A Frog Left in Throat as London Wins Olympics

The People's Republic had quietly been expecting London to win the IoC vote in Singapore. Call it jammy, lucky or maybe even suspicious, but London has a habit of winning contests where it doesn't have the best bid (as every Brummie will know).

It has concerned the People's Republic that an increasing amount of Brummies have been supporting the London bid in the past week, including John Hemming and Denise Lewis. They claim it is a "British bid" and because Villa Park will be hosting some football matches, it will benefit the city. They fail to realise that Birmingham deserves more than scraps of the rich man's table. We had the best bid for the millennium celebrations and the National Stadium (of course, now London will be getting some more). They even recently stole the International Motor Show of us, which contributes millions of pounds to the local economy - a few games at Villa Park won't make up for that.

In any case, London has already hosted the Olympics twice and it is time it went to another part of the country. If there are not enough hotel rooms (the excuse used to prevent a Brummie or Mancunian bid), it is time that the government invested in some of our other cities s (after all, Germany has held the games more than once but in different cities). London has it both ways; if a private company invests in London, it's the principle of market forces, but when government money is on offer, that goes to London anyway because "it should be in London" (how many times have we heard that).

The blame undoubtedly lies with Jacques Chirac. After a disagreeing with Britain about Iraq (rightly in the opinion of most people), he panicked after losing the referendum on the European Constitution and tried to divert attention by ranting about the British rebate while refusing to discuss CAP, and now criticising British food while not seeming to realise it has changed in the last 25 years.

The People's Republic has called off all diplomatic relations with Paris, and after this debacle has decided to ban the use of French words.