barefoot earlier

I've never before felt as I did at 5.45pm today as I tuned in to all manner of smugness from Radio 4 about winning the Olympic bid. To my shock, I had a lump in my throat and felt proud to be British. Lordy, how odd. I often love our country: subtle landscapes, every colour of green, smell of the seasons, Yorkshire pudding (Chirac has it all wrong), Darlington accents, being called 'Pet', but I've never felt proud of it before. I just felt like we'd done it. And it was only yesterday that I was griping about the preposterously expensive bid process.

I didn't expect us to win. ITV news made it sound as if the media have just been holding their breath, not daring to hope and underplaying our chances of winning so as not to blight our hopes. Yeah right. Good thing to say now. As if they weren't just as cynically disbelieving as ever all along.

It was a surprising and welcome change. I drove all the way from work to home and heard not one cynical word or one suggestion that this was anything but great news and would be anything less than a triumph. What if they'd announced first thing in the morning... would John Humphreys have been as upbeat? I wonder who the Today programme will have on in the morning: an olympic bid organiser being heavily questioned about the next steps, with a direct insinuation that this will be a fiasco and end up costing more than planned? Or is it me that's cynical...