I take beta blockers to keep my blood pressure down and am therefore banned from competing in Olympic archery and shooting events. I am also banned from championship darts and snooker. Being a left hander, I am banned from polo. I suffer from hydrophobia so swimming, yachting and rowing are out too. I once ran round the Olympic Stadium track in Barcelona but age, arthritis and weight now make this feat a distant memory. A horse fell on me at the Sotogrande Polo Club and since then I have had a morbid fear of anything equine, so dressage and point-to-point must be left to others.

But I watch it all on the telly, and it’s bloody marvellous. The athletes are all heroes from Super Stars Bolt and Phelps right down to the little guy who fell of his bike in the first 10 metres of a qualifying heat. They deserve all the praise and media fawning they can get.

I’m going out for a walk now, but only as far as the car.

I confess that I really don’t care about the Olympics. I would like them to be over more quickly, or better still, not happen.

I have never been interested in watching people running round and round in circles, or similar athletic feats. I had to do that in the rain and mud at public school, and as soon as I could, I never touched it again. Among the professional athletes, the margins between ’success’ and ‘failure’ are often tiny. I wish we didn’t make so much fuss about the difference, or celebrate it with quite so much nationalist chauvinism.

Great swathes of BBC programming are devoted to the Olympics when I would rather have the opportunity to watch something other than endless repeats of British victories over my breakfast. I have never liked our national anthem. If I were an enthusiastic supporter of any other nation, such as Mr Jules’ Switzerland, I suspect I would be heartily sick of the doings of ‘Team GB’ by now. Such is fame, and celebrity.

Unlike him – at least by your account – I don’t believe the British competitors are all junkies and cheats. Most are probably honest, nice enough, and oddly enthusiastic – and rather boring. But I do believe sufficient of various nationalities cheat, to cast doubt over the results. There is no doubt that has included some members and former members of the mighty ‘Team GB’.

Perhaps one should have competitions for those who are caught and judged pharmaceutically aided, rather like the paralympic competitions for those adjudged handicapped – in mindnumbing categories, with additional scope for cheating – or who have undergone organ transplants? One could even have a special category for those who cheated but were allowed to get away with it, such as one British medal winner in Peking. It might underline the essentially pointless nature of the competitions.