With just four years to go, organisers of London’s 2012 Olympics say that plans are well on course to deliver the humiliating opening day debacle that is expected of them.

‘We’re all too aware that the eyes of the world will be upon us, but we’re confident that we can provide the monumentally spectacular cock-up that the the nation, indeed the world, expects from us,’ said Tobias Graham, joint vice deputy head of the Chaos Management co-ordinating subcommittee.

‘We only have one chance to get this wrong, and with that in mind we’re already working round the clock to eliminate any possibility whatsoever of the opening ceremony passing without a hitch.’

Mr Graham refused to be drawn on the exact nature of the jaw-droppingly basic errors currently being proposed, but planners are believed to be considering a number of options, such as forgetting to fit the main Olympic Stadium with doors, building the entire swimming arena upside down at a secret location in Canada, or releasing eight al-Qaeda terrorists from prison so that they can join Jade Goody in lighting the Olympic torch. There are also believed to be contingency plans to ensure that the national anthems of bitter enemies such as Israel and Iran are ‘accidentally’ swapped during the opening parade.

‘I’m delighted to report that the construction of the velodrome is already six years behind schedule,’ boasted Mr Graham standing under the Olympic logo showing six interlocking rings, ‘while the combined small-bore rifle and show-jumping arena has been completed ahead of time and saw its first fatality in trials only last week. Obviously, new standards of monumentally hopeless performance are being set all the time, but we are quietly confident of getting the metaphorical gold medal for incompetence. Although we’re not actually doing medals this time, it’ll just be certificates.’