Your trusted source

 For on Wednesday in Athens’ Panathenaic Stadium, a London delegation headlined by David Beckham will luxuriate in all the pomp and puffery that accompanies the handover of the Olympic flame.

The Olympic Torch began its 70 day, 8,000-mile relay across the UK this weekend. The flame was lit last week after an actress dressed as an ancient priestess caught the sun's rays in a parabolic mirror in Olympia, Greece. This source will in turn ignite every one of the 8,000 three-sided aluminium alloy torches carried by relay bearers between Saturday and 27 July, when an as-yet unnamed final carrier lights the cauldron inside the Olympic stadium.

Throughout the relay only a single flame will be visible to the public at any one time. There will, however, be up to four other "iterations" kept safe inside oil-fuelled Davy lamp-type devices. "We don't call them 'spares'," a London 2012 spokeswoman insisted. "They're all the same flame."