Ray O’Rourke made this impassioned plea to journalists at the Guildhall Dinner: ‘Please, please don’t rip the heart out of the Olympics.

We will be there on the day. Can I please ask you to look for the positives.’

Moved to act, CM phoned the Olympic Delivery Authority’s press office: ‘Hello, we’re the magazine of the Chartered Institute of Building. We’d really like to meet up with someone from the press office to talk about how we can do some positive stories about how things are progressing.’

‘We’ll put you on our email distribution,’ said a rather snotty voice. You just can’t help some people…