Ode dear, what can the matter be?

In an echo of the first modern Olympic Games, London mayor Boris Johnson has commissioned an ode.

In those days, poetry was an Olympic event – indeed, as explained here by Mary Beard, Baron de Coubertin himself won a prize for one of his own efforts.

But this evening, at the big gala at the Royal Opera House, Bo Jo will remind us of his own classical education by intoning the poem – in both Greek and English – to the watching billions.

Don’t worry though; we don’t have to wait. The Telegraph published it here.

Charmingly, it’s every bit up to the standard of de Coubertin.

And inspired by the spirit of heightened cultural endeavour that has arrived in the metropolis, alongside the sporting kind, I offer up my own humble response; my own ode to the Pindaric ode.

You can make up your own minds whether it’s an ode to joy or not.

Ode to some event or other

The summer has arrived at last

Together with a sporting cast,

To jump and run in this fair town –

So woe on you who wears a frown!

To mark this rather splendid time

We must not whinge or ever whine;

And don’t dare jest, lest you provoke

The wrath of Coe’s policing folk

There’re guns on top of peoples’ flats

And rules made up by tin-pot twats;

Beware of spilling custard dears,

When highlighting your cash cow fears

Boris says the lanes must be

For those ‘who work’ – not thee or me;

He’s had a little ode penned too

About this farce to bill and coo

The legacy, we’ve all been told

Will last until the Earth is cold;

Or at least until the day

When corporate sponsors fly away

Food banks may well be on the up,

As austere plans now prove a pup;

But since man can’t live just on loaves

A circus into view now hoves