Charm, character and pyrotechnics headline Opening Ceremony as controversy-fuelled Winter Olympic Games kick off in Beijing

There's a conventional wisdom, unless perhaps you work in Downing Street, that when you want to deflect attention from something really bad then you throw a really big party.

Splashing the cash is recommended when inviting friend or foe in a bid to curry some favour or win some influence - and this show is reportedly costing £9bn and counting.

So here we are, back in Beijing, 14 years later as the Chinese capital becomes the first city to stage both the Summer and Winter Olympics.

When the five-ringed circus last pitched its big tent here, there were some lofty words about how it would change the world's most populous country.

Former International Olympic Committee president Jacques Rogge expressed a hope that the scrutiny of the world would open up the nation.

And perhaps he was right, because China have dropped one place outside the unwanted medals in the World Press Freedom Index, with Eritrea, North Korea and Turkmenistan claiming the podium places. Progress more funereal than slow.

Coincidentally Norway ranks best, just as they are expected to here, with confident predictions of more than 40 medals.

The last time Beijing hosted the star was a certain Jamaican sprinter, now the IOC are running just as fast as Usain Bolt from some uncomfortable truths.

In 2008 Rogge played the diplomatic straight bat to perfection, being 'gravely concerned', while parroting the line the Olympics are a catalyst for change, not a panacea for all ills.

And not much is different now, his successor Thomas Bach still has his talking points. This week he somehow conflated genocide with a 'political dispute', while standing under a banner that proclaimed 'Together for a Shared Future', marketing people for provincial building societies can