And it was a daydream if anyone really believed that the Olympic Torch Procession would get around the world without encountering demonstrations given the current activity in Tibet.

But it was a ‘dammed if you do and dammed if you don’t’ PR situation wasn’t it?

The whole point of the Torch Procession is to raise the profile of the Olympics and bring out the crowds.  The trouble is, in the West if you want a crowd you have to take what comes and in the UK we are more Flashmob than Rentacrowd.

It could have been a PR disaster. With the snow and cold wind nobody might have turned up to see Paula, Sir Steve, Dames Kelly and Ellen et al do their bit. At least the streets were lined with people rather than empty, even if they were the ‘wrong’ people.

We PRs know that you have to be grateful if anybody turns-up to an event and it certainly generated publicity.