinson or Ross.

Then, in 2008, Ross and his Saturday morning radio show guest, Russell Brand, recorded a prank phone call to actor Andrew Sachs that, at the time, did not cause a fuss. A little controversial for the comparatively conservative BBC on a whole, but very much something Ross would do. It was only 2 weeks later when the press picked up on this and decided that it was out of order and the BBC should not have let this broadcast. This then ended up in Ross being suspended from the BBC. A few weeks later the papers released a list of the salaries that the beeb hands out every year. A fuss ensued. It revealed that talent such as Ross and others like Jeremy Clarkson, Bruce Forsyth and Graham Norton were being paid salaries in excess of £200,000. A large amount, yes. But this is show business! This wouldn’t matter if it were a normal company but the beeb is funded exclusively by the TV licence; a tax of sorts which you are required to pay if you own a TV. For a colour licence it is currently £142.50 per year and £48.00 per year for a black and white licence. All of this goes to the BBC and they use it to make top-quality programming with no adverts. I personally think that this is a pittance for what you get and compared to a service such as Sky, which provides predominantly second-rate content with commercial breaks for a monthly fee upwards of £15.

And here is the nature of my complaint. People have been happily paying their licence fee for decades and, in turn, have received great content. Now all of a sudden, since we know how much of that goes towards the presenters, it has turned into bad value for money. How? The programmes have only got better but for the same fee. And in regards to the Ross, Brand and Sachs incident, is was insensitive but it only really caused insult to Mr Sachs, so how come it received hundreds of complaints? And how come most of those complaints came after it had been plastered all over the papers? Because more fuss was caused by the press than anyone else! Are you suggesting that we shouldn’t broadcast programs like this? Are you saying that they should stick to a good costume drama on a Thursday evening? I certainly don’t think so! This is, after all broadcasting. Not narrowcasting. There should be a large selection of top quality choice like there always has been. Perhaps now more than ever with the BBC iPlayer. With alternatives such as Sky and Virgin Media (though I do stress you still have to pay your TV licence as you still receive all the BBC goodness) where you have even more choice, it’s all terribly low budget. I exaggerate only slightly when programs such as “the boy whose buttocks played the harp with Danny Dyer” and “the hippo whose nipples spoke Norwegian with Jamie Theakston” come to mind.

And this is what I want to prevent. I have a feeling that unless we can really show how much we love the BBC, other great talent may feel obliged to leave, just like Jonathan, because of their pay. Yes, it is government funded but in my mind it is by far the best state service. As a way of showing this, I’ve created a twibbon called I love the BBC and I’d really appreciate it if you joined. But most of all enjoy all the great content that the BBC produces! And if you don’t live in the UK… ha ha!