Hullo again.

What did you make of the London Olympics?

Bread and circuses - of course - but it was both more and less than that. Leave aside all toe curling embarrassment of the 'this shows Britain can do it' brigade and the utter hypocrisy of Cameron's joy at the triumph of a small Ethiopian from Hackney - representing all that he was proud of about Britain, there was something about the opening and closing ceremonies - and some of the events - that touched a less cynical cord.

A friend who was an ill paid and badly treated temporary security guard made two observations. She said that the opening ceremony seemed to 'take away' the games from the corporations. Second she described how the the private security army came to loath the 70 000 'middle class and condescending' volunteers.
'It's just common sense dear' became a hated phrase.  The 'paid' workforce, she said, were last summer's rioters. Class had again conquered all. Apparently turn up on time, every day, and you'll get a free TV! No negative marks for your shifts from mad, hysterical supervisors and you could get free tickets to Portugal. (Give us the tele! ) You can imagine the rolled up sleeve meetings in the security companies' boardrooms: - That's what they want: that's what they'll understand!

But there was a Dr Whoish optimism about the image of the country in Danny Boyle's opening. The best thing about Britain is the NHS; we'll all be mixed race soon; gotta' look after the kids; dump the pomp and circumstance. (Nothing about Britain's leading role in the slave trade; the greatest ever crime against humanity, or the battle for the NHS for that matter.) Never mind. It could have been immeasurably worse. (Think the Edinburgh military tattoo.)

I suppose in some great public events it is inevitable that the ordinary millions do find something of their voice. In the absence of a vibrant and growing TU movement, of great working class communities, welfare clubs, cooperatives, music making, worker's education, and the great informal sense of being a proud class of people who stood for something; in the absence of all that, there are still echoes of an alternative, still strong images of stuff that's important that we - not they - have made, often in the teeth of their opposition. Some of that surfaced - in the ordinariness of the athletes - in the party at the end - in the participation of local primary schools. It wasn't something that looked tailored just to the needs of the great and the good.

We know that the athletes housing will soon become a bitter wrangle over decaying buildings; that the vast shopping centre will nose-dive, like its counterparts, into a recessionary sea. We know that a two week spectacle designed to 'bring us all together' at a time when 99% of 'us' are under the most ferocious attack from the remaining 1% of 'us' since the 1920s and 1930s, is an expensive fake and a fraud.

But if you watched - I bet there was something that you applauded. Something of the spirit of one world playing together. I bet the kids felt good about that.