No sporting spirit

London: British people don't appear to care about the Games, so it's handy there are the Olympic sponsors to help us get into the spirit of things. The Olympic games trundle ever closer, and already you can smell the excitement in the air, because it's being wafted in by gigantic corporate excitement blowers. Try as they might to engage us, we're not on tenterhooks yet.

On paper it's virtually illegal to be anything other than thrilled at the prospect of hours of running, jumping, swimming etc filling our minds and airwaves for several weeks, but in reality, the majority of Britons appear to be acknowledging the forthcoming games with little more than an off-hand shrug. We're just not that bothered, not right now, anyway. That'll change the moment any of our athletes gets within sniffing distance of any kind of medal, then it'll be all cheering and jubilant BBC montages, but until then we're being very British about the whole thing by largely ignoring it, aside from the odd quiet moan about the negative effect it'll have on the traffic.

Fake smile

It'd be worrisome if this low-level grumpiness extended into the Games themselves: if the crowd audibly tutted whenever anyone other than Britain won, and the medals were handed over by an official displaying the same vaguely begrudging air as a checkout assistant passing you a replacement carrier bag when the first one splits. That's definitely how we would behave if we didn't have guests. Hopefully instead we'll plaster on a fake smile for our overseas visitors, and after ten minutes forget we were faking and actively start to enjoy the whole thing. But what if that doesn't happen? How else can we get into the spirit of the Games?

Well, for starters we could make that fake smile frosty-white by brushing our teeth with an Oral-B electric toothbrush.

"Oral-B is getting behind the London 2012 Olympics," cheers the Boots website. "Share the excitement with their Professional Care 500 floss action electric toothbrush." Yes: the exhilaration, the agony, the sheer elation experienced by athletes operating at the peak of their physical aptitude all this can be yours in the form of a vibrating twig you stick in your mouth.

In case you think the mere notion of an official Olympic electric toothbrush is absurd, remember: athletes need clean teeth to attain peak performance. Steve Ovett was the favourite to win the 1,500 metres at the 1980 Moscow Olympics, but was hopelessly weighed down by a heavy buildup of plaque that had accumulated in his mouth in the months leading up to the contest, allowing Sebastian Coe to snatch the gold.

Oral-B's official Olympic toothbrush exists because its parent company, Procter Gamble, has a sponsorship deal enabling it to associate all its products with the Games. That's why if you look up Viakal limescale remover on a supermarket website, the famous five interlocking rings pop up alongside it. This in no way cheapens the Olympic emblem, which traditionally symbolises global unity, peaceful competition and gleaming stainless steel shower baskets.

When you're done sprucing up your teeth and your bathroom, you could further embrace the Olympic spirit by slurping a Coca-Cola (official Olympic drink) followed by a Twirl from Cadbury's (official Olympic snack provider). Or really go the whole hog and polish off a couple of Sausage-and-Egg McMuffins at your local McDonald's (official Olympic restaurant), after which you should be ready to represent Britain in the 400-litre diarrhoea.

Rather touching

I've never understood why firms are prepared to shell out a fortune simply to refer to the Olympics in their advertising, but then I've always been mildly baffled by the popularity of sport full-stop. I also never understood why Gillette paid Tiger Woods, a man famous for hitting balls with a stick, a huge amount of money to promote scraping a bit of sharp metal across your face.

My natural inclination is to find the wave of "official" branding vaguely sinister, but on reflection it's actually rather touching the way these companies seem to earnestly believe their consumers care.

Will anyone in the country choose a Dairy Milk over a Yorkie just because the former has the Olympic rings printed on the wrapper? After all, now that it appears alongside everything from toothbrushes to Viakal, the official Olympic iconography has become just another bit of background visual noise like the Keep Britain Tidy icon, or a barcode. Your brain filters it out before your mind even notices it was there in the first place.