So, another forty million quid is to be spent on ceremonials for next year's Olympics and Paralympics. That's show business for you.

Most of it, no doubt, will go on glamming-up the Opening Ceremony of the main Games on July 27. Welcome to Friday night at the Stratford Palladium.

It isn't often that I disagree with the personable and competent Sports Minister, Hugh Robertson, who insists the extra cash will be money well spent on promoting Britain. Or agree (well, almost) with my old journalistic sparring partner Simon Barnes, of The Times, who deems it a total waste on self-aggrandising codswallop.

For coming at a time when the nation is in such dire straits economically, another £41 million ($64 million/€48 million) does seem an awful lot to splurge out on what amounts to an unnecessarily extravagant piece of window dressing.

"There will be four billion people watching the Ceremonies around the world and given the unique opportunity, we wanted to help make sure that they will showcase the best of the UK," says Robertson.

Fine, but why does this have to be an exercise in lavishness?


After Beijing, where no expense was spared to present a way over-the-top political showpiece designed to invite London  to "Follow That" our Games organisers promised faithfully they would not attempt to do so. We were assured London's Ceremonies were to be different, and dignified. And at a reasonable cost to the taxpayer.

I have no doubt they will be different, but I have my doubts about the dignity and now we know the cost has doubled.

Still within budget, though, we're told.

If that's the case wouldn't it be better to preserve that £41 million ($64 million/€48 million) and put it into a kitty to provide a decent legacy for the Games, say in the area of school sport?

Alternatively, why not use some of it to do the decent thing and pay for the  controversial 'wrap' shroud for the stadium and hand Dow Chemical back their £7 million ($11 million/€8 million), thus appeasing those both here and in India angered by what is considered an insult to the victims of the Bhopal disaster.

Will a super-duper, gob-smacking Opening Ceremony really boost the economy? Or just the profits of the fireworks manufacturers?

The more-cash-for-Ceremonies news came at the tail end of the announcement that the security costs have also doubled, from the original estimate of £282 million ($441 million/€328 million) to £553 million ($866 million/€643 million).

I don't quibble with that. It's hardly surprising as it was substantially under-estimated when London won the bid and the very next day suicide bombers ravaged the city.

No sum is too small to make the Games safe for all who compete and watch in times when the threat of terrorism is ever-present in our daily lives, and heightened by an event of such magnitude.

It is less easy to justify splashing out more millions on what basically is a piece of elaborate curtain-raising followed at the end by an emotional bow from the cast of thousands.


So far we have no idea what the accomplished film producer Danny Boyle (pictured) has in mind for London's Opening Ceremony. He has a great track record in the celluloid industry and no doubt what we will see will have the accent more on millionaire than slumdog.

But I do hope that in striving to be different London does not forsake all its traditional values. No-one wants excessive displays of Pearly Kings and Queens doing the Lambeth Walk or Knees Up Mother Brown.

But I hope it won't be all rap, rock and politically correct symbolism from the cast of EastEnders. Or an elongated exercise in the esoteric.

But breath should not be held for, as I have said before, when you let the luvvies loose on sport the result can be hideously self-indulgent. Witness the 2012 Olympic posters and the inexplicable exploding bus in London's contribution to the Beijing Closing Ceremony.

At least there is the prospect of BoJo (if re-elected as Mayor) bringing a touch of levity to an occasion that otherwise threatens to take itself far too seriously.

I confess there are some Ceremonies I have enjoyed more than others. But with the exception of Tokyo's, which was memorably enchanting, all went on far too long. The only Games marathon London needs is the one which finishes at Buck House.

I loved the mariachi in Mexico City (though not the battalion of militia disguised a boy scouts); the beauty if Barcelona's and the simplicity of Sydney's.


I was moved by Misha the Bear's teardrop in Moscow and by Muhammad Ali's tear-jerker in Atlanta (pictured).

Los Angeles, as you would expect, was pure Hollywood, if tediously over-hyped, and Seoul's well, rather soulless.

The whip-cracking by lederhosen-clad men in Munich was an embarrassing no-no, and Beijing's, while breathtakingly brilliant, was tempered by knowing the Chinese Government was cynically burning money as a blatant piece of political PR.

So my plea to London is make it simple, and make it quick.

Leave the frenetic running and jumping to those who do it best, the true gladiators in the arena.

True, there's no business like show business, and no show bigger than the Olympics. But we seem to be in danger of losing sight of the raison d'être of the Games, which is to showcase sport and not the entertainment industry, which has ample opportunities for self-aggrandisement elsewhere in the global theatre.

If a 2012 showbiz extravaganza really is what is required draw the oohs and aaahs from the IOC bigwigs and visitors from overseas then there are plenty of sensational productions in London's West End which fit the bill. The only smash hit the East End needs to stage is one where sport itself is the star.

Alan Hubbard is an award-winning sports columnist for The Independent on Sunday, and a former sports editor of The Observer. He has covered a total of 16 Summer and Winter Olympics, 10 Commonwealth Games, several football World Cups and world title fights from Atlanta to Zaire.