The news from the Lincolnshire County Show yesterday was that the prize for best ram (Suffolk breed) was taken controversially by J. T. and E. S. Midgley, cross-border raiders from Yorkshire. We can also reveal that the maximum diameter for a Birds Eye pea is 10.4 millimetres.

Our garden pea information comes from the stand occupied by The Forum for Sustainable Farming, which is hard to miss because of the noise being made by its neighbour. For here, causing quite a stir, is London 2012, the roadshow. It launched last week in Greenwich and this spot among the best livestock of Lincoln is the second of 27 proposed stopovers in the next ten weeks, as far and wide as Belfast, the Cairngorms and Builth Wells. And it is a very good thing.

For anyone confused by the messianic rhetoric of London 2012, here is some flesh on the bone. Lord Coe tells us he wants the London Olympics to inspire the Xbox generation off their backsides – which sounds good. But here is his organisation genuinely doing just that.

Roger Black was among the former Olympians and future Olympians providing a reception committee for the roadshow’s visitors yesterday. If you happen to be at the Royal Norfolk Show next week, you will get Jonathan Edwards. And so on.

“Join in” is the message emblazoned across the tour bus and thus I was persuaded to take on Black in the vertical jump (Black won by 22 centimetres). Slightly more important, the punters pitching up here are greeted with an array of strength and talent tests – ergometer, reaction-speed tests, grip strength – and they have the statistics for how Sir Steve Redgrave performed on the ergometer or Audley Harrison in the grip-strength test against which to compare themselves. And more important, when they have been weighed and measured, they are informed which sport they are physiologically ideally suited to.

It does not end there. Your next stop is the Lincolnshire Sports Partnership tent, alongside which you can hook up with the club of the sport of your choice. If any proof was needed that this works, it was the nine-year-old from Old Leake Primary School marching off with a leaflet of the local water sports centre and proudly announcing that he was going to be a kayaker.

There is more to the roadshow than this, but the “Join in” subtext is strong throughout. Punters had fun here yesterday, some came back a second time, by noon 600 questionnaires had been filled out and the organisers had hot-legged it to the nearest photocopier to make some more.

It ticks all the boxes, too. It demonstrates that the 2012 Games are not a solely London event, it dares punters to challenge themselves and, with less than 50 per cent of Lincolnshire’s population reaching healthy levels of physical activity, it engages new people in new sports.

As Black said: “There are thousands of kids out there with enormous talent who will never even have a go. Having these Olympics will at least give some of them a chance.” Basically, this is doing everything that Coe et al talked about at the launch of the Olympic logo at the beginning of the month.

Indeed, the farther the logo launch recedes into the past, it becomes clearer how misconceived the whole PR stunt was. We now know how the logo is going to develop – video and sporting images are going to fill its space – and because of that the day will come when it is perceived to be innovative and popular. But why, then, give the three-line whip to the media, who are naturally wary of marketing speak (the logo “is not a badge or a stamp but a state of mind”, Denise Lewis implored) when you are only giving them the half-finished article?

Last week, the roadshow had its own media launch in Greenwich. Scarcely anyone attended, which was hardly surprising because it had been scheduled at the same time as the site visit by the International Olympic Committee. Which was an error and a shame.

No one would claim that the roadshow is the answer to 2012’s high-minded ideals, but it is at least attempting to tell the whole country what they are all about.

Try your luck
The Dream Statistics test allows punters to compare their performances with British Olympic stars
Men
— Standing vertical jump: Roger Black 73cm, average (18 to 40-year-old) 25cm
— Resting heart rate: Adrian Moorhouse 42 beats per minute; average 55bpm
— Grip strength: Audley Harrison 70kg; average 40kg.
— Seven-stroke ergometer power test: Sir Steve Redgrave 736 watts; average 370W
Women
— Standing vertical jump: Kelly Sotherton 60cm, average 20cm
— Resting heart rate: Kelly Holmes 52 beats per minute; average 60bpm
— Grip strength: Kate Howey 49kg; average 25kg
— Seven-stroke ergometer power test: Kath Grainger 456 watts; average 310W