IT seems that the main message we will be taking from the Beijing games is, "Don't believe anything the Chinese tell you, or even show you."

I'm certain Britain will put on a superb Olympics in 2012. Let's show the world Stonehenge, as old as the great wall of China, the Romans striding ashore, a Viking raid, the pilgrim fathers heading to the new world.

Let it be in no doubt that we give it the train, fingerprinting, DNA and the world wide web, along with a Shakespeare play, a Dickens novel, an Agatha Christie murder mystery, a Beatles record and a Tennyson, Keats or Wordsworth poem. Not forgetting the industrial revolution, football, rugby, cricket, and that we drew up the rules for most other modern sports.

Let's show off our Lake District in the sailing events, the Yorkshire dales in cycling and glorious Devon in the marathon. I believe we'll give the world its most astounding Olympics ever.

And I am sure we will be able to find a pretty, little girl who can also sing.

The one problem is, the negative, miserable thinkers that seem to abound in this country, the famed "Whinging Poms" and "Moaning Limeys".

We'll have a belly full of them before the games even start. Can't we banish them all, say to Falklands for a fortnight?

Still, that wouldn't be fair to the poor Islanders.

Eric Firth