# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
The publishing world has become overrun by books celebrating particular points in time. A few years ago, Bill Bryson wrote an entire book about 1927; just last month, David Hepworth wrote a wonderful case for 1971 as the apotheosis of post-war pop music. Soon there will be a big fat hard-cover devoted to every year of the 20th Century.

One year that is continually celebrated, particularly in London's history, is 1966: first in 2003 by Shaun Levy in Ready, Steady, Go! The Smashing Rise and Giddy Fall of Swinging London, then in 2015 by pop archivist Jon Savage in the more prosaically titled 1966. This most recent book claims, yet again, that 1966 was when the city was at its creative peak.

And if it's not 1966 that was said to be the year in which London was at its cultural, most fashionable height, then it's the London of punk rock, 1977. Or perhaps it was in the mid '90s, when Britpop and the YBAs seemed to rule the city.

The Swinging '60s were only swinging if you were one of 500 lucky people

But the proposition is wrong. London is more exciting now than it's ever been.

The mid '60s may have been a period in which the city became a mecca for American tourists and an international symbol of cultural upheaval. It may have been the time of the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, the Kings Road, Carnaby Street, 'dolly birds' and swishy nightclubs like the Ad Lib. But the Swinging '60s were only swinging if you were one of the lucky 500 who frequented the right kind of discotheques.

In fact, all of these periods pale when compared to London as it is today. Not only is London the greatest, most dynamic city in the world, it's never been better than it is now.

Comparison may be the thief of joy, and it might be invidious to square London off against other fashionable cities such as New York, Milan or Paris - which is heavier, a tonne of feathers of a tonne of gold? - but right now, there is no other city in the world like it.

Not only is London the greatest, most dynamic city in the world, it's never been better than it is now

The gentrification of the city has meant that it's now more difficult to get onto the property ladder than at any time in its past. But the benefits of London's financial transformation also mean that it is now not just the economic centre of Europe, it is also an architectural and artistic wonder.

There is more building work in London than in any other city in the world, barring those in China. This makes it a proper showcase for the city's creativity: the new confluence of money and art means that the city now hosts the most important art galleries in the world as well as the most important art fair, Frieze.

There is more building work in London than in any other city in the world, barring those in China

And while 30 years ago it was difficult to find a good steak in the city, and nigh impossible to eat well on a Sunday evening, London now has by far the greatest number of top-class restaurants of any city in the world. While London might still fall short of Paris and NYC in the Michelin-star category, that way of judging restaurants is fundamentally old-fashioned, and if you want to look for ingenuity and panache, you come to London.

Local government has also helped nurture the vital relationships between art and commerce, encouraging the growth of places like the hip east London district of Shoreditch and the start-up belt Tech City. The growth of such places doesn't happen by accident; it is due to infrastructure, education and planning.

This was made easier after 2000, the year a dedicated, singular leadership for London was instituted - before, it was just the 33 boroughs, each with a different mayor. London would never have won the 2012 Olympics without a mayor of London. How would you have got 33 local boroughs to agree on a bid to the International Olympic Committee?

The world of fashion is another example of London's boom. In days gone by, it was often assumed that Paris or possibly Milan were the centres of the fashion industry in Europe, while New York was venerated on the other side of the Atlantic.

But no, now London is the most fashionable city in the world (just ask anyone on the front row, even those in Manhattan) and since the British Fashion Council has been punching way above its weight, we now have the most vibrant fashion weeks in the world for menswear as well as womenswear. (Full disclosure: I am the chairman of London Collections Men.) There is such diversity in London - from street style to tailoring, couture to big brands - that no other city comes close.

This has been shown by the reversal of a well-worn narrative concerning any young hotshot fashion designer: after they had made their name in London, it was once said, they would be snapped up by one of the large international fashion conglomerates and whizzed off to Milan or Paris - where their British creativity would be harnessed, exploited and then sold back to us.

These days, young designers stay in London and encourage the fash-pack to come here rather than anywhere else

Not anymore. These days, young designers stay in London, find backing in London, and encourage the fash-pack to come here rather than anywhere else. After all, if you decide to show your clothes in Milan, then you will be showing your clothes in the ugliest northern European city that isn't in Germany. If you decide to show your clothes in Paris, you'll be showing your clothes in the most bourgeois city in Europe. And if you decide to show your clothes in New York, then you'll be showing them in the most neurotic city in the world.

No, London is where it's at.

There is also our multiculturalism: 37% of Londoners were born outside the UK, just a tick up from New York City's (36%) and 10 percentage points higher than a decade earlier. Our society is fluid, a melting pot of this and that and his and hers. London is a great example of successful immigration, and increasingly one feels as though the city couldn't do without it. If you walk around where I live, in the W2 district near Hyde Park, you can walk along the street and not hear English being spoken all morning. And when you do eventually hear it, it feels as though you've travelled back in time.

Naturally, London is no Xanadu. Its problems are not dissimilar to the problems inherent in any ever-expanding modern metropolis. Parts of the city have certainly become even more divided than they were in the '80, when monolithic steel and glass towers in gated communities sprang up in the middle of dockland slums. This disharmony obviously creates discontent, while silos of hate appear in the most unlikely places.

But still they come and still we grow. Which makes me think that maybe we should turn London into a city state - or a citadel. Not to keep people out, and not to keep them in, but to celebrate the fact that London deserves to be recognised as the most important city on Earth.
Dylan Jones is the editor-in-chief of GQ, the chairman of London Collections Men and the author of London Rules published by Biteback. This story is a part of BBC Britain - a series focused on exploring this extraordinary island, one story at a time. Readers outside of the UK can see every BBC Britain story by heading to the Britain homepage; you also can see our latest stories by following us on Facebook and Twitter.
If you liked this story, sign up for the weekly bbc.com features newsletter, called "If You Only Read 6 Things This Week". A handpicked selection of stories from BBC Future, Earth, Culture, Capital, Travel and Autos, delivered to your inbox every Friday.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Move over, New York: Why London is the world's greatest city

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
The publishing world has become overrun by books celebrating particular points in time. A few years ago, Bill Bryson wrote an entire book about 1927; just last month, David Hepworth wrote a wonderful case for 1971 as the apotheosis of post-war pop music.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
I left London in 2002 more or less by accident. A cousin had casually mentioned that you could get a decent flat in Paris for £60,000, so I crossed the Channel and bought one. I didn't plan to live in it, but it felt like compensation for never having bought in London. A few months later, after my London flat-share hit trouble, I tried Paris for a spring. I'm still here, now accompanied by a wife and three Parisian children.

But thoughts of returning to London do occasionally surface. The place looks better than I can ever remember it, and the Brexit vote has deflated property prices a touch. Warren Buffett says: "Be fearful when others are greedy, and be greedy when others are fearful." So post-Brexit might be the time to buy a share in London. Yet even if the city becomes cheaper, I still don't see that it makes sense for a family.

London starts out with three strikes against: high costs, bad weather and a sprawling expanse that means getting around can take for ever. High costs have a particularly damaging knock-on effect: for most Londoners, money becomes an obsession. You need lots of it to afford a decent life here, so you spend lots of time thinking about money. That's why so many middle-class London conversations are, famously, about house prices. As John Lanchester, author of the novel Capital, has remarked, the most frightening words in the English language aren't "I had a very interesting dream last night" (Oscar Wilde's candidate) but "Did you hear how much they got for that house down the road?"

Median Londoners don't have much money left after paying for their housing, but they keep bumping into rich people. One evening in my late twenties I went out with an old friend, an investment banker, who let slip over cheap Chinese food that he was on a "seven-figure package". I suddenly felt depressed about my own perfectly decent income.

In Paris I don't meet many millionaires. The real luxury in life is not money, but not having to think about money, and that state of being is more attainable in Paris than in London.

Brexit may have the unintended consequence of reducing the role of money in London life. If some rich people like my banker friend are pushed abroad, there will be more air for people like me. However, even before Brexit happens, it is already tarnishing London's biggest asset: its openness to the world.

London's era of peak openness only began about 20 years ago. In 1993 the EU legally became a single market, making it easier for continental Europeans to live in London. The Eurostar opened a year later, and then easyJet and Ryanair connected the city to places all over Europe. Meanwhile, London's financial industry was becoming more global, and the money sucked in people from everywhere.

How serious is the threat - and might there even be some opportunities?

But in the debate over Brexit - even before the vote for it in June - the British public sent an unmistakable signal to the government that it wanted less openness. I can already see the consequences in my own little working world. As a columnist, I'm always looking for ideas. I often try to find them at conferences.

However, since 2015 the rules governing visiting conference speakers seem to have tightened: in many cases, those from outside the EU now need a work permit to give even one paid talk at one conference. I can't see most speakers bothering. Either they will break the law and pretend they are tourists, or London's many conferences are going to get less varied.

The mayor on the capital's global rivals, self-rule, terrorism and that tricky third runway

Another good place to steal ideas is academia. Since the 1990s, British universities have filled up with excellent academics from everywhere. But imagine a German academic who gets an offer of tenure at a British university now. The department trying to hire her might already be losing its European grants. Then she has to guess: will British employment rules change after Brexit? Can her German spouse make a career in London? Families have to make decisions for the long term, and the Brexit vote has deprived London of another of its biggest assets: predictable long-term stability.

London's new mayor, Sadiq Khan, knows that his battle will be to keep the capital open. He may even succeed, especially once the rest of the UK realises how dependent it is on London's tax revenues.

But for now I prefer to be two hours, 15 minutes by train from London. In a few days' time I'll be whizzing over again. I will run around meeting work contacts, then have dinner with a group of friends (none of whom live in London any more, mostly because it's too expensive). The next day I'll attend a festival, then go back to raising a family in Paris.

Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2017. All rights reserved. You may share using our article tools. Please don't cut articles from FT.com and redistribute by email or post to the web.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Post-Brexit London may be less open - and less money-obsessed

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
I left London in 2002 more or less by accident. A cousin had casually mentioned that you could get a decent flat in Paris for £60,000, so I crossed the Channel and bought one. I didn't plan to live in it, but it felt like compensation for never having bought in London.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
It is the eve of the Big Bang and on the floor of the London Stock Exchange gentlemen stockbrokers from firms such as Seligman Harris, Phillips & Drew, Capel Cure Myers and Quilter & Co give orders to jobbers who make the trades. The jobbers - many of them East End boys employed by Akroyd & Smithers, Wedd Durlacher, Pinchin Denny, Smith Brothers, Bisgood Bishop and Charles Pulley - record each transaction by hand in their books.

To today's young stockbroker, the description of the trading floor in the early 1980s seems like an account from a very distant past. The company names are consigned to the history books. The term "jobber" has been replaced with that of "market maker", much of whose role is now done electronically. And, most importantly, the Big Bang in 1986 removed the separation between the stockbroking and market-making functions. Combined with the abolition of exchange controls and corporation tax cuts by Margaret Thatcher's government, it paved the way for London to become a truly international centre again.

"The past 30 years have been the most concentrated period of change the City of London has ever seen," says James Fleming, chief executive of Arbuthnot Latham, a private bank. As the City looks ahead to the next 30 years, it is worth keeping this in mind.

The near-term future of the City is inextricably linked with politics. The rise of the UK Independence Party and continental European nationalist parties in this year's European elections have played into the hands of eurosceptics, who argue that Britain would be better off outside the EU. A referendum on Britain's EU membership looks likely.

Beyond this there has also been concern that London's political influence was waning in Europe after the retirement of key allies such as Liberal Democrat MEP Sharon Bowles, who chaired the economics and financial committee, the main forum for negotiating City regulation and holding the European Central Bank to account. The appointment earlier this month of Lord Hill to oversee the financial sector in the EU has, however, been well received in the City.

London's future as a financial centre is intrinsically linked to whether it stays in the EU, says Phillip Souta, head of UK public policy at Clifford Chance, one of the "magic circle" of big UK law firms. "If we are still a member of the EU, the City will be in the most advantageous position it could possibly occupy. If we're not in the EU, it would become a very different proposition," he says.

Then it would depend on what "out" looked like, says Souta - whether Britain clinched deals similar to those won by Switzerland, Norway or Turkey.

Much financial market activity in the EU is concentrated in the UK. London is not only the UK's financial centre - it is Europe's too.

Asia is looking at London and new York quizzically: the moment you regulate the golden goose out of there, they'll be there to pick up the pieces

"Foreign direct investment comes to the UK not just for its benign trading environment but because it has full access to the EU markets through its passporting system," Souta adds. "In 30 years' time there could be no passports and a single, highly liquid European capital market. If the UK is outside that, it risks turning into a large offshore centre. London would have to go through a Doctor Who-like regeneration."

A change in London's accommodating stance on foreign direct investment or immigration could pose a threat to its competitiveness, says Chris Cummings, chief executive of TheCityUK, a lobby group for the financial services sector. "We have a very open market for foreign direct investment that gives us a good bargaining chip in other parts of the world. London has built a reputation of being open to immigration at different levels," he says.

Meanwhile, Nigel Farage, leader of Ukip, has advocated a five-year ban on immigrants settling in the UK and wants the UK to leave the EU. Then in May, Labour's shadow business secretary Chuka Umunna threatened to block the proposed £63bn takeover of pharmaceuticals group AstraZeneca by its US rival Pfizer, if the party wins the general election. The deal subsequently fell through.

The City is in the midst of a raft of new regulation, from curbs on bankers' bonuses to structural changes such as the ring-fencing of retail and investment banking operations. On the one hand, banks are facing stricter capital requirements. On the other, they are being urged to lend more to small and medium-sized businesses, the lifeblood of the UK economy.

The business of equity research is undergoing a big structural change after the Financial Conduct Authority endorsed European proposals to stop banks charging investors for research out of sharedealing commissions.

All of these could lessen London's competitiveness.

"Asia is looking at London and New York quizzically: the moment you regulate the golden goose out of there, they'll be there to pick up the pieces," says David Buik, a market commentator at stockbroker Panmure Gordon.

Once other emerging economies, such as countries in Africa, start complying with universal corporate governance and business culture, they could also pose a threat, Buik adds.

Xavier Rolet, chief executive of the London Stock Exchange, believes that in 30 years there will be greater global regulatory harmony: "Prudential and financial conduct regulations will substantially harmonise and lead to a gradual globalisation and integration of standards and of the financial supervision process across various key North American, European and Asian markets."

This will play into the development and further automation of processes, says Rolet: "The next 30 years will be about the automation of financial information disclosure as well as the primary capital-raising process."

Developments are also taking place in working practices, following scientific progress and a series of deaths among finance workers that has raised questions about stress levels and the way employees are treated. Thirty years ago it was unheard of to visit the gym in the middle of the working day, but now the merits of physical exercise are undisputed and it has become ubiquitous.

Beyond physical exercise, some in the traditionally conservative City are turning to meditation, which has gained some legitimacy. Many believe the practice can bring greater clarity and improve performance.

An increasing number of City institutions - such as KPMG, Goldman Sachs and the Bank of England - have presented "mindfulness" to staff in seminars.

Might City offices one day be equipped with dedicated meditation pods and areas? Tara Swart, a neuroscientist and business coach, predicts still more surprising developments. "Cognitive enhancement - both from natural and less conventional sources - is gaining more attention, as people realise the role that sleep, exercise and diet, plus supplementation, play in memory and concentration," she says.

"It is only a matter of time before pharmaceutical companies come up with legal performance-enhancing drugs for the workplace."

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
It is the eve of the Big Bang and on the floor of the London Stock Exchange gentlemen stockbrokers from firms such as Seligman Harris, Phillips & Drew, Capel Cure Myers and Quilter & Co give orders to jobbers who make the trades.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Science of the 2012 Summer Olympics | NSF - National Science Foundation

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Timing is everything, especially at the 2012 Summer Olympics where even a millisecond could mean the difference between victory and defeat. Linda Milor, an electrical engineer at Georgia Institute of Technology, explains why Olympic timekeeping technology must be able to measure an athlete's performance with both accuracy and precision.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Some of the starkest images from the financial fall of Greece have been of its 2004 Olympic Games buildings: abandoned stadiums and peeling paint telling tales of broken promises and soured dreams. Whatever else might be said about London's Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park three years after the 2012 Olympics, it is no tumbleweed vista. The broader issue, though, is whether it is helping to provide the kind of legacy the people of east London were promised.

Certainly the Olympic Park itself - all 560 acres of it - is shaping up, filling out and once again inviting the multitudes in. The London Legacy Development Corporation (LLDC) - formed shortly before the Games as the planning authority for the park and its environs - claims that, since it started to reopen two years ago, the park has had more than 4m visits. Neale Coleman, LLDC board chairman and Olympics adviser to London mayor Boris Johnson, says that these include "loads and loads of local people. It really is used by the community and it's going to be even better for them in the future."

The permanent sports venues have led the way. Last March, Zaha Hadid's curvaceous aquatics centre, whose soaring construction costs caused much disquiet when it was being built, became a public facility, with entrance prices pegged to local levels. During the same month, the equally striking velodrome - scene of some of Britain's most memorable medal wins - formally became part of the larger Lee Valley VeloPark, catering for cyclists of all types and abilities.

Compare us with Sydney or Barcelona or Beijing ... They've all struggled, but we're on course to do what we said we would

Neale Coleman

The multi-purpose Copper Box Arena, which hosted handball and other events, had already reopened and is now used by the public and local clubs for an array of indoor sports. Close to it, the former media complex - which for the three weeks of the Games was crammed with journalists and broadcast units - has been renamed as Here East and is to be developed into the digital and creative industry hub always envisaged.

There had been dismay in 2011 when the BBC decided against relocating the EastEnders production operation to Here East from Elstree, and Boris Johnson later came under pressure from within his own ranks to level the site for housing. But BT Sport has become the longed-for glamorous anchor tenant, Loughborough University will set up a postgraduate research centre there, and Hackney Community College will move in to supply apprentices. Commercial tenants are confidently predicted to follow.

Meanwhile, the main Olympic stadium has hosted further leading athletics competitions, with the third-anniversary Games starting tomorrow and featuring 2012 stars Usain Bolt and Mo Farah. The original structure is undergoing a major reconstruction so that it can also become the new home of West Ham United from next August. The conversion costs involved have stirred controversy - £272m, of which the football club will pay just £15m plus annual rent of £2.5m, bringing the final price tag to £702m. But with Rugby World Cup fixtures, community sports days and cultural events to be held there along with Hammers matches, the 54,000-seat bowl seems unlikely to gather dust.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest

Not enough people want to go up Anish Kapoor's ArcelorMittal Orbit sculpture. Photograph: Paul Thomas/Getty Images

The one fixed feature underperforming so far at the Olympic Park is the ArcelorMittal Orbit, Anish Kapoor's giant coiling red sculpture: not enough people want to go up it. There are plans to lower the entrance fee and attach a giant slide to the side of it.

Depending on your point of view, all this represents grotesque overindulgence or a commendable exception to the usual Olympics rule, which holds that the showcase infrastructure falls into varying degrees of disuse and grand "legacy" pledges go unfulfilled. For Coleman, the positive interpretation clearly applies. "Never mind Athens, compare us with Sydney or Barcelona or Beijing as well. They've all struggled, but we're on course to do what we said we would, and not just with the park and the venues."

Before Johnson became mayor, Coleman worked for his predecessor Ken Livingstone and was involved with the Games bid from its conception in 2003. Livingstone and fellow Labour politicians who argued the case for a London Olympics - primarily the then-culture secretary Tessa Jowell, eventually supported by then-prime minister Tony Blair - argued that an Olympics set in the part of the capital that had historically been its poorest would sharply accelerate an economic rebirth that was desperately required by Londoners who had yet to enjoy much obvious benefit from their city's renewed prosperity since the 1980s.

Livingstone was famously candid. Uninterested in sport and never a big fan of Blair, he characterised the bid as "the only way to get billions of pounds out of the government to develop the East End". In 2007, when it was announced that the overall Olympic budget had trebled to £9.3bn, he was moved to reassert that the levy he had been raising on London's council tax-payers to help pay the growing bill represented good value for money - the 38p "bargain" price of a Walnut Whip a week, as he put it, for a Band D household.

[The Olympics bid was] the only way to get billions of pounds out of the government to develop the East End

Ken Livingstone

Facebook Twitter Pinterest

The Olympic Stadium is undergoing a major reconstruction so that it can become the new home of West Ham United from next August. Photograph: Andy Hall for the Observer

The pros and cons of sinking such substantial public funds into one of Europe's largest regeneration projects can be weighed in many ways but, for Ian Crockford of property developer Lend Lease, it has achieved the legacy goal of drawing investment eastwards. He was project manager of the stadium under the Olympic Delivery Authority, the now defunct body that assembled and cleared the park land and was responsible for the construction of its venues, facilities and infrastructure. Now he is in charge of the creation of a four-million sq ft office area, the International Quarter, beside the Westfield Stratford City shopping centre on the park's south-eastern fringe.

"The location is its winning point," Crockford enthuses, listing its strengths: open space, sports facilities, transport links to central London, lots of restaurants and many shops. The mix of park ingredients has shifted over time, with fewer homes than originally planned for its future five new residential neihgbourhoods but with the addition of a culture and education centre, Olympicopolis. This is expected to begin opening from 2019, and will contain new spac

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
London's Olympic legacy three years on: is the city really getting what it needed?

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Some of the starkest images from the financial fall of Greece have been of its 2004 Olympic Games buildings: abandoned stadiums and peeling paint telling tales of broken promises and soured dreams. Whatever else might be said about London's Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park three years after the 2012 Olympics, it is no tumbleweed vista.

# data[].attributes.headline
London 2012 Olympic Games and the British Spirit

# data[].attributes.subject
London 2012 Olympic Games and the British Spirit

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
A couple of days into the Olympics, with British fans still waiting anxiously for our first gold, the French President could not resist a little gibe.

Britain, said Francois Hollande, had 'rolled out the red carpet for French athletes to pick up medals'. And in a dig at the perceived commercialism of the London Games, he added that in Paris, 'we don't talk of money, we talk of gold'.

How splendidly, exquisitely ill-conceived those remarks look today. For when the Olympics reach their conclusion tomorrow evening, it will mark an end to the most spectacular, glorious and downright emotional two weeks in British sporting history.

Like many people, I had plenty of misgivings during the build-up to London's Games. Indeed, I still think the Olympics are too extravagant and too commercialised, that the sponsors are absurdly over-indulged and that the world's leaders spend far more time on sporting photo-opportunities than they should.

But those are arguments for another day. For as soon as Bradley Wiggins, Britain's magnificent winner of the Tour de France, stepped out to ring the Olympic bell and kick off the spectacular opening ceremony, it was as though my doubts had simply vanished.

That night, in common with almost half the population of our islands, I found myself almost struck dumb with wonder at Danny Boyle's love letter to our native land.

Even for people who detest sport, the past two weeks have been a patriotic extravaganza, with few parallels in our recent history.

To see so many British athletes wiping away the tears as the National Anthem plays, so many Union Jacks flying with unashamed enthusiasm, and so many people speaking unaffectedly of their pride to be British, has been a tremendously moving experience.

Coming so soon after the triumph of the Diamond Jubilee, which reaffirmed the deep bond between the British people and our Royal Family, the Games have been a valuable reminder of everything that most of us love about our country.

A particular joy has been the rekindling of Britishness itself - which, we are so often told, is in danger of dying out.

Indeed, if Alex Salmond and his Scottish Nationalists had had their way, there would have been no British team at these Olympics at all.

For decades it has been fashionable in liberal circles to run down British identity, to dismiss the Union Jack as the flag of racist imperialism, and to smear ordinary patriotism as tantamount to xenophobia.

The UK, we were often told, would soon be heading for the dustbin of history. Soon we would all be European, then national allegiances would count for nothing.

Even Monsieur Hollande, once more aiming squarely at his own foot, declared that only 'the results of Europe' really mattered. 'We will put the French medals into the Europe pot, so the British will be happy to be European,' he said tartly.

Looking at their own medal tally, you can see why the French are so keen on a 'Europe pot'. After all, they have a pretty wretched record in international contests, sporting or otherwise.

But to the vast crowds cheering on home-grown heroes like Jessica Ennis, long jumper Greg Rutherford, cyclists Victoria Pendleton and Jason Kenny, the idea of a common European identity must sound like a joke.

Amid the flags along the cycling routes, the Team GB T-shirts and the cheers and tears of encouragement and pride, it is overwhelmingly clear that British patriotism burns as brightly as ever.

Perversely, though, the attitude of the BBC top brass goes against this mood. How ironic that the boss of the country's public broadcasting organisation, Mark Thompson, should order the Corporation's news teams to stop focusing so much on Team GB's success, because he was 'increasingly unhappy' about the patriotic tone of the news coverage.

In many ways, the most heartening moment of the Games came at Mo Farah's post-race press conference, when an African journalist asked him whether he would rather have competed for Somalia, where he was born.

'Look, mate,' Farah said firmly. 'This is my country. When I put on the Great Britain vest, I feel proud. Very proud.'

Farah - whose victory in the 10,000 metres was, for me, the defining and most emotional moment of the Games - came to this country from Somalia at the age of eight. He did not speak a word of English. But here he was, a proud Londoner and a proud Briton, suffused with joy after winning in front of his home crowd.

What better symbol could there be of a united, inclusive country in the post-imperial age? What better advert for British identity: confident and colour-blind?

What better answer to those who insist that Britishness is dead, and multi-culturalism is the future? And what better rebuke to the narrow-minded nationalists who want to break up our country and reduce it to a handful of petty fragments?

Certainly I doubt whether many of Sebastian Coe's 70,000 Olympic volunteers would like to see the UK bite the dust.

Along with the Armed Forces personnel, who have been a tremendous credit to their country, these ordinary men and women - from the dancing nurses at the opening ceremony to the volunteers at railway stations and airports - were the unsung heroes of these Games.

This was the Big Society in action - just without the spin and the slogans.

One schoolteacher drove 280 miles from his native Newquay, often getting up at 4.30am, to help at the fencing events.

And in another of those stories that bring tears to the eyes, a consultant anaesthetist, Andrew Hartle, said that volunteering at the Games had helped him exorcise the ghosts of the 7/7 bombings. Dr Hartle had treated the victims of that terrible atrocity - which came just the day after London won the right to host the Games - and the memories had haunted him for years.

But when he watched the opening ceremony, he said, he wept with pride. So did I - although, as an admirer of the stiff upper lip, I am a little embarrassed to admit it.

Unlike Aidan Burley, the Tory MP who used Twitter to criticise the opening ceremony as 'Leftie multicultural c***', I fail to see what is so Left-wing or multicultural about celebrating William Shakespeare, Edward Elgar, Isambard Kingdom Brunel, James Bond, the Queen and Winston Churchill.

That Danny Boyle packed all these icons into the ceremony - as well as the NHS, The Beatles, the Sex Pistols and a host of British sporting heroes - was a tribute to his extraordinary directorial flair.

For my money, few people have better captured the glorious richness, eccentricity, and humour of our national culture than Boyle and his army of volunteers did that night.

Perhaps, had the ceremony been the curtain-raiser for two weeks of failure, it might have gone down as a grandiloquent folly. But what followed was better than any of us had dared imagine.

On the surface, the victories of Jessica Ennis, yachstman Ben Ainslie, triathlete Alistair Brownlee and their team-mates were a tribute to their extraordinary talent. But, of course, there was more to it than that.

What all our medallists have in common is a ferocious work ethic. Almost all have experienced crushing disappointments in their careers, from below-par performances to desperate injury problems.

But they dusted themselves down, picked themselves up, and re-applied themselves to the task.

Many had made enormous sacrifices to compete in the Games in the first place.

Think of Jessica Ennis, pounding the roads of her native Sheffield in the freezing cold; think of all those rowers, dragging themselves out of bed before dawn for another punishing session on the river; think, too, of cyclist Joanna Rowsell, stricken with alopecia but soaring to gold.

Even Andy Murray, having been dismissed weeks earlier in the Wimbledon final by the imperious Roger Federer, might have been expected to crumble. But his comprehensive revenge in the Olympic final was an unforgettable reminder that success never comes without grit and guts. All of us could, I suspect, learn from our medallists' example. Indeed, what makes their sporting prowess so remarkable is that it goes against the national trend.

For all our Olympic success, the truth is that Britain is an increasingly lazy and unhealthy country.

Fewer than one in three of our children regularly plays competitive sport, and our fitness levels are falling twice as fast as the international average. Research has suggested that nearly half British adults cannot run 100 metres without stopping.

Successive governments deserve a large share of the blame. Selling off 10,000 school sports fields between 1979 and 1997 was one of the most foolish things the Thatcher and Major governments ever did.

New Labour then flogged off another 200. And, shamefully, it emerged during the Games that the Coalition has already approved plans to sell another 20.

All this has been compounded by an educational ethos that shudders at the thought of competition and dreads the thought of rewarding winners. As a result, thousands of children have been denied the chance to learn the virtues of effort, teamwork and self-reliance - in other words, to better themselves - through sport. Remember that before Mo Farah took up running, he was a gangly, uncomfortable, struggling boy who often seemed the odd one out. It was his inspirational PE teacher, Alan Watkinson, who introduced him to cross-country running - thereby changing his life.

Every child deserves the chance to meet an Alan Watkinson of his - or, indeed, her - own. By instilling the drive to succeed, and by teaching the virtues of red-raw competition, sport can improve lives.

This is precisely why the Victorians invented so many of our current games - because they knew the benefits they brought. And this must be the enduring legacy of these Games. Our state schools simply must be made to invest in competitive school sport: we cannot afford to lose another generation to the lure of the PlayStation.

For if, when the crowds have gone, we sink back into our torpor, then it will all have been for nothing.

Of course the cheers will fade eventually. The Olympics have been a stunning success, but when they end tomorrow night, reality will come crashing down. My fervent hope is that the feelgood factor lasts. But even during the Games, there have been reminders of the profound problems that this country faces, from the deepening rift at the heart of the Coalition to the continuing woes of the international banking system and the financial chaos at the centre of the eurozone.

Our politicians have had a fine time watching Britain's medallists, and London Mayor Boris Johnson's antics have added to the gaiety of our national life. But in the months to come, with the economy in reverse and little prospect of recovery, our leaders are bound to face awful challenges.

Perhaps they should take heart from what I see as the other crucial legacy of these Games: our rediscovered sense of patriotism and national unity.

We in Britain are often quick to run ourselves down. Instinctively we shrink from the tub-thumping of our neighbours and cousins. To put it bluntly, we are never happier than when we are complaining.

Yet ours is the country of Shakespeare, Isaac Newton, Charles Darwin and Brunel; the land of James Bond, The Beatles and Harry Potter; the home of free speech, parliamentary democracy and the rule of law.

It was in Britain that the Scientific and Industrial Revolutions first changed the face of modern society. It was a Briton who rallied the world during World War II, and a Briton who invented the World Wide Web.

Yes, we have made our fair share of mistakes. Yes, we are far from perfect - as we are usually the first to admit.

But this weekend, perhaps more than any other for years, we should fly the flag without shame or apology, and let our hearts swell with pride.

It might surprise many of us to admit it, but when all is said and done, we really do live in the greatest country in the world.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
How glorious, after years of our national identity being denigrated, to see patriotism rekindled

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
A couple of days into the Olympics, with British fans still waiting anxiously for our first gold, the French President could not resist a little gibe. Britain, said Francois Hollande, had 'rolled out the red carpet for French athletes to pick up medals'.