I feel like I am a penitent entering the confessional box. It is ages since my last Soar Magazine blog and I am truly sorry.

A lot of water has flowed under the bridge since then, some of it rather murky water for us as a nation and a city but most of it dazzling, gurgling, racing along with so many exciting things – for me, for Leicester and for Great Britain – happening as we build to the summer of 2012.

Let’s start with the murky stuff. I was having a very fine break in California when the US media started to report on riots in this country. Slow to cover anything other than things happening within the US borders it was quite a shock to see images on TV that took me back to the 80s.

The stories and the images of London and then Manchester and Birmingham burning brought on a flood of emotions: anger, sorrow, despair, pity and revulsion but there was also relief that my own tolerant, good natured city was not afflicted. And then of course it happened in Leicester too. I am not going to enter the debate as to why these things happen and how they might be prevented. I’m not going to pass judgement on the perpetrators – the legal system, parents and communities must do that.

I am going to say a big thank you to those who prevented matters from escalating beyond control and express huge sympathy to those that lost property and potential earnings through the actions of a very misguided few. My fervent hope is that this city and our country has seen the last of such pernicious trouble.

On to the glittering water, the white water, racing along towards London 2012 and immersing so many of us in its brightness…

Less than one year to go now with Test Events cropping up all over the place, giving us a chance to showcase facilities and organisational skills well ahead of July 27th 2012. Whether it be equestrian events on Greenwich Park, beach volleyball on Horseguards Parade or cycle road racing over the Olympic course and ending on the Mall, we seem to be more than passing the test.

Our performers, too, seem to be feeling the uplifting effects of having a home crowd behind them with some stunning results and many examples of athletes punching above their weight. A classic example came in the badminton staged at Wembley Arena where the British mixed doubles pair of Adcock and Bankier pulled off a surprise silver medal in the World Championships. Less surprising perhaps but equally glorious was Mark Cavendish’s win in the road race over a shortened Olympic course. How fantastic it will be if he can repeat that over the full course next year.

Taking place now and the rest of this week up is the first Test event on the Olympic Park with the GB men’s basketball team competing against five of the world’s top sides. What’s the betting that the fantastic fillip of playing on the Olympic Park will lift GB’s performances, despite us being a relative minnow in the Olympic world?

Lots of Olympic-related stuff has happened to me and for me since my last blog. I have had a Games Maker interview. I am through to the last 28,000 of those nominated to carry the Olympic Torch in 2012. And, perhaps most excitingly, purely on a numbers basis, I am one of 100 people selected by BT as BT Storytellers, who, alongside Olympians and Paralympians past and present, will get to tell the story of my journey to London 2012.

From my point of view this is both a great honour and a big challenge, a challenge because being a competitive beast I will want my own humble journey to bear comparison with the other 99 members of the general public, some of whom are pretty big hitters, and celebrity Storytellers like Dame Kelly Holmes, Oscar Pistorious and the amazing Brownlee brothers.

You can find out more about it at http://www.btlondon2012.co.uk/storytellers/index.php

I was invited to the launch event at London St Pancras and I would have had a chance not only to meet heroes of mine like Daley Thompson and Seb Coe but to go inside the Olympic Stadium and even stage a mock run down the straight. Instead, I was working on my Legacy job, having a fantastic day at the Lincolnshire School Games pilot in Grantham and meeting the madly handsome, silver-haired Jonathan Edwards and the not quite so handsome (but very good fun) mascots Wenlock and Mandeville but, most importantly, hundreds of young people enjoying a day of competitive sport in the sunshine. They had a day they will not forget in a very long time and that is much of what legacy from London 2012 is all about.

It’s a great thrill to have got beyond round one of the Torchbearer process and it would be fantastic in the summer of 2012 to have my ‘moment to shine’, having a little jog with the Torch somewhere in Leicestershire. There are 27 999 others at this point too and there will be many of them, I suspect, worthier than I am but I have at least had a little foretaste having seen and held the 2012 prototype when it was at Radio Leicester last month. I had with me the London 1948 Torch which I had the privilege of putting (unlit) into the hands of a couple of thousand youngsters at the beginning of July and seeing what a magical effect that piece of Olympic memorabilia could create. ‘Awesome’ was a word I heard several times in those few weeks.

Games Maker? Again, I was pleased to get beyond stage one and earn an interview to volunteer in the Press Operations team for London 2012. Not everybody who applied got an interview and I felt it went well so for a few weeks during the Olympics or Paralympics I might just be there helping to create or process the news stories of the Games.

If I do – that will be my summer holiday in 2012 so it was wonderful to get an amazing holiday under my belt in 2011 with a trip to California. It took most of my savings but some of the sights in Yosemite Valley and Sequoia Grove took my breath away and I saw a real live black bear just ambling across my path. Almost wet myself but fantastic anyway!

And finally, congratulations and best wishes to the eight Leicester Ladies Hockey Club players who are competing from this weekend in Germany in the European Championships. Crista Cullen, Chloe Rogers, Kerry Williams, Anne Panter, Hannah MacLeod, Beckie Herbert, Laura Unsworth and Maddie Hinch make up almost half of England’s squad of 18 for the event! The side has had some great results of late so I am really hopeful of them coming back with an appropriately shiny medal!

*For the ancient among you, the headline, owing something to veteran entertainer Max Bygraves, will make sense. For those who are baffled check out http://www.maxbygraves.com/index2.htm