Ex-Tabula Rasa

Oral-B’s official Olympic toothbrush exists because its parent company, Procter & Gamble, has a sponsorship deal enabling it to associate all its products with the Games. That’s why if you look up Viakal limescale remover on a supermarket website, the famous five interlocking rings pop up alongside it. This in no way cheapens the Olympic emblem, which traditionally symbolises global unity, peaceful competition and gleaming stainless steel shower baskets.

When you’re done sprucing up your teeth and your bathroom, you could further embrace the Olympic spirit by slurping a Coca-Cola (official Olympic drink) followed by a Twirl from Cadbury’s (official Olympic snack provider). Or really go the whole hog and polish off a couple of Sausage-and-Egg McMuffins at your local McDonald’s (official Olympic restaurant), after which you should be ready to represent Britain in the 400-litre diarrhoea.

I’ve never understood why firms are prepared to shell out a fortune simply to refer to the Olympics in their advertising, but then I’ve always been mildly baffled by the popularity of sport full-stop. I also never understood why Gillette paid Tiger Woods, a man famous for hitting balls with a stick, a huge amount of money to promote scraping a bit of sharp metal across your face – only to sideline him when it became apparent that as well as hitting balls with a stick, he had been inserting his penis into as many different women as possible, an aspiration he presumably shared with the vast majority of Gillette’s customers.