Look out! Big Brother is coming to a telescreen near you. The organisers of the Olympic Games will announce today that they propose to erect up to 60 huge television screens in town centres. These will extend for the length of two cricket pitches. They will broadcast live coverage of the Beijing Games, and carry on in order to warm us up for the London Olympics. When they are not screening sport, they will broadcast a “cultural Olympiad” for local self-publicists. When all other programmes fail, they will switch to BBC News 24. The screens will be muted by night, but they still emit a constant neon flicker. Just 24 years late, but Orwell would be proud.

Since the ancient Olympics, spectators have recognised that watching contests is more exciting in a crowd than in Neronic solitude. Smaller screens of such blethering wallpaper are already operating in railway stations. Such public screens took off at the Sydney Games, and proved popular during the World Cup. Several continental cities have installed screens for major sporting events. Covent Garden has done it for opera.

But some of these British Olympic telescreens are intended to be permanent. They need no planning permission. They will alter and dominate our town centres. They will beam continuous streams of images and information into the consciousness of the not necessarily willing. They may create crowd disorder, noise pollution and tribal boozing. A town centre should be a familiar public space where visitors can enjoy the view and shop, and neighbours can gossip.

This proposed public nuisance is impertinent in every sense. Local councils should blow the whistle on it for a false start immediately.