The extreme surveillance at this unique Games has at times felt like a cautionary tale but the patience and generosity of the people of Tokyo has been a reminder of the best of us
Crouched behind a bush in the shadow of the vast Tokyo Big Sight building, the bearded American man from the small Ukrainian magazine said: “I’m writing an article about smoking at the Olympics.”
A little ragged, a little wired and jazzed-up, the man from the Ukrainian magazine had something about him in that moment of the crazed photographer at General Kurtz’s lair in Apocalypse Now, the person you meet at the end of a long, wild road who leans in and whispers some frazzled truth in your ear. What are you going to say about him, man? That he’s a great man, a kind man? And by the way, I’m writing an article about smoking at the Olympics.
