A massive waste of time and money or the best thing since sliced bread? Two Times writers give you five good reasons why London should - or should not - host the 2012 Olympic Games. E-mail your response here

Five Reasons For, By Simon Barnes, Chief Sports Writer

1. The Olympic Games is the greatest celebration of being alive that humanity has come up with. Being a part of it is a genuinely enthralling experience. We can forget all the - perfectly true, no doubt - guff about what the Games will do for posterity. After all, posterity has never done much for us. The point is now: and the Olympic Games hands the world and the world's chosen city 17 days of unbridled celebration of being alive.

2. Britain will win lots of medals. The host nation always does. This will be the most wonderful fun: one of the great shared national experiences: like the death of Diana, Princess of Wales, turned upside-down into joy. To be part of a city and a nation in heart-lift will enrich our lives. We will discover all kinds of unlikely heroes and heroines in all kinds of unexpected sport. We will be able to celebrate a great biodiversity of excellence. The vividness of partisanship will add the pleasure of the party.

3. The people who oppose Olympic Games suffer from two things. They are (a) unused to sport and (b) natural begrudgers. You find them everywhere. The Sydney Olympic Games were the greatest Games of all time and enriched the nation's spirit in a profound and meaningful way: and they were preceded by a seven-year chorus of begrudging and whinging. The point about the Games is they bring joy: whether you like sport or you do not. Every one is caught up in the brief for-all-time joy of it.

4. The Olympic Games will be an orgy of flag-waving. "A bit Nuremberg," said Billy Connolly, who neglected to notice that instead of there being one flag, there are 202. This compared with 32 at the World Cup. The Games is not a patriotic rally (outside the United States and the old Soviet Union) but a feast of crazy internationalism that will have a profound effect on the way we all think. The Olympic Games internationalises: sport is the world's Esperanto, and the experience is infinitely more vivid and important for those who are there.