At the closing ceremony at the Beijing Olympics, millions will  be treated to the sight of hip hop hoodies representing British "national identity"

Alistair Spalding, director of Sadler’s Wells dance theatre, said the closing ceremony would include ‘humour and stories told with hiphop and street dance’. He said: ‘It is a positive choice and reflects an aspect of London that people don’t often think about – a multicultural city with a vibrant youth culture.’ ZooNation’s show Into the Hoods is a hiphop interpretation of Stephen Sondheim’s musical Into the Woods, transposed to a modern-day tower block. The plot revolves around DJ Spinderella, who loses a gold trainer at the hip-hop ball. Right, sounds rivetting.

Flying the flag, eh? Proud to show the world what Britain now means - nothing.

Just spotted that the Olympic Torch has been extinguished twice in Paris! This may be merely symbolic but it is most welcome for all that. China should never have been awarded these games in the first place and by showing their own tyranny in Tibet THEY have exacerbated the situation. I'm delighted at this news and hope more will happen.

I wonder if you have been watching the procession of the Olympic Torch from Wembley to Greenwich?

I was pleased to see that many chose to PROTEST rather than celebrate this event.  I also make the following observations;

1. IF the Olympics really are about SPORT and not politics, as our rotten to the core government insists, then why do they politicians not show their abhorrence of the tyrannical thuggery of the Chinese government by STAYING AWAY from the games. Let it  be just sport, as they insist. They won't do this because in their dark hearts they see this as a global PR opportunity.

2. I was disgusted at the aggressive behaviour of the blue and white clad so-called "Chinese Flame attendants" as they strode alongside the torch bearers throughout the route. Even in Downing Street, they looked as if they were the law! Well they're not - they were merely visitors to the UK and it's a disgrace to see them behave so arrogantly on OUR streets - it gives you an idea what things most be like in China. 

The Olympic Torch has arrived in the United Kingdom and tomorrow will see a  formidable collection of 80 torch bearers – including the former Olympic champions Sir Steve Redgrave and Dame Kelly Holmes, running alongside other sporting figures and celebrities – to carry it through the capital surrounded by an equally formidable security cordon of police. Up to 80,000 spectators are expected to turn out to watch the torch make its 31-mile journey from Wembley to Greenwich.

Well, I won't be watching but I will be wishing all those people who turn out to protest against China's human rights record, in particular Beijing's recent crackdown in Tibet and its steadfast support for the Burmese and Sudanese governments. These Games are an utter disgrace and the UK should boycott them. The flaming torch that will be held aloft through the streets of London tomorrow contrasts with the Chinese brutal extinguishing of life in Tibet. Gordon Brown, like President Bush, is pretending that politics has nothing to do with sport. Of course it does - and the tyrants in Beijing are getting away with murder  because of a failure to grasp the burning issue.

Many times, over recent years, I and others have argued against any increased official or business contact with Communist China. We are a small band of protesters, unorganised and unfunded; and I for one would never have credited my joining any protest organisation, partly because there was very little chance of a murmured protest working out against the combined weight of a bunch of blood-stained dictators, big business and the apathetic disinterest of the wider public.

But there is a glimmer of hope, there is a slim chance that the hopes of an entire nation might receive just that very thing which the Chinese detest most. After the brief rise of, and consequent bloody repression of, the monks and protesters in Lhasa and Western Tibet, the Chinese thought and hoped that it might all go away, but thankfully there are a few people who just might stand up and be counted during the travels of the blood-soaked Olympic Torch as it meanders around London tomorrow, and the world later on.

As I have often argued, violent protest, murder and mayhem are no substitute for the ballot box, but just think what this torch represents for the Communist Chinese Regime. It stands for legitimacy, despite never having sought or listened to the voice of it’s own people. It stands for publicity, both for the Beijing Olympics and for the wider actions of a repressive regime! It stands for the knowledge that thousands of athletes, swimmers, riders and archers will travel to Beijing to contest their skills against each other in the Capital City of Communist China!

As an individual, I have taken a few steps of my own, such things as buying a more expensive pair of ‘rigger’ work boots rather than buying one of the ubiquitous and cheaper Chinese-made alternatives; of buying a Hungarian-manufactured DVD recorder rather than a China-built one even though the Chinese one was far cheaper. Perhaps just a pin-prick, and the loss of such minute quantities wouldn’t even disturb any  sales team in Britain, never mind Beijing, but I would remind the reader that great movements have small beginnings,  especially if the end-game is worth the effort!

So let’s watch the Torch as the gullible fellow-travellers such as Jane Tomlinson,  Tim Henman and Sir Roger Bannister, Dame Kelly Holmes and Sir Steve Redgrave prance along carting the Flame of Freedom, and hope against hope that some brave soul is able to extinguish the flames which commemorate the death of Olympic Ideals.

 P.S. Still like the LOGO?

Did you read that Chinese paramilitary police have killed eight people after opening fire on several hundred Tibetan monks and villagers in bloody violence that will fuel human rights protests as London prepares to host its leg of the Olympic torch relay this weekend?

Witnesses said the clash – in which dozens were wounded – erupted late last night after a government inspection team entered a monastery in the Chinese province of Sichuan trying to confiscate pictures of the Dalai Lama. Officials searched the room of every monk in the Donggu monastery, a sprawling 15th century edifice in Ganzi, southwestern Sichuan, confiscating all mobile phones as well as the pictures. When the inspectors tore up the photographs and threw them on the floor, a 74-year-old monk, identified as Cicheng Danzeng, tried to stop an act seen as a desecration by Tibetans who revere the Dalai Lama as their god king.

Honestly, giving China the Olympics was a huge mistake in the first instance and now as the  blood of murdered Tibetans trickles down the street, I wonder who out there has any enthusiams for these bloodied games? I say boycott the  lot - the Chinese should NOT be indulged even as they murder at will.