And lo, it has come to pass that we have to rely on multinational corporations to bring some sort of moral dimension to events designed to promote and celebrate human diversity.

As Google’s homepage reminds us all today, the Olympic Charter states:

The practice of sport is a human right. Every individual must have the possibility of practising sport, without discrimination of any kind and in the Olympic spirit, which requires mutual understanding with a spirit of friendship, solidarity and fair play.

Which is easy to forget considering that the Winter Olympics is about to kick off in a country where this sort of behaviour is, more or less, accepted and ignored.

Does anyone need me to point out the irony of the fact that the Olympic Games originated in ancient Greece? Still, at least we have the beautiful game, football. Oh, maybe not.

Although the 2012 Olympics eventually seemed to rise above the petty greed, corruption and general horror that tend to stick to most modern international sporting events, one has to ask whether we wouldn’t be better off abandoning the World Cup and Olympics until we’re able to remember why the hell they started in the first place.

Obviously that won’t happen, so whilst I wish all the brilliant sports-people taking part in Sochi well, I plan to do the only thing I can really do to show my feelings by refusing to take any notice of any part of it.