Don't spoil the surprise

The Mirror has leaked details of the handover ceremony from Beijing to London for 2012 which a colleague of mine has spent the last year creating.

I can't claim that I am in on anything although we chewed over lots of my own mad and probably bad ideas and I was asked to keep schtum for a long time before it became official.

From what I know, the Mirror has done some clever guessing but I think the official press releases give enough hints as to what is involved. You wouldn't, for example, commission a street dance group to perform a ballet numbers would you? (but mixing the two might be visually interesting).

The London organising committee are not going to employ someone untested or expect something totally untried. 'God save the Teen' and the 'Manchester Passion' should give you some confidence in what to expect. I don't think it will, or should be, as extravagant as the rest of the closing ceremony and thankfully we've been promised there will be no dancing Beefeaters.

Given that everyone's in Beijing now and so many people are involved, keeping a lid on it must be impossible but I think it would be nice if the tabloids didn't spoil it for everyone and build up false expectations.

I just hope a jetlagged David Beckham doesn't miss that free kick through the Olympic rings from the top of the double-decker bus....(just kidding) but they'd better have a prepared tape to run just in case.