Given that the finals are being played just across the border, that would be humiliating, especially as qualifying ought to be easier with Brazil having been handed an automatic place as hosts.

It could be Ted?talking

As we report in today's Mandrake, leading Liberal Democrat Lord Oakeshott has .

10. The Story of the Olympics

Holly Watt is the Telegraph's Whitehall Editor. She joined the Telegraph in April 2009 after four years at the Sunday Times. In 2008, she was awarded the Laurence Stern fellowship and spent the summer working at the Washington Post. She was a key member of the Telegraphs expenses team and has been nominated for Scoop of the Year five times - most recently in 2013. She was shortlisted for Young Journalist of the Year at the 2010 British Press Awards and News Reporter of the Year and Political Journalist of the Year in 2011., Hollywood and European luminaries at the Venice Film Festival are busy butt-kissing Hugo Chavez, the Venezuelan dictator. He's anti-American, you see, and Oliver Stone has made a documentary and. what's not to like?