London - "Don't worry, old son," is how Lord Coe put it to Danny Boyle at lunchtime today, "no one's bound to even notice!"
The remarks come amid fears that royal codgers 'like the Queen and Prince Philip' will never survive sitting through the Slumdog Millionaire's tedious hours-long puff-piece.
Especially if it pisses down on the night.
The stark warning comes as Games organisers admitted 'someone' had forgotten to build a retractable roof over the Stadium.
And to curb Danny Boyle's massive ego to an appropriate 45-minute Opening Ceremony show.
Billed as starting around 9pm the spectacle is to be brought forward by a good few hours in case of mass hysteria breaking out... 'from the sheer inconsequence of it all'.
Boyle is said to be still fuming from the slash-n-burn insult which will spare the assembled 80,000 spectators, 16,000 competitors, 10,000 performance artistes, 7,000 sheep, 120 horses, 2,000 chickens, 60 cows, 10 goats and assorted dogs and geese from the cringefest.
At 27 million squid the show's expenditure has been billed a complete disgrace 'given the austerity bollocks rammed down the nation's throats'.
"Should have given the task to the Chinese," a LOCOG source admitted surreptitiously, "they'd have knocked it out at one tenth of the price."
