health and efficiency

At work a brown paper sack arrived. Inside it was a giant training shoe. It was just as well that the admin department had had advance warning of this, because otherwise who knows what we might have thought? However, we knew that it belonged to NHS Blood and Transplant's 'mascot', Billy Blood Drop. Had the lovable red blob been kidnapped, and were we receiving the first bit in the post? No! It was only that someone had received a costume with three shoes instead of two. This was the spare.

Had we not known to expect this, we might have imagined that it was something to do with the Olympics, since everything else is. This has come along at just the right time to fill that hole in the schedules caused by what they used to call 'the silly season'. Just as well it did, since a few weeks ago Jeremy Vine was reduced to tackling the 'topic' of people who stand still on moving walkways. Are they contributing to Britain's 'massive obesity problems'? Or are they taking justifiable advantage of modern technology? A man was dredged up who actually held a passionate view on the subject – either that or he was being paid to feign hysteria. This very annoying man all but advocated the use of cattle prods, and crowed that due to his habit of walking, or even running, on escalators and travelators he would 'probably live another ten years'. I doubt it. Someone's bound to intervene.

Luckily we can now all talk about how 'inspired' we are by Great Britain's Olympic successes. Although I have to say that watching all those people doing things I could never do in a million years doesn't exactly 'inspire' me. 'Deflate' is more the word. I was watching this guy training by turning a massive tyre, end over end, across a field. The fact that he might get a medal at the end of it all didn't stop this from seeming like the very emblem of futility. And then I heard Mo Farah say that winning his race was 'the best moment of my life'. So is it all downhill from here then?

I am far more inspired by those people who are so obese that they can't get out of bed and finally have to be airlifted out of their homes. Not only do they make me feel happy that I can still leave the house unaided, they prove that you can create a newsworthy spectacle without doing anything at all, except overeat.

In fact I hear that Danny Boyle is planning something along these lines for the closing ceremony – the Queen in a fat suit being hoisted out of a mock-up of Buckingham Palace by helicopter. Remember, you heard it here first.