Last updated 05:44, Friday, 22 August 2008

How do you make a browbeaten Brit chipper? Give him a clutch of superheroes and a medal tally to gloat about. That’s the pure gold lesson of Beijing.

What a difference a bagful of bling makes, eh? There’s a new spring in the step of the average Joe, a whiff of pride in the beery air of lounge bars, an added substance to collective self esteem. Renewed feel good is making us positively feverish.

All of a sudden they’re heading for the Lakes with anything that floats, fancying medal chances of supreme sailing victory in 2012. For goodness sake, they’re even swimming across Talkin Tarn – valiantly and with not a thought for dangerously frozen nether regions. Things have suddenly looked up for Bad Mood Britannia.

Success is so sweetly seductive, such a morale booster.

No matter that it’s achieved by strangers we’re unlikely to meet, in competition seen only by insomniacs, success presses British Bulldog buttons and makes us grow a full six inches.

Finally we can look to our flag with swollen hearts – and blood pressure raised by too many late nights – knowing we can hold heads high as bona fide champions.

Cricket? What has that to do with the price of running shoes? When it matters we pull glory from swimming caps and beat the best – well, some of the best anyway. We’re wonderful, gorgeous, golden. We’re British.

Oh go on then, I’ll admit it. Olympic ballyhoo actually bores me rigid. A classic couch potato, the women’s marathon held attention only because it was a Saturday night and Sunday was for sleeping. Then merely from curiosity bordering on nastiness... would weepy Paula Radcliffe bomb out again? She didn’t. Pity. In the real world of daily grind and necessary routine, I’d no sooner take an interest in Laser sailing than vault the great wall of Hadrian. What is Laser sailing, anyway? And as for sprinting – in these heels?

But a little frisson of something verging on the ridiculously tribal surfaced one morning this week when an Australian newspaper chose to be exceptionally rude about our success, accusing us of being too cocky by half.

“Poms are winning, call an inquiry” its headline squealed.

“Once, not so long ago, Australians were a proud people who walked tall with jutted jaws.

“The Poms were a source of amusement, a fallen imperial master weeping over a dog-eared scrapbook, its tattered images of Steve Redgrave, Seb Coe, Mary Rand and those blokes from Chariots Of Fire fading by the day.

“As much as it hurt, you’d hear them say: ‘Why can’t we be good at sport, like you Aussies?’

“Triumphal, you’d smile, pat their bowed heads, and offer an almost heartfelt, ‘There, there, at least you’ve got Amy Winehouse.’

“What really hurts is the knowledge that, when they were down on their scabby knees pleading for any sporting morsel to be thrown their way, we came to their rescue.

“Here you go, poor Poms, have our coaches, our programmes, our secrets to success.”

And so it went on, twining relentlessly about Aussie superiority, British inferiority and our debt to them for their gifts – Neighbours, cheap lager and other such cultural treasures, one supposes.

It might have been that the author had rubbed a little too closely against the shoulders of Team BBC – which is cocky by charter. But then another Australian chirped up on the morning news: “I don’t care where we finish in the medals table, so long as it’s above the British.”

And a Kiwi: “I’m supporting two teams. New Zealand and any that beats Australia.” I liked him.

So, how do you make a browbeaten British couch potato chipper? Put her on the defensive against sour grape Aussies who can’t see past ancient cricket rivalries, I guess.

Is that patriotic, tribal, ludicrously xenophobic... or am I cheerfully falling for a Sydney wind-up?

It’s just sport, I’m told. Competition. Apparently even in the Olympics nothing counts for anything much unless it’s accompanied by jibes, digs, insults and cries of foul.

With heavy heart but in the spirit of The Games, I’m persuaded to forget my more natural affection for Australians and be too cocky by half – in justified retaliation.

You guys might have taken the Ashes lately but we Poms proved last time around that even rubbish teams can do that, so don’t get above yourself.

And as for you rescuing us from sporting failure, well here’s a little something for you to ponder.

Before you declare yourself mightier than the Brit – by virtue solely of your athletic down under credentials – would you take on a Cumbrian, lap for lap, across chilly Talkin Tarn, valiantly and without ever a thought for chilling damage to the nether regions?

Busy clipping nose hair, did you say? Shame.

Maybe next time, cobber. Fair dinkum!