Chig wants Paris to be awarded the 2012 Olympics tomorrow, or possibly Madrid, but not London. There, I've said it. For the last six months, I've been wondering if I was the only Brit who didn't want London's bid to win, but this morning the Five Live phone-in was on this very subject. They said the majority of callers and texters were also AGAINST London hosting the Olympics, so I feel safe to stick my head above the parapet and risk being called a spoilsport (quite literally, in this case) or - gasp! - unpatriotic.

Thank you to the five people who responded to my survey earlier today. Including my own answers, in the comments box with all the others, we are evenly split on which city should get the games, with three going for Paris and three for London, despite all six respondents being British. (I could have sworn one of you was South African, but we'll gloss over that...!)

However, four out of six think that Paris WILL win, with just one predicting London and one predicting New York. It's notable that the one who predicts London to win actually thinks it should be Paris.

So, I'm not alone. There are several reasons, but above all I quite fancy going to the Olympics if, as would seem likely, they're going to be held in Europe for the first time since Barcelona 1992. I'd love to go to Paris to see them. The French will do a better job of organising them, Paris will look better, they have the stadia already and their transport network is much, much better already than London's could ever be. We, on the other hand, can look back on the Millennium Dome, the wobbly Millennium Bridge, the Pickett's Lock athletics track fiasco, the rebuilding of Wembley stadium when it should be a new stadium somewhere else, every government IT project ever started, and the row over the ID cards budget. These are all valid reasons why we shouldn't really take on big ideas like the Olympics.

One of the arguments put forward by the pro-London lobby is that UK sport would be given a welcome shot in the arm if London was awarded the games, and that our nation's children will be rescued from their obesity crisis by taking up sport all of a sudden. To which I say two words: United States. They have hosted the Olympics twice in the last 21 years and have the fattest kids (and adults) on this Earth.

Then there's the waste of money for just two weeks of kudos, from which the rest of the country will hardly benefit at all, even though we would pay for it with our taxes. There's the destruction of large parts of the little remaining green space in London, and the inevitable rise in house prices which will mean that the people in East London will be unable to afford houses on their own doorstep.

No, give it to Paris. Madrid would do as a second best option. Then us Brits will have the joy of an Olympics on our doorstep, which is easy to get to, but which we don't have to pay for. Bargain. And an excellent holiday too, in a beautiful city. Who wants to go to Stratford, East London for a holiday?

I also agree with what Joe's comments;
"Paris - just to wipe the smug look off the face of every racist, xenophobic, anti-european, foreigner-hating, UKIP-supporting, british-empire-throwback in the country who can't go five minutes without throwing insults at anyone on the other side of the channel."

Exactly. I can't wait to see how the Daily Mail covers it if Paris wins.

I can't really lose on this one, can I? Because even if London does win, it'll still feel great really (for a few days). Only Moscow (unlikely) or New York winning could really spoil the fun. It's funny how most commentators thought that New York was a shoe-in for this after the terrorist attacks of 2001, when it was assumed they would benefit from a huge wave of sympathy votes, but the sympathy seems to have drained away.

Allez la France!
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