Firstly many, many congratulations  to the ladies and mens curling teams on their medals at the Winter Olympics. A fitting reward for all the many years of hard-work that they put in.

Then of course there are all those athletes in other sports who put in just as much for no reward other than the satisfaction of being an "Olympian",

But does top sport matter? Vast sums of money are poured into elite sporting programmes yet at the grass-roots level many sports, particularly team sports are withering on the vine.

What is the function and purpose of sport? Should public money (or lottery money) be spent on developing elite sport programmes or should it be spent on boosting the lower levels?

Personally I love sport, I used to be very active in rugby and then running, albeit very much at "Club level". I enjoy watching it but so few today seem to be taking it up. Today there are lots watching but few playing - why?

A Rakes Progress

 Yesterday Julia and I went to Tate Britain to see the Hogarth exhibition. I was familiar with some of his prints but had not realised that a great deal of his work was in oils.

What was fascinating was to see his series of paintings "A Rake's Progress". The series shows the decline and fall of Tom Rakewell, the spendthrift son and heir of a rich merchant, who comes to London, wastes all his money on luxurious living, prostitution and gambling, and as a consequence is imprisoned in the Fleet Prison and ultimately Bethlem Hospital (Bedlam).

What struck a chord was that what led to Tom's destruction was trying to play "above his league". He wanted to emulate the really rich and although wealthy was not "seriously rich". It struck me that this series of paintings captured the fall of Prince Andrew - he is/was wealthy, but he could not hope to emulate the seriously rich that he met thanks to being the sovereign's son.

It seems to me that Prince Andrew was captivated by the seriously rich and would do all in his power to be "one of them" except that he didn't have the largesse and so was beholden to them and fell in with them and immoral ways.

If you get a chance go and see the exhibition - a morality story for our times.

Don't kick the cat

 Everyone is, rightly, up in arms about Zouma and the cat kicking. However they will ignore reports that more than 6,500 migrant workers from India, Pakistan, Nepal, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka have died in Qatar since it won the right to host the World Cup 10 years ago, that the Guardian has revealed.

They ignore the appalling human rights abuses in Saudi Arabia to gleefully accept the millions that they are pouring into Newcastle United. Not to mention the Winter Olympics being held in China with it appalling record of human rights violations. China has detained Uighurs at camps in the north-west region of Xinjiang, where allegations of torture, forced labour and sexual abuse have emerged. I suppose that as they are mainly Muslim they don't really count?

But kick a cat and you are beyond the pale. 

Top sport in its pursuit of money has long sold its soul, as long as you don't kick a cat!