A few words from Rob Mansfield

The Olympics reminded me of some long-forgotten nugget of totally useless trivia that I learned while studying for my A Level in Contemporary History.

My teacher for World History 1945- the present day was Robert Swann - a bearded chap who was obscenely intelligent. His knowledge was quite remarkable and he’d wander into the lesson without any notes and just talk to us about a subject for 45 minutes and expect us to make the relevant notes.

A bit like a University lecture, except that even at university many lecturers give you print-outs of the most salient points at the end.

Anyway, I digress. One of the things I remember being taught was how the modern Chinese Mandarin came to be written in Western (roman) script.

For most of the 20th century, Chinese words and names, such as Mao were transliterated using something called Wade-Giles. Thus for years, everyone knew the capital of China as Peking.

Then in around 1979/1980, it was decided - I know not by whom - to revert to something called Pinyin, the system developed within China to romanize the Chinese characters.

So now we know the capital as Beijing, although I’m not sure if we call the dish Beijing Duck any more.

I don’t know if you’d noticed but there’s quite a big event going on in China at the moment!

Yup, the 2008 Beijing Olympics are dominating the BBC’s schedules and it’s tough to listen to a news bulletin or open a newspaper without seeing some sort of report on the events.

In previous Olympic years, I’ve only been able to watch the action on the telly - let’s call it the old-school way of enjoying the action.

But 2008 is a different kettle of fish. Because I have a young daughter who’s obsessed with Peppa Pig, watching Olympic Breakfast on the BBC is out of the question.

So I’ve resorted to listening to Radio 5 Live with Nicky Campbell and Sheila Fogarty and it is dynamite coverage. I really makes you appreciate how difficult commentating without pictures is, but also how great it is listening to sport, rather than watching it.

I listened to both Nicole Cooke and Emma Pooley winning their respective medals, as well as some rowing coverage and boxing too. It totally transforms your opinion of the sport and is absolutely riveting.

And, of course, the other way I’ve been getting my Olympics fix is the internet. And the BBC’s coverage via the iPlayer has been fantastic.

Whether you watch it live, or catch up with highlights, it’s brilliant. Thank heaven for the internet!

So the economy is in a slump and inflation continues to rise in the UK, as the spectre of a recession looms for not only this country, but the whole world.

However, one thing has made me smile. Since Gordon Brown handed over responsibility for inflation and many other aspects of the economy, it has been up to Mervyn King, Governor of the Bank of England to report on how things are going.

And, one of the things he agreed to was that if inflation starts to rise, he has to, whisper it quietly, write a letter to Gordon Brown explaining himself.

You can imagine the scenes in the Merv’s office over the past few months, can’t you?

‘Oh shit, inflation’s taken a turn for the worse again. Quick, get the typewriter out and take a letter, Miss Jones!’