[Chris O'Carroll]

No 4246
Set by Adair R Fyn
After thanking the athletes for providing a “golden summer of British sport”, David Cameron opined that the Olympics and Paralympics would be remembered for “hundreds of years to come”. He added: “I think 2012 will be like 1966, something we’ll talk about with our children and grandchildren . . . long after this time has passed.” We asked you to imagine how a Londoner 200 years from now would remember 2012.

This week’s winners
David Silverman continues his irresistible winning streak this week. Adrian Fry and Sylvia Fairley aren’t far behind. What has happened to you all? The winners get £25, with the Tesco vouchers going in addition to John Kirkaldy.

Going underground
“My great-grandmother told me the tales passed down from her grandfather about the last great Olympic Games in 2012, long before you or I were cloned. The highlights, it seems, were the running events,” I commented to my eldest son.
“What’s running, Dad?” he asked.
“People had things called legs attached to the base of the torso, with feet on the end; some had blades instead. Putting one foot in front of the other, they propelled themselves along the track.”
“Why did they do that, Dad?”
“Well, back then, there was space to move about and meet others for competitive sport.”
“Did they like that?”
“I believe so. The excitement of the activity in the fresh air . . .”
“Fresh air?”
“They didn’t live underground in those days. Air was something they could breathe without respiratory devices. There were lots of other sports, too; volleyball, gymnastics, water polo . . .”
“What’s water?”
“Forget it, son – too difficult to explain.”
Sylvia Fairley

Higher than an Eagle
The year 2012 was the beginning of the apotheosis of Clare Balding after she managed, at some long-forgotten sporting event, to pronounce correctly the members of the Saudi Arabian women’s beach volleyball team. By 2017, her autobiography had become a compulsory A-level text.
In 2022, a laying-on of her hands cured mange in 90 per cent of all dogs and horses. From 2030, all sporting events – from primary school egg-and-spoon races to the FA Cup Final – were prefixed with her name. Then, on the death of Charles III in 2032, she was proclaimed Queen Mother. A BBC poll later hailed her “sports personality of all time”, beating Lassie and Eddie the Eagle.
After that, she was unstoppable: a unanimous vote by the UN and an e-petition to the pope granted her sainthood status. Though her death did not lead to immediate resurrection, 200 years later, her voice can sometimes still be heard in the paddock at Newbury Races.
John Kirkaldy

The crying Games
Games-makers working for nothing and Tube drivers on quadruple bung, 2012 was the best summer London ever had, the last Olympic hurrah before the Europocalypse. The London Eye was open and all the shops closed so everyone could watch Danny Boyle win the trainspotting, the Queen win the parachute and Team GB sweep to victory in the crying. Boris the mascot was on everything from tea towels to the telly; Paralympians proved that wheelchair trampolining wasn’t
impossible. London will never forget its Olympic stars: MoThingy, Becky Adlestrop and theother ones. The Paralympics changed attitudes to the disabled forever – never again would they qualify for benefits.
Not that it was all sport: Shakespeare was translated into English for the Cultural Olympiad. My family, Cockney to the marrow, spent that balmy
summer in ecstacy – two months on Ibiza, paid for by renting their house to visiting anti-terrorist officers.
Adrian Fry

Power to the people
After the victory parade, things moved fast. There were two million people on the streets of London and it was an opportunity not to be missed. With cries of “Viva Jessica!” and “Viva la Revolución!” (or words to that effect) they marched on Westminster and then the palace, pushing the truck carrying Ennis ahead of them.
The will of the people was clear and there was no resistance. They stormed the City, nationalising the banks and entire commercial community and freezing the assets of the fat-cat investment bankers in an afternoon, to be distributed to a grateful populace. The next day, the Ennis-Blunkett-Hattersley triumvirate set up power in Sheffield in the name ofthe people and the rest is history: 200 years of peace, equality, true democracy. Talk about inspiring a generation – now that is what
I call a legacy!
David Silverman

Adrian Fry has another win this week. The judge seems fed up with the rest of us for allowing such a thing.