Ignited by a Ghostly Flame

Artrockers,

A strange change has come over me today, I seem to have woken up a different person. Very disconcerting it is too. Maybe I ate too much haloumi last night, maybe the 'wonder food salad' from M&S has done its magic, maybe I realised that yelling into a gale was counter-productive. Actually it was this. Woke up, put the news on the telly, and was treated to the sight of the Olympic torch running around Hampton Court maze apparently unsupported. All you could see was the top of the torch bouncing along above the hedges, first this way, then that. I can't tell you why but it struck me as hilarious. Apparently the torch was being carried by a 19 year old, and you did get a glimpse of her as she ran past gaps in the privet. But the overall effect was that of a ghostly flame floating back and forth. In short, it made me laugh and put an early morning smile on a face that isn't used to cracking before the sun is over the yardarm.

And I thought: f@@k it, there's nothing we can do about it now, it's a fait d'accompli, the Olympics are here so we'd better make the most of it. Of course it remains madness to host this event in London, but in London it is and in a few hours we'll all get to see Danny Boyle's opening ceremony, poke fun at it and move on to weeks of sport.

I/we can either sit in a darkened room and grind our teeth or we can accept defeat and make the most of it.

I may even wander up to Vauxhall Bridge to watch the barge go by.

What a turn around.

And it's all down to a torch bobbing above a hedge.

If the hedge had been fronting the games rather than the slick Seb Coe I'd have been here months ago.

Of course, if the flame had become lost in the maze, if it was there even now desperately trying to find the exit, I may have laughed even louder. But it didn't, and now it's on it's way downstream.

And I'm going with the flow.

Tom Artrocker