A large number of people are currently assembled in Moscow to take part in, watch, or report on, a festival of international sport which, supposedly, contributes to world peace by bringing people of different countries together in a spirit of friendly competition. The popular mythology has it that even the compilation of medal tables, so as to discover which nation has come “top”, is preferable to other ways of asserting national superiority or increasing national prestige—score, score is apparently better than war, war. In fact, those who gather in Moscow are participating in a gigantic charade—a mixture of hypocrisy, chauvinism and plain dishonesty which mirrors accurately enough the world of which it is a part.