And let’s all be grateful for that.

As the McDonald’s Olympics conclude with yet more foreign profits sheltered abroad by our multinationals from the American taxman and its people, I have one admission and two statements to make:

• My time spent watching this tribute to bad food and Big Pharma was precisely 00:00:00
• I saw many of the still photographs taken on auto-everything gear with super-everything lenses, which even Grannie could have taken and remain unimpressed
• The greatest Olympic photograph taken was snapped 44 years ago and it had nothing on earth to do with this sham that purports to be sport

And here it is, from 1968:

Tommie Smith and John Carlos destroy bigotry.

The lord of the Olympics, the American bigot Avery Brundage, had no issue with the German master race and its victors giving the Nazi salute to the assembled crowd in 1936, yet concluded that two black men making a statement of their race’s lot in 1968 was grounds for disqualification. No one remembers that red necked fool today, but Tommie Smith and John Carlos are alive and kicking. And they made a difference unlike any other athlete.

It’s the best thing ever to come out of the Olympics.

Congratulations, however, are due to England, that perpetual underdog in all things competitive. They ran the trains on time, they ordered up good weather and they felt good about themselves, even if their coffers remain empty.