Steve Regan: the King of Hull 29 August 04 continued

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I never did like the intense competition of our modern Olympics. It's motto Citius, Altius, Fortius (Faster, Higher, Stronger) is a very stupid one. This slogan has fascist and eugenic undertones, which are encouraged by the way competition is organised, unnecessarily pitting nation against nation. The Athens Olympics are a sharp reminder of the great danger inherent in any sport - that of obsessive concentration on the physical to the exclusion of everything else. People who become obsessed with sport fail to grow in imagination and in the humour and spirituality that are essential aspects of life as a fully-rounded person. If you have any doubt about that, just consider how utterly thick many top sports "stars" seem when they are interviewed on the telly. Some Premiership football stars I can think of, while admittedly displaying technical brilliance and great intuitive skills on the park, remain staggeringly stupid all their lives. This is because they have neglected to train themselves in ways other than purely physical. They have deliberately cut themselves off from stimulation and the intellectual and emotional riches of human existence.

ONE thing I've learned, as the sort of columnist who writes from the heart and truly states what he thinks (instead of what people expect to hear), is that you do get angry letters from time to time. Of course, there are "columnists", in local newspapers around here for instance, who never write anything interesting enough to provoke any sort of response (no names, no pack drill). Frankly, I doubt if anyone even bothers to read such milksop scribblers.

Anyway, my point is that in this and my other columns I have often rightly blamed teachers for the appalling lack of literacy and numeracy skills among school leavers. I don't believe the Government lies about constantly improving A level pass rates, for instance, when so many teenagers, particularly in Hull where state schooling is truly appalling, can't speak, write, read or add up properly.

Since this column was written, Mr Westwood has been reinstated as Chief Constable of Humberside on condition that he retires in March 2005. A new chief will take over on April 1.

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