It's only a game

Personally, I was disappointed: Bristol City 0, Crawley Town 1, in the FA Cup. There's a posse of us at church who follow sports, and so my old interest in Bristol City was rekindled. Well, it had to be different from the local favourites, Swindon, Oxford and Reading. This season has been quite interesting, as they sank to the bottom of the table - until Derek McInnes was appointed as their new manager, and their fortunes began to change. Now they're up to 6 off the bottom in a steady but not meteoric rise. So being beaten by the well-endowed and precocious Crawley from two divisions lower is a bit disappointing - compounded, of course, by Swindon's flukey win over Wigan. But there - as my wife annoyingly but accurately says: "It's only a game." Wasn't it Liverpool's Bill Shankly who said that football was more than a matter of life and death? Pretty silly, but it's certainly big business.

As clearly are the Olympic Games. I have a feeling I for one will be over-saturated with the pre-Games hype. We had it on Songs of Praise yesterday; David Cameron bigged it his New Year message - as one of the two hopes for relieving a year of economic gloom; today he dragged the cabinet down to an Olympic venue for a meeting. I admit they are the big ones, but still they only games. Sorry!