It's curious that  under the present regime of maximum security anxiety, bomb scares and terorist alert  that anyone is allowed to run through London brandishing  fire  on the end of a stick, but it's going to happen. It'll be called The Olympic Torch. I suggest it's  carried aloft by a muslim geezer with a beard. Front page of The Daily mail.

And  when the Olympic Torch arrives  from the Thames River onto the embankment and along  The Royal Festival hall hundreds and hundreds  of singers will  reach down into their lungs and sing out a song I have penned.  It was inspired by the children of lambeth schools who gave me ample material to be inspired by.  The poem is proudly written in my role as artist in residence at the South Bank Centre a part of Lambeth.

Politics is never far from the Olympic torch. On the subject of Tibet:  It’s not a difficult task to balance the rights and wrongs of an Olympic host with a curious human rights policy.  The question I ask of myself is “when did an olympic host not have blood on their hands” and “when was an olympic host not used as a platform by a maligned minority?“ The Olympics will be used as a voice for  such causes as much as it will be used as  a celebration of unity through sport. To say that sport has nothing to do with politics is to easy a get out clause but if  you do believe that sport has nothing to do with poitics  then think of  The Tibetean as a race.