bozo's return

Simon Callow - I'm surprised you're a hypocrite

Did any of you read mr Callows' piece about gay marriage in the Standard last night?

I dare not say the slightest word against homosexuality without bringing upon my head the castigation of all of western civilisation. Upsetting or offending gays is forbidden in modern civilised society.

Yet offending people of faith is totally fine.

Mr Callow. Who would be up in arms if I referred negatively to homosexuality found it very easy to say that religion and God were inventions of human minds.

Thereby upsetting not just christians but all people of any faith anywhere!

We are. It seems deluded. And Mr Callow is comfortable that we should accept being told so. More comfortable than he would be with being told anything about his sexuality.

In 2012 it seems that Mr Callow's sexuality is sacrosanct and un-criticisable. But he is allowed to call us all deluded.

Hypocrisy doesn't sit well on your shoulders when you're writing an article saying you're being persecuted Simon.

And what is your fuss about?

Is it the word "marriage".
Because whatever religious officials might want to fight about Bozo doesn't care much about the word.

After all heterosexuals have given the state of marriage such a bad name (and - include myself among the guilty given my awful track record in marriage) that it hardly matters who uses the word to describe their union.

If you want the word Mr Callow. Feel free.

But is it just the word? Because if you want to celebrate your wedding in church. Then your hypocrisy really knows no bounds.

Church - you know - that place built by those deluded people as a place to worship the God of all the universe that you think is a delusion?
Attended by those people you just called deluded to worship that God you don't believe in!?!?

You surely don't want to go there to celebrate do you.

Because that sort of hypocrisy is too awful to contemplate.

I know uninformed people like you tend to think Church is full of self righteous people who think they are all sorted. And maybe some are. Sadly. But for most of us faith in Jesus Christ doesn't mean we don't sin.
It means we know we do.
We know we sin. We know we constantly sin. Homosexuality is no worse than any other sin. And we are called to love sinners. That's all of us. Hetero and homosexual.
But our faith is based on knowing we sin. And knowing that by the blood of Jesus Christ, shed upon the Cross for all our sakes. We are forgiven.

We are not self righteous. Self righteousness is well exampled by people who say "what I do is not a sin and I don't care what God says. And furthermore I insist you all agree with me and go on public record as saying its not a sin. Its all fine!"

Mr Callow. I am a sinner. I have committed adultery. I have walked out on my children. I do not claim that I am good and you are not. I never will.

I claim to be forgiven. Not that my sins are suddenly not sins. That they are forgiven.

I pray that one day you will acknowledge Jesus Christ And receive the same forgiveness as I have received.

I don't care what you call your relationship. But if its ok for you to call everyone of faith on the planet deluded. Isn't it ok for them to call you whatever they like?

Sent from my BlackBerry smartphone from Virgin Media

Coincidence

Did you know that in the past 5 years. A period that kicked off with the emerging ugliness of the sub prime mortgage boom. In this past 5 years. The banking community has paid itself more bonuses than in the 5 years preceding?

A lot more!

Even though pretty much every major bank was insolvent and would have ceased to exist if it were not for the massive help of the tax payer. And if they had ceased to exist. These cowboys would have had no jobs. Let alone bonuses.

You might persuade me ( and I do mean MIGHT) that letting the banks go down would have been a larger tragedy. But you will never persuade me that paying INCREASED bonuses is anything other than a travesty!

Is it coincidental that Judas Iscariot was the disciples banker?

"... as keeper of the money bag he used to help himself to what was put into it.". (John 12 v6)

Plus ca change....
Sent from my BlackBerry smartphone from Virgin Media

Goal of the Month

Bozo was watching MotD2 last night... unusually - although Colin Murray is quite good fun.

They showed the Goal of the Month for August - 9 goals - all pretty good.

Not one single one of which was scored by a player of ANY of the home nations (let alone England). Not one.

And yet, when England struggle - as they will - some bright spark will say "how come we have the best league in the world and fail internationally?"

All I have to say to that is Durr.

Not that forcing my Englishmen into the Premiershipr by virtue of any form of legislation changes this - Bozo is not bemoaning the makeup of the so-called best league in the world - he is bemoaning (in advance) the stupidity of the journalist who doesnt get the reality and thinks the magnificence of the premiership should drive England to glory.

As i said -  Durr.

Even two wins out of three for West Ham (whose goals this weekend were refreshingly scored by Nolan, Reid and Taylor) has really rekindled my interest in the Premiership.

I an just so uninspired by a load of multi-millionaires who manage to take all that wealth and all the blessings - not just of great talent - but of great talent that is strangely valued so highly - and be such awful role models - irrespective of which nation they represent.

 

Cheating

As the full magnitude of Team GB's Olympic success was sinking in - Bozo said out-loud - to his shame:

"I hope none of them gets caught cheating"

Why shame?

Because what I should have said is:

"I hope none of them was cheating!"

Like most of society Bozo can feel that cheating that isn't caught is kinda ok. And of course it is not. But isn't it a tragedy that we live in  a society where cheating is increasingly condoned? Where more and more shoulders are just shrugged?

What goes on in business ethics and in the dodgy deals of bankers is only a symptom - and the biggest metaphor for this plummeting in the values of society is sport. The biggest damage is in business - but the biggest metaphor for how we shrug our shoulders is sport.

It isn't even worth going near football/soccer. We all know that diving is OK - so long as it's our player doing it. We moan at the referee for not spotting the blatant shirt pulling -but we do not castigate or ban or vilify the shirt puller. Especially not if he is our shirt puller and not their shirt puller.

But the major tragedy in sports values occurred in Baseball in the 1990s. And it occurred with the compliance of both the ownership and governance of the game and the players. In fact the players association has a lot to answer for. But the saddest thing is that it isn't even over yet. In the 2012 season  5 drug related cheating suspensions have been handed out.

Looking at two of them - the most recent - and perhaps most high profile two - Melky Cabrera and Batolo Colon. Of course it is just a coincidence that Melky was having his greatest ever year and was playing for a new contract. Colon, aged 39, was looking to extend what had been a long and distinguished major league career. At the end of the day, for both of them - the motivation was clear. Money. No different to the motivation of the cowboys who sold mortgages to people with no jobs. It is part of the same problem.

The fact is some people will always cheat - because they like winning - and they will do so even in a friendly game of Monoploy at home. Some people will eveb cheat to beat their own kids. But other people are drawn into cheating by the rewards. And as the rewards of sporting success goes up - so does the cheating.

But I have a question - I have a question for Don Fehr who used to be head of the Major League Player's Association - but it is relevant also to Michael Weiner - who does the job currently.

Who do you represent?

Fehr fought the owners tooth and nail to prevent what currently exists as MLB's drug testing and enforcement programme. Tooth and nail! And his logic? "Why wouldn't I fight for my members to have the same rights to privacy as ordinary citizens?"

I was stunned when I heard that. Because as the players representative - it is only logical if ALL your players are using drugs to enhance their performance.

Don, were ALL Major Leaguers doping themselves on steroids?

We kinda know the answer don't we? We know that steroid use was prevalent - widespread - but we know that not all of the players were doing it.

So, it seems that what Mr Fehr was actually doing was fighting tooth and nail for the right of SOME of his members to cheat and in so doing - deprive others of his members from a fair chance to earn a living.

I mean to bring the example into the current day. Let us take Cabrera. Leaving his impact on the Giants chances of representing the NL West in the play-offs instead of one of four other teams to one side - let us consider Melky's contract hopes. He was on pace to win the NL batting title. If he had done so - some club would have paid him well to join their team as a free agent. That money paid to him - would not be being paid to someone else. Someone  honestly paying the game is seeing money that would be available to him in a team's salary budget going instead to Cabrera. Indeed, Cabrera without steroids may not even have a job - and someone who was not cheating who would have been potentially employed could have been unemployed because Cabrera got a contract by cheating. That potentially unemployed person is also a member of the MLPA. Colon was trying to prolong his career. You want to feel sorry for him? Well why not instead feel sorry for the non-cheat that Colon would have kept out of a job.

During the 1990s the MLPA and Mr Fehr were effectively forcing non-cheats to make a simple choice. Compete on the non-level playing field at a disadvantage - or  - poison their bodies by taking drugs. Does that look like fair representation to you?

Donald Fehr thought that it was his job defend those of his members who were cheating - even though the victims of the cheating were not just duped owners - or duped fans - the real economic victims of the cheating were his own non-cheating members - forced to compete on a non-level playing field.

I am surprised no member ever sued the MLPA for failing to represent them equally.

 

Doesn't seem right to me.

But what is most worrying is the idea that making moral choices is no longer seen as necessary. The idea that it is up to someone else to catch and enforce the rules on you. You are not responsible for knowing and upholding the rules.

Of course many of you think that Bozo is on cloud cuckoo land. That cheating has always existed. That human nature and blah and blah and blah.

But I disagree. I disagree totally. Sure there have always been cheats - but not so prevalent as today. And one of the reasons is that we as a society are more willing to condone, more willing to shrug our shoulders, more willing to move on and not worry.

The slow march of society toward total immorality is the pot of water that is slowly heating up - and we are the frog sitting in the pot not noticing that the world is going to hell in a hand basket. And when the pot is boiling - like the frog - we will be too dead to do anything.

 

 

Whose Job is Change?

This is a thorny question - even thornier if selling change consultancy is what you do for a living!

If more and more people understood why "change" is a job - or an activity that mattered - selling the consultancy would be much easier - so spreading that word is clearly a self-interested thing for Bozo to be doing! To this accusation I hold up my hands. But Bozo's passion for doing change right - or at least doing it "better" arises from his own experiences in a couple of companies who thought it all consultancy nonsense and didn't do it at all. And his experiences of listening to executives who had suffered through the grimmest of communication processes in the companies they work for.

Just because you are paranoid doesn't mean they are not out to get you...

And, just because it's self-interested - doesn't mean I am not right.

Co-creation of new strategies with the workforce is a very rare animal - even among enlightened 21st Century companies. And anything short of co-creation requires excellent communication. And if your new strategy doesn't require any of your workforce to do anything new or different - then good communication is all you need.

Now you may want to invest in how you communicate - because you want high impact that inspires your people - or makes sure they know things are new and different.

But the grim reality of new strategies is that they require implementation. And those implementing them tend to be a different pay-grade to the geniuses (genii?) that had the brainwave. And the grim reality of new strategy implementation is that it is normally something that happens over a prolonged period of time - and frequently involves doing things differently.

How many companies do you know that have made big strategic changes to marketing/customer/sales policies; but have made no changes to team or personal objectives? And have made no changes to pay/bonus and reward strategies?

The big high-impact loudspeaker-in-the-ear event is all well and good. [and definitely better than nothing] But which other mechanisms are joined up to changing behaviours? If you don't change how people are rewarded - I can promise you that you won't stop them behaving in ways that maximise the rewards they get under the old system.

I recently had a "wasting both our time" chat with an HR director. He was disappointed that his team did not live and breathe new policies on teamwork and joined up approaches to the business. I asked him what he had done to get them to live and breathe these new policies. He said: "I told them very clearly these are our new policies!"

Wow. How shocking that this didn't do the trick.

Of course I know most people who reach the dizzy heights of director in a company employee a few thousand people think that they instantly become the Roman centurion from the Gospel according to Matthew (Chapter 8):

"For I myself am a man under authority, with soldiers under me. I tell this one, ‘Go,’ and he goes; and that one, ‘Come,’ and he comes. I say to my servant, ‘Do this,’ and he does it.”

What is it about a directorship that makes people think they are back in the Victorian era (or even the First Century AD)?

If I go to this same companies head of talent and recruitment and ask:

"Is it company policy to recruit mindless automatons who blindly obey orders?"

The answer will be:

"No! We recruit the best and brightest people - we want self-starters and free-thinkers and we value imitative!"

Yet it seems that your best and brightest people are expected to change their whole way of working just because the boss told them to in an email?

Really?

The reason the HR Director and I were both wasting our time was that the time effort he was prepared to invest in galvanising his team behind the new policies was zero.

Notice that I didn't mention money. He would have invested money in Bozo (or some other bright spark) galvanising them. But his own time and effort were too valuable. Now maybe it explains why Bozo is not the richest consultant in the land - but taking on a project like that where the boss has not bought into the need to put personal effort into it - is wasting the client's money - which isn't a core value of Bozo Inc. Worse still it is a guarantee of finishing a project with a client who is less than overwhelmed with our success - which is never worth the money anyway.

Change is everyone's job - it really is - but if those at the top see it as anything less than a priority on their time - are going to get the results they earn.

Sadly - given the way recruiting is done for director level posts - these failures are hardly likely to derail their careers - and the losses to shareholder value fall squarely in the "we cannot measure what we didn't do" column. Because if it did cause career problems the bad news for these senior executives is that jobs as Centurions are hard to come by these days. Even the military has moved on.

The motto of the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst is "Serve to Lead"

Hardly any CEOs I know could get a job as a 21st Century centurion on that basis.

 

 

Gold, other medals - and Prizes for All

We are a funny country - or maybe we are a funny species.

Let me give some contextual examples as background.

Do you remember Hunter and Purchase, exhausted mentally and physically - and apologising in tears to the country that they only got Silver?

Do you remember Rebecca Adlington tearfully saying she felt she had let everyone down when she got bronze and not Gold?

(Let us not mention the millionaire soccer playings limping out as usual with no apology at all)

Do you remember Tom Daley ecstatic about his Bronze - even though he had Gold from the world championships and he himself and the country both had higher expectations.

Tom was happy... not sad .. and not apologetic. And I believe rightly so. "Diving is such an on-the-day sport" he said. "All you can do is your best on the day and hope that the years of training get rewarded with a medal."

How mature! He came 16th in the opening phase and barely qualified for the semi-final. But, David Boudia - who won the Gold - had come 18th and qualified dead last for the semi! It is indeed an on-the-day sport. And Tom had every right to be happy - and in my view so did Becca and Hunter/Purchase - and the four rowing boys who missed Gold by 0.2 seconds.

Ok, I hear you cry, enough context, what's your point?

Well shortly after the Games I heard that David Cameron had said we needed a new focus on competitive sport in schools and an end to the "prizes for all" philosophy.

And I agree with him.

Then, on Tuesday I was at a meeting with a client in which we discussed a performance and reward project I did a year or two back for a major global blue-chip employing over a hundred thousand people. This project had as its challenge (and it was a big challenge) the task of moving middle management away from rewarding people for how hard they tried or how hard they worked and instead rewarding them for what they achieved.

All of this comes together in my mind. Because medals for all is wrong.

I know why many people like it. They don't like that the poor geeky kid who is rubbish at football and cannot run or swim for toffee always comes last and gets jeered at by his compatriots. Well for a start let us acknowledge that this is two separate problems. The problem of kids jeering at- and being cruel to- one another hasn't been solved in many thousands of years of recorded civilisation - and you aren't going to solve it by giving the kids who run slow prizes. The second problem is that (in my experience at least) most kids/people are actually good at some sort of sport - but there isn't enough sport diversity in schools to find out what the geeky kid is good at.  You may say that sports clubs abound - but if he has never seen a squash court - who decides to go to a squash club?

The BBC (as Bozo has bemoaned) along with the other media have placed athletics at the pinnacle of Olympic endeavour - and let us face some facts - 65 UK medals - 8 of them from athletics. Sport is bigger than running jumping and throwing - and it is certainly bigger than premiership football - but that is another blog altogether.

And, you ask, what has all this got to do with performance and reward? What is the link between poor reward strategies and giving geeky kids medals for coming last?

Well first - the major selling point of prizes-for-all is that people believe (and rightly so I think) the old saying that: "It doesn't matter if you win or lose, so long as you tried your best!".

But - if someone comes last - or second last - or even fourth - how do you know they tried their best? How? Given human ability to game and con any system ever devised - one of the easier challenges is not bothering to come better than last - and not trying at all - especially when the reward for last is the same as the reward for first!

Companies that like low differentiated pay - and low differentiated bonuses and equal rewards for all employees in the spirit of "fairness" are of course just being UNFAIR to the people who achieve the most. If 20% of your people produce 80% of your value (and Pareto seems to work in most instances) is it fair to pair those 20% the same as the others? Really?

Bill Shankley once said "If it doesn't matter if you win or lose, how come we keep score?"

You see  in Sport and business both we need to reward people who are doing their best - but to know they are doing their best we need to measure their performance.

Tom Daley provides us with a good example. Scoring over 500 in a diving competition is considered good. Its about 83.33 points per dive. 9 of the 12 finalists managed that. I am led to believe that Tom's 557 points would win a lot of competitions quite handily. The winner - was we have noted - came 18th and barely scraped into the semi.  The fact was that Tom was brilliant on the day - and two blokes were more brilliant. Tom was worthy of his Bronze - worthy of being happy - and worthy of being judged to have done all he could on the day. Certainly worthy of being called successful. If you had asked Victor Minibaev ahead of the tournament if he would take a place in the final and 527 points - he would have said yes - and he placed fourth! I hope no one is Russia thinks Victor failed (If he was Australian he would have been run out of town).

You see the point is we know by measurement that Tom performed well. His reward was well earned.

There was British bloke who came last in the 800m race that saw a new world record. His time was both his personal best - and the fourth fastest time ever by a Brit AND would have won the last 3 Olympic 800m finals! Does anyone think Andrew Osagie was a failure? He did his best - prove-ably - by measurement and by historical analysis - and his reward? Nothing. Nada. Niente. That is the harshness of sport.

Actually there may be one member of the British media who thought Andrew was a failure. She interviewed Ben Ainslie and asked if Britain's 1 Gold and 4 silvers at sailing were a failure!! How dim.

The thing is - you cannot give prizes to all (nor yet bonuses). You have to reward success. And, you have to be measuring things to know if someone is trying their best/improving/achieving.

Prizes for all do not work. Because it encourages people not to try at all.

And, frankly - if you can discourage your staff from working very very hard whilst achieving nothing of value - well that is a good idea too.

So what is all this about?

Well no matter how well Andrew Osagie ran - he didn't get rewarded - and he shouldn't. Was he a failure? No. Should he get a medal? No.

And there are many people in your organisation who fit that profile. It's sad but true.

Because if you reward Andrew for doing his best - well the point of achieving excellence - and the incentive to do it - will be lost to your organisation forever.

So ask yourselves:

• do I measure?
• Do I measure the right things?
• Do I measure honestly and realistically?
• And does my pay and bonus scheme reflect a desire to build a culture that values achievement and success?

I wrote last week about how heartbreaking it was for fourth placed Elizabeth Simmonds. We can measure that she didn't fail - but the system is clear - you need third to get the medal - the system is clear and transparent. She got the right reward.

Is your reward system as clear and transparent as that? You may have such good measures in place that you can give "medals" to your foruth - or even tenth - place finishers - but if your reward system gives bonuses for people for turning up, doing their day job - and maybe staying late a few times - without measuring what they actually achieve - you have got it wrong - and will be unfair to your most productive people -and drive a culture of mediocrity through your firm. The harsh realities of how UK Sport has funded different disciplines based on success has accurately reflected the harshness of global elite sport - and has driven a culture of excellence through some disciplines that have produced shiny medal results for all to see.

If they respond in a "soft" way to the performance of UK Swimming against expectation -I predict it will have negative repercussions for the culture of excellence. I it heard loud and clear when former US Olympic champ and World record holder Michael Johnson said on Gabby Logan's show "the most refreshing thing I have seen this time - in all the years of working for the BBC is that the culture of rewarding mediocrity has gone."

 

...............

 

Now... there is PS/Aside/Coda to this involving banking...

You see proponents of Bill Shankley's view abound in investment banks and use it to justify their own bonus strategies. But banking isn't a game of football. Paying a man £5 million for buying a load of sub-prime mortgages that make money by the end of the year isn't the same as giving a winners medal to people who win the cup final.

Because nothing you did to win the cup final last year carries a risk over into this year. But as we all know - those sub-prime mortgages became both unsellable and worthless. They generated billions in losses. But the man who bought them still has £5 million in the bank doesn't he?

You see the final whistle is a good time to measure who won the cup final. The final whistle of the final game is a good time to measure who won the Premiership. The winner crossing the finish line is a good time to measure who won the 800m. After the 6th dive seems a good time to measure who won the diving.

But is the end of the financial year really a good time to measure who should get paid what in banking? When the evidence that asset values can go from 100 to 0 as quickly as we saw in 2007-2008? Is mark-to-market as sound a concept as you think? (especially when market measures like LIBO are discredited and rig-able)??

Reward success - all in favour - reward extravagant success extravagantly - all in favour.

But please, please, please let us measure the right things, measure them honestly and measure them realistically.

 

 

Greed and Job Security

I was having an interesting conversation with Mrs Bozo lst night.

Couples of our acquaintance are busy having babies. The father and father-to-be, (both in the financial sector) were both concerned about paternity leave - and concerned not so much by how much they were legally entitled to - but by how much they could get away with without upsetting bosses.

This will come as very strange news to many out there in normal jobs - and is certainly a concern that has been imported from the USA. Many of my friends and colleagues in the USA have much smaller holiday entitlements than we are used to here - and - many of them tell me that using all your holiday entitlement can be a risky strategy in a country where there is little protection for the employee, where hiring and firing is very easy - and where there is no social safety net.

So it made me ponder... when you have no employment protection and no social safety net - is the need to provide your own financial security in effect a motivation to do "whatever it takes" at work to earn salary and bonus - and indeed stay employed?

If your own financial acquisitions are all you have as security - does it validate lying cheating and stealing to acquire them?

Also - if as an employee you are working 49-50 weeks a year for your employer. Where does self-actualisation come into your life?

You see - so so many of the Americans I know say the plan is to have enough money that they can finally say to their employer "screw you" and finally get to go and do things they want to do...

You see if the job has so little time in it for you and yours - so little time to enjoy life and family - is it any wonder that people see the acquisition of cash as the only purpose of work?

And if the only escape is large chunks of cash... how big a leap is it to bending rules and ditching morality and fairplay in order to acquire more of it faster?

I know that this is definitely exacerbated in the USA. But coming back to our own shores - if you have an executive job/lifestyle and the mortgage that goes with it - the social safety net is of a lot less value anyway.

And if your job really is one of those all consuming ratrace deals - then it is easy to see financial independence as a goal worth lying cheating and stealing for.

We know the drive to cut costs has seen middle and upper management pared back. In the name of increasing shareholder value. Execs now work harder and harder - replacing the head count that was slashed.

So - culturally - as we slash costs and heap pressure on our executives - are we in fact creating the culture that will dismantle our organisations in pursuit of short term gain?

A fair days work for a fair days pay is certainly not as attractive to shareholders when an excessive days work fopr an excessive days pay allows them to trim 30-40% of management headcount. And consequently raise dividend by another 2-3p.

Bozo has long said that shareholders need to take ownership of executive behavior and executive remuneration - but they also need to take ownership of their own greed and the organisational and ethical stresses it causes....

The feel-good factor?

There are a lot of countries less well-off than the UK - it would be facile to suggest otherwise. Of course Greece might be better off if people actually paid taxes, but that is another blog. There is no doubt for those of us who live here however that the UK has been down for a while. Since Gordon sold his soul (and our financial future) to the banks for a handful of corn the recession here has bit very deep. And its depth - as in all recessions has been variable - and suffered mainly by the poor. Hence inner city rioting.

And yet here we stand following the glorious success of the 30th Olympiad in London. Success on so many levels.

• Success for Team GB
• Successful security
• Successful transport (although we may have paid a price in inconvenience for this - it does seem worth it)
• Successful organisation
• Successful closing party
• and because it is worthy of mention twice - success for Team GB

Will the feel-good factor carry over into normal life - and crucially - economic life - in the months to come.

History has mixed lessons in this regard. Quebec was rather keen on separating from Canada until the massive debts incurred by the 1976 Olympics required them to go cap in hand to the Federal Government to ask for cash. The city carried Olympic debt for over 30 years.

Los Angeles made money in 1984 - but mainly because they refused to spend any - with most venues being old.

Barcelona managed to overrun their budget by about 400% - but the games did transform the Catalan capital from a nice and relatively unknown city into a "must-go" for Bridget Jones city-breakers all over the globe.

I am not in the know as far as London 2012 finances go - but I am confident our media would have uncovered a 400% budget overrun before now!

Bozo was among a crowd of Brits who feared that our capacity for embarrassing cock-up would unleash itself on our games.

And Bozo is eating his humble pie with relish. Because what we unleashed on the games was our capacity for going the extra mile, our capacity for making sure things worked, our capacity for smiling and cheering and welcoming visitors. And the performance of the team played no small part in that.

So, assuming that we aren't going to be paying tripled rates for the rest of our natural lives, will London - and indeed the nation - reap a feel-good benefit?

I rather suspect we will.

I rather suspect that despite the continuing bad prognosis for Euroland and the continuing nervousness about our own debt that some strange psychological magic might work itself into the economy.

I do not want to end a feel-good blog with a diatribe against anyone - not even clowns in suits  - so let me put it this way.

 

If we see economic resurgence in the country - I hope the benefits are felt in the same proportions by those people who have suffered the pain of the recession.

Because after putting on our best face for the world for 17 days - wouldn't it be nice if we could actually become a society that could show a best face all the days of our lives....

Team GB

Team GB are getting plenty of accolades... but they deserve them all.

I know the media will make sure that jess Ennis and Mo will be properly famous.

But I do not think you can find a better reason for triumphal gloating than the Track Cycling.

Medals available 10

Medals won:       9 (of which 7 Gold)

I don't blame the world federation for changing the rules because GB would have got 20 medals in 10 events if they hadn't. But it still rankles that no one sees its wrong to have three Jamaicans on the podium in the 200m - but its apparently wrong to have more than one Brit on the pdium in cycling.

One rule for all say I.

Rowing also deserves a mention. Also with a maximum of one team per event - so one medal per event.

Medals Available  14 (although we didn't enter one event so 13 in practical terms)

Medals won:         9 (of which 4 Gold)

 

Sailing Medals Available 10

Medals won                     5 (of which only 1 Gold - but 4 silver winners were all in the running for Gold until the final race - and some of them until the final 100 metres of the final race)

And last but not least - Boxing

Medals Available - 10 (boys and girls)

Medals won             5 (3 Golds...)

 

It was refreshing that the wonders of multi-channel digital broadcasting m,eant that we got real coverage of these events for a change - and I hope that continues in Rio - even if Bozo will be too ancient to stay up all night watching.

My one last special mention is for the GB gymnasts. Thank you all for educating me on how amazing a sport that is - if you hadn't been doing well - I would never have found out.

 

 

 

 

Final note on the closing...

I forgot the classic quote of Mrs Bozo during the closing tonight.

At one stage a couple of dozen people in grey suits with orange wigs and clown makeup came tumbling down a slope.

 

And Mrs Bozo said:

"Clowns in suits - they must be bankers"

Priceless