WHAT A YEAR TO THROW A PARTY

Imagine you’d won the local house of the year award, imagine that you’re planning a celebratory event for your best friends (and even some people you don’t even like but want to impress.) You’ve had the gardeners in to redesign the garden, tart up the house, repaint the front (the door a matt Farrow and Ball “Shocked Grey Face”), turned the garden room into a cinema room which at £10k including the 60 inch Sony screen and their sound system is a steal and that rose garden in blush pink is a wow. To round things off there’s a Boxster for you and Smart Car for her – “what do mean 'her'?” (sorry darling) - in the drive.

Made it. Got there.  Smugly, snugly winners.

And as you sit down the front door bell rings.

It’s the event organisers – Locog it says on their T shirts – who sweep in. “Relax“ they say “it’s great. Now leave it to us now.”

An army of identically clad young men and women stride in mouths smiling, eyes staring and repaint the door Cadbury purple, remove that screen in the cinema (what a crashing sound) and put in a Panasonic, The cars have been towed away and replaced by a BMW 7 series plus a Mini Cooper, the roses have been ripped out and replaced by Coca-Cola Reds, a Visa ATM has been set up beside the garage, your Longines watch has been snatched from your wrist and before your cry of outrage has subsided replaced by an Omega and as you retreat to your office you discover a team of smiling songsters smashing your Apple Mac and replacing it with an Acer.

Do you know, for the first time ever, I now know what living in a totalitarian state might feel like?

I’m a lifelong enthusiast for adventure but I’ve got uneasy.

I love the Olympics, their athletes and the buzz but the marketing stuff around it is beginning to feel a bit absurd.

Let’s just applaud the bravery of the brilliant competitors and ignore the rest.

Now, there’s a battle cry to make the moneymen think.

(Here are the Olympic Global sponsors:  Coca-Cola, Acer, Atos, Dow, GE, McDonalds, Omega, Panasonic, P&G, Visa, Samsung …well you knew that obviously. Here’s the London sponsorship list: BMW, BP, BA, BT, Lloyds, EDF).

And unless you got all those right someone’s wasted a lot of money.