"One vision" - Team GB's official Olympic & Paralympic song

It was, of course, somehow inevitable that there would be an "official" Team GB for the forthcoming Olympics and Paralympics. There's a long tradition of good and bad sporting songs that have been produced over the years but this is just awful.



Alfie Boe (of "Les Mis") fame and Kimberley Walsh (a sometime member of Girls Aloud) have recorded a version of the Queen classic, One Vision.

It's a great song and it is a classic, but this cover version is simply appalling.

They've tweaked a few words to fit the purpose so "one man" becomes "one team", etc. Not in itself a hanging offence, but it all goes wrong when Alfie Boe opens his mouth.

Mr. Boe's faux-operatic vocal performance just sounds idiotic on this rock song, with it's short phrases and earthiness. It's like when Pavarotti recorded Miserere with Zucchero - the palid Italian pop singer sounded better. Here it is Kimberley Walsh who benefits from the pomposity of Boe's performance which makes Freddie Mercury sound shy.

I also struggle to understand why they're recycling songs from 30 years ago instead of celebrating the current crop of British songwriters by having a new, specially written song.

My final gripe isn't about the song but about "Team GB" - a cringeworthy epithet that manages to ignore the fact that it a UK team that includes Northern Ireland as well as the three Great British nations.

Awful, awful, awful.

Let's hope the opening and closing ceremonies are better than this rubbish.