Never mind about the lack of snow and the unfinished hotel rooms. This morning  every writer is gagging to know what was the Princess Royal reading while she waited for the fireworks? What a boost to sales that would be. Can’t you just see the book shops whacking on those flash stickers? A RIGHT ROYAL READ!

I know it wasn’t one of my books. That looks to me like an 700-pager.  And she’s half way through it so she’s clearly enjoying it. Unless that royal sense of duty forces her to trudge on with even the most bin-worthy turkey.  I did have an authorial brush with the Royal Family myself many years ago. A box of books accompanies the Royals when they go to Balmoral for the summer and a list of its contents is published in the press. My Parents’ Survival Guide made it into the box one year. For all I know that copy may yet lie mouldering in some Aberdeenshire charity shop.

But let’s get back to Sochi. I’m not a sportsperson on ice or off it. I’ve been voted Woman Most Likely To in the biennial Arse over Tip awards on more than one occasion. But I can dream. I do dream. I’m sitting here at my desk dreaming when I really should be pulling on my thermals and going to Tesco. What Olympic events can we writers propose for Pyongchang 2018?

Cross-country Plotting? In which the action moves seamlessly between Vilnius, Paris of the Baltic and Wellingborough, Armpit of Northamptonshire.  Alpine Prequel Writing? Heidi: so what exactly did happen to her parents? would be a good entry for that. How about Freestyle Speed Editing? I could take a crack at that.

Oh, I have it. Nordic Bandwagon Jumping. Of course by 2018 Nordic Noir will be as dead as mutton but I don’t think we should allow that to discourage us. We have four years in which to prepare.

Those sneerers who have christened the Sochi mascot Nightmare Bear should be very, very careful. That name already belongs to President Putin. Haven’t they seen the pics of him tiger-wrassling, ordering the elimination of his critics  and bareback riding? Someone should really have told him that the ‘bare’ bit of bareback riding refers to the horse, but I can quite understand why they didn’t.

And so…. to Tesco.