Lady of the manners

'You need to dream up a few new disciplines: rush-house bike racing around the West End'
Hettie Harvey10 April 2012

Dear Hettie

I'm organising the 2012 Olympics and, frankly, I think I'm doing a bloody good job. We're on time, on budget and we're wheeling out David Beckham at regular intervals - it's hard to imagine how things could be going any better. But 1.8 million people applied for 20 million tickets when there were only six million available, so now everyone's furious with me. What am I going to do?
Yours, Sebastian Coe*

The loneliness of the long-distance runner, eh? There you are, slogging your guts out year in, year out, and all anybody does is complain. What are we like? So ungrateful. But since no one's going to stop whingeing and it's a bit late now to resize all the stadia to allow for extra bums on seats, you're going to have to think outside the box. And my brilliant suggestion is this: The Olympic Fringe! Liven things up a bit because, let's face it - and with respect for the athletes involved - endless archery and dressage can be pretty dull (hammer throw and the 100m on the other hand). It works for the Edinburgh Festival, so why not here? All you need to do is dream up a few new disciplines: rush-hour fixed-gear bike racing around the West End; tourist slalom on Oxford Street (would be best done at Christmas, obviously, but, hello, fake snow machines); basement excavation in Notting Hill (although Team Poland might have an unfair advantage on that one). Fun and helpful. Frankly, I think I deserve a medal.

*Sebastian Coe's quandary as imagined by ES

Create a FREE account to continue reading

eros

Registration is a free and easy way to support our journalism.

Join our community where you can: comment on stories; sign up to newsletters; enter competitions and access content on our app.

Your email address

Must be at least 6 characters, include an upper and lower case character and a number

You must be at least 18 years old to create an account

* Required fields

Already have an account? SIGN IN

By clicking Create Account you confirm that your data has been entered correctly and you have read and agree to our Terms of use , Cookie policy and Privacy policy .

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged in