It was one of those moments when you don't quite believe what your ears are telling you.

 

There we were, we Olympic scriveners, ensconced in the plush London offices of some accountancy firm, trying our hardest to stay alert and focused at one of the periodic press conferences given when the International Olympic Committee's Coordination Commission (COCOM) is in town.

 

This is the body that monitors preparations for the London 2012 Summer Games on the IOC's behalf.

 

These events have acquired a reputation as the dullest of assignments over the years largely because, from the perspective of everyone except those picking up the bill, everything has been going so well.

 

No news really is good news as far as COCOM is concerned.

 

So, as I say, there we were listening to COCOM chairman Denis Oswald's introduction, journalistic expectations pitched appropriately low, when the avuncular IOC member from Neuchatel starts talking about a "very tense meeting”"

 

Pardon me?

 

True, Oswald also made the habitual glowing references to the state of preparations – phrases such as "very positive" and "we really start feeling the Games taking shape" jump out from my notebook.

 

Nonetheless, it was no surprise when the first question from the floor (we are a cussed and contrary bunch) asked Oswald to elaborate on what he meant by "tense".

 

A pregnant pause.

 

"I meant 'intense'.”" Cue a palpable release of tension around the room. "I apologise for my poor English [de dum de dum de dum]."

 

And there, after barely three minutes, disappeared our hopes of a story with a cartoon-like 'Phut'.

 

To be fair, as those who have read my colleague Tom Degun's admirable report will know, there was half a story, in the shape of the ongoing – but hopefully soon-to-be-concluded - saga over the sports that are now to be staged at Wembley Arena, on the other side of town from the Olympic Park, to save the cost of building a new temporary venue.

 

But in the shipping forecast of Olympic news, that ranks as a gentle sou'-westerly.

 

My purpose in bringing this up is not to poke fun at Oswald's language skills, which are considerable.

 

Nor is it to curry sympathy for we hacks as we labour to bring you the first draft of  history. (Oh all right, just a little.)

 

Mainly, it is because I sense that an opportunity is being missed here.

 

As these things go, this was a reasonably distinguished gathering – the London Organising Committee top brass, high-ranking IOC members and officials and most of the top London-based journalists in the field.

 

Yet the whole event had about as much life as Monty Python’s parrot.

 

I suspect we all knew with 95 per cent certainty that this was how it would pan out, yet we dutifully turned up and fulfilled our allotted roles, like characters in a ritualistic drama.

 

Why, I wonder, doesn't somebody in London or, more likely, Lausanne take it upon themselves to use these occasions to inject some mildly worthwhile content into the proceedings?

 

Clearly there would be times when such efforts were wasted.

 

Not every COCOM meeting is destined to be dull; I imagine some in the run-up to the 2004 Athens Games were positively lively.

 

When a burning issue does pop up, there will be no getting away from it and that's what the media will concentrate on.

 

But events such as this are essentially a waste of everyone’s time.

 

Indeed, it could be worse than that if unscrupulous, or more likely harassed, journos start trying to manufacture stories where none exist.

 

I am not suggesting that this is the right forum for the IOC to make its most earth-shattering announcements.

 

But if briefings were arranged on, say, 'How the movement is weathering the economic crisis', or 'What is set to change as a result of last month's Olympic Congress', at least we would have something to fall back on when the press conference yields merely another satisfactory progress report.

 

I’m just saying.

 

David Owen is a specialist sports journalist who worked for 20 years for the Financial Times in the United States, Canada, France and the UK. He ended his FT career as sports editor after the 2006 World Cup and is now freelancing, including covering last year's Beijing Olympics. An archive of Owen’s material may be found by Twitter users at www.twitter.com/dodo938.