I’M trying to get enthusiastic about the Olympics. But it’s hard… Not on account of the athletes, who are wonderful. Every single one has a story worth telling. I admire their skill, stamina, their determination, all those days when they’ve got up at the crack of dawn, yet again, or turned out on cheerless wintry nights in their bid to be just that split second faster, higher, stronger.

I respect all those parties they missed, the junk they didn’t eat, the hangovers they avoided, the jobs they did or didn’t take to fit in with training. I wince at the injuries they suffered and applaud their determination not to be cast down by setbacks.

And I admire their families, who encouraged them and drove all over the country to support them, the coaches who found that extra special something in them and managed to make it work, the supportive partners happy to take second place and go without proper holidays.

They are all amazing and I’ll watch just about any event for the skill, grace and sheer physical poetry of it. It’s the bling and boasting and jingoism that gets me, the vast sums of money poured into the games not for the sake of sport, but just for medals, for nationalistic power and prestige. The athletes do the work, the governments get the glory.

The amounts of money governments spend are huge, the pay off for the average citizen zilch.

As for inspiration – in this country there are fewer people taking part in sports than before the 2012 Olympics. So much for legacy.

Whether the Russian government positively encouraged the use of drugs by their athletes almost doesn’t matter. The fact is that we find it easy to believe, such is the tarnish on the Olympic gloss, the medals at any price philosophy.

Some Russian athletes might be allowed to compete as individuals. Brilliant. If all athletes competed as individuals we could appreciate their skill uncluttered by quite so much nationalistic fervour. The country would be important – as in golf or tennis – but not overwhelming. That would scale things down a bit.

After all, World Championships are held in different sports every year with a fraction of the razamatazz, so who needs it?

Forget the bling. Let’s just enjoy the sport.

SO we’re using six billion fewer carrier bags since the 5p charge was introduced. Except in our house. I usually have a car boot full of bags because I always forget to take them in with me and end up buying more. Hopeless, I know.

There again… husband has just done a major purge on our thousands of books. So far we’ve taken about 25 carrier bags full to Oxfam.

What would we have done without the bags? Boxes are too heavy, bin bags too fragile. Carrier bags are the Baby Bear’s porridge of the book transporting world. Perfect. And now we’ve used so many, I’m going to have to buy some more…

I know it will be worth it in the end but the constant roadworks around the region are bad enough – roads, closed, roads diverted, roads apparently disappearing without trace over a weekend, speed limits and traffic lights everywhere – but what’s turned it from mildly inconvenient to utterly infuriating is the appalling signage.

Signs are meant to help. They don’t.

Roads are said to be closed, when they’re open. Diversions are signed when they’re not needed and not signed when they are. Road closed signs are left in place permanently, with no times or dates. Or motorists are left to drive for miles before being told to turn round and go back the way they came.

Goodness knows what it’s doing to the region’s stress levels but I’m guessing it’s not good. And heaven help strangers.

Now even the contractors have realised that we are all utterly confused and quite possibly driving round in ever decreasing circles. New signs have just gone up at Scotch Corner. Two arrows direct drivers into new lanes and just to make it clear, they’ve added underneath “NOW.”

Which is presumably their way of admitting that all the other signs are utterly confusing. So why not do something about them?

THE Duke of Northumberland always seems a pretty decent, down to earth sort of chap for one of the poshest in the land. However privileged, it can’t always be easy keeping massive Alnwick Castle going. A duke has to do what a duke has to do to keep the ancestral roof watertight over his family’s head.

However, it’s then a bit rich – in all senses- to complain, as he does in this month’s Tatler about how they have to move out every summer to avoid the invasion of curious tourists. It’s those tourists who pay his bills. If he didn’t want them, maybe he shouldn’t hire out the castle for Downton Abbey, Harry Potter, Blackadder, Robin Hood Prince of Thieves….

No one can have their cake and eat it – not even a duke.

Former shadow chancellor Ed Balls – with a reputation as a bit of a bruiser – is apparently to take part in Strictly Come Dancing. If producers have any sense, they will already be planning a Christmas special in which he partners an earlier political dancer. Ed Balls tangoing with Anne Widdecombe – wouldn’t that be wonderful?