Everybody knows it, so much so that its only taken five days for it to almost become a political cliche: the London Olympics will, in all probablitlity, suck. China, with the help of hundreds of thousands of slaves (oh, sorry, I meant volunteers) has managed to prop the bar so high that in all probability no one will ever be able to reach it again. London Can't afford a $40 billion games. Neither can China, but because we have this irritating concept of public accountability the British Government can't actually go ahead and spend the money anyway.

And then there's the opening ceremonies. As a rather apt Channel 4 Correspondent said last night: "everyone knows - the more authoritarian a regime, the better its mass choreography". Even the director of the cermemony, Zhang Yimou, has been quoted as saying that the only country that could produce better choreography would be North Korea. Why? Because we all know that when you get a group of people together and try and control them they automatically form some sort of union and start demanding several hundred tea breaks an hour. Unless, of course, you threaten to eat their pets. Or their children.

Obviously, the truth could be that China is a wreck of a country. Milllions of people in severe poverty, handfuls of internal terrorist groups and separtist movements, a dodgy grip on Tibet and and an even worse record of international approval. Even worse: its still run by the communist party who could well have been, at a time, one of the worst regimes in human history. During the opening ceremony, I was half waiting for the CCP to run in during one of the displays of Chinese culture and try to bludgeon the dancers to death, representing their almighty cultural revolution, and proceed to run over people in the crowds with tanks. But, of course, the Chinese know how advertise themselves properly. Whatever went on behind the scenes - the world will only ever see put-on displays of perfection. In comparison, it makes the Iron Curtain look more see through than a pair of Vladamir's fishnet stockings. No one really knows how successful China is, or will be. But nevermind - China has taken the worlds eyes away from such problems with a load of fireworks and some acrobatics.

So, what's left for Britain? Well, we all got a taste during the 8 minutes that we were generously allowed to fill during the closing ceremony. And I can't have been the only one to feel slightly embarassed by the display. What rocked up was a poorly decorated carnival float, with Leona Lewis sat on top singing the theme tune to top of the pops. Had it arrived in my local carnival, it would probably have lost out on first place to a load of five year olds dressed in their mum's pyjamas claiming to be peter pan. But there it was - on display to billions of people watching - claiming to be Britains finest effort. I'm still not sure whether the whole thing was supposed to be a joke. Perhaps the highlight for most chinese fans was when David Beckham popped up and did - wait for it - absolutely nothing. Seriously, he just stood there being handsome. China has just gone through two ceremonies emphasising its thousands of years of culture, and we stand in the middle of the stadium and try to prove how utterly shallow we are. Genious. Oh and you know how irratatingly English it seems when someone at a dinner table continually puts themselves down with what might or might not be intended as jokes? Well, the rest of the performers all took out umbrellas. Great. All they needed to complete the display of the worst bits of Englishness at that point was for Noel Edmunds to have a drunken fight with a Teletubby.

So - here it is - Britains predicament. Come 2012, we will need to distract the world somehow from the fact that our stadium is only half complete, our performers are on strike because they weren't allowed enough PG Tips and the athletics tracks are knee deep in mud. I can only suggest we start thinking of things now - perhaps the queen could streak? Or Prince Harry could supply some sort of *distraction* to all the visiting crowds. Maybe we could substitue proffessional, unaffordable firworkes by strapping Boris Johnson to the Millenium Eye, setting him on fire and hoping that all the hot air creates something akin to a catherine wheel?

Or maybe we should just hope that the £9.8 billion monstrosty that I'm sure will result of our efforts will probably attract more terrorists than actual people and that dissaproving crowds will, to everyones relief, conveniantly disappear anyway, allowing us to hike the entire blame on Al Queada and letting us off scot free.