(Young Ones Rik voice) OK, hands up, who likes me?

Michael who was that again?

Michael Jamieson. Gave an interview to the Guardian. He would Room 101 cricket, he said. He won a silver medal in the swimming. So, he's the second-best swimmer, over a certain distance, doing a certain stroke.

Swimming. Dive. Swim fast, turn, swim back fast. Race over. Not the stuff of sporting dreams, is it? A solitary sport. I'm trying to think of the great swimming novels, the great swimming venues, the great swimming writers, the legends, the...nope. No use.

Swimming = no charisma, no public interest (outside a small minority of swimming devotees, don't meet a lot of those, do you, Michael?). Go into any gathering, you'll meet someone interested and knowledgable about cricket. An enthusiast will surface. Swimming? There was that Aussie, was it a man or woman, was it Shane something, won a load of gold medals, Duncan Goodhew, who was bald and won nothing, and a Yank who won a load but I forget his name, primarily because I never cared what his name was in the first place.

Sport means competition and competition means winners and losers and that means league tables and a pecking order, and swimming is pretty well in relegation territory in the local league division seven (south). Kids don't dream of swimming unless they're very odd indeed. They dream of banging in goals at Wembley, scoring tries at Twickenham or centuries at Lords.

If a footballer, or a rugby player, or a cricketer made the error of being disrespectful about swimming, at least he'd have the right. Not only is the training hard and the determination, dedication and effort huge, but there's risk, there's pain and bruises and worse if you are unlucky. Swimming? What's the worst that can happen? Sharks? I pay to see that event. For a swimmer to be disrespectful about cricket is like the proverbial rabbit having a go at the bear.

To summarise, Michael, you are the sporting equivalent of drying paint, criticising something infinitely more complex, multi-faceted, detailed and interesting than a bunch of budgie-smuggling baldies thrashing your way up and down a pool. That metal-on-metal grating sound? That's the bore-o-meter going off the scale. Must be pointed at the swimming.

Shame, they got boos

A spokesperson for the Ministers presenting medals at the Paralympics who were booed said it was a shame and that it detracted from the enjoyment and achievement of the winners.

Why not try something revolutionary?

Why not have retired, successful Paralympians present the medals? Why not have well liked and respected people present the medals? Why not have Olympians present the Paralympians with their medals?

To cut through the list, why not get rapists and murderers to hand out the gongs. They're probably on a par, respect-wise, with the expenses-cheating, nest-feathering dirty rotten scoundrels that inhabit Westminster. Like the bailed out bankers, they don't get it. They've never got it. They'll never get it.

Guys, you are reviled. Up there with history's biggest hate figures. Man up and stop kidding yourselves.