Day 8.1: Super Saturday

It is, the BBC has informed me, Super Saturday. This is because Britain has chances of a massive glut of medals in the pool, in the sailing, at the rowing regatta and in the velodrome. Showing an even-handedness which gladdens the heart, they also included Michael Phelps' Spitzocaust attempt within that.

First up was Rebecca Adlington in the 800 metre freestyle swimming. No Briton has ever won two gold medals in the same Olympics, so history was for the taking. She did it too with some style, breaking the World Record and swimming her way into the British public's affections for at least a few more months yet. This much was very clear from the commentary, which became more and more familiar throughout the sixteen lengths. Starting as Ms. Adlington, as she broke clear she became Becky. Becks was not far off, then Adds, Admund, RA and Bea. Had the race been 850 metres, I'm sure that she would have finished the event like Prince, a symbol for a name. Still, she's done a fantastic job and has an enormous nose.

Also in the fabulously-named Water Cube, Michael Phelps equalled Mark Spitz's 1972 benchmark of seven golds in one games in the 100m butterfly, but rather less emphatically than for his previous six. Instead of blowing the field away and smashing the World Record, Phelps was embroiled in an epic fight with Serbia's Milorad Cavic. Cavic led all the way, up to and including the 99 metres and 99.8 centimetre mark. Phelps, who has obviously been very busy this week and as such has had no time to cut his fingernails, somehow touched first. I have watched this 3 times now, and I still can't see how his did it. I'll steer clear of saying anything else. Maybe he sloughed off a skin cell from his index finger at just the right time.

Seven gold medals in seven days, to go with the 1400 he won in Athens, Michael Phelps is now just one swim away from being BA Baracus. If he's not called Mick on American TV yet, I don't know what more they could possibly want him to do.

Today's sport

Well, naturally I'll be watching all the British medal attempts that I can. I'll be starting off with the rowing and sailing, which is like swimming for people who can't swim. But what I'm really looking forward to is the cycling, because it's very exciting stuff. I will report back on what bounced off my retinas and formed brain data later on. If, that is, I'm not completely carried away in a nationalistic frenzy whereby I start to earnestly believe that all foreigners are the scum of the earth. Of course.

Day 7.2: Shut up Sue

The athletics is viewed by many, in the words of my brother this week, as "the proper Olympics". It's what features on all the Olympic computer games, for one thing, as well as providing the most high-profile action. It also provides the most hardcore editorialising on the part of the BBC. I am much more willing to forgive them this in the Velodrome, where activities also commenced today, because British competitors there are actually, well, good.

I call this obsessive, unrealistic, televised pursuit of mediocre athletes the Colin Montgomerie effect. Those not in the know, or frighteningly, too young to recall, in the late 1990s the BBC would routinely ask - and, indeed make documentaries about - why Colin Montgomerie had never won a Major golf championship. They never stopped to think it might be because he lacked sufficient ability. Who needs ability when you're British, after all?

In the Women's SIX MILLION MILE steeplechase semi-finals, British athlete Helen Clitheroe set a personal best, in so doing beating the British record by a collosal 9 seconds. Sadly for her, she finished outside the top 4 in her heat, and, in an event which only had spots open for the three fastest non-top 4 finishers, her time was the 4th fastest. She was out. Not before, mind you, Brendan Foster had incurred several IRE PENALTIES. He started with the utterance, "people will forgive us for being a bit partisan", which you just know is going to precede some ludicrous, Kedgeree-and-Racism, Jolly-Good-Show, Take-Me-Back-To-Dear-Old-Blighty sentiment. "If there's any justice in the world, a woman who takes 9 seconds off the British national record would qualify for the Olympic final".

Bollocks.

If there's any justice, the person whose time isn't quick enough to qualify won't. She didn't, so justice be done. If she has a problem with this, run faster. If you can't run faster, then that's just the way it is. This whole "British Records Must Be Fast" mentality has irked me beyond belief. Britain is a small country, mostly taken up with its dense (in most meanings of the word) population. The bits not filled with dwellings are full of sheep. It's capacity for producing bullshit, however, is unsurpassed.

Just shut up and show me the sport. I'll judge whether it's good or not, it's fair or not, or if I care or not.

Day 7.1: Pretty pictures

It's Day 7 of the Olympics, which means we're all just in a holding pattern waiting for the athletics to start and Hazel Irvine has taken a restraining order out on me. After an exciting Day 6, I found little to inspire me in the programme for Day 7. This was, in part, due to the weather which manage to disrupt almost all outside events. Some sports did manage to find a break in the clouds, however, and I'm sure Roger Federer and the Williams sisters are all very glad of it, as all three were knocked out of the tennis as soon as the rain subsided.

It's days like day 7 which lead you to start looking at parts of the screen you wouldn't normally contemplate. Often in the direction of the Off button. However, if you time it right, before you get there you will see some of the Olympic graphics. These are very useful, as they tell you the names of the competitors, the score, the sport and, if applicable, the class. In the left hand side of this Blue Bar of Fact, you will also notice a little yellow picture. Every sport has one of these, a simple stylised stick figure representation of the sport in question.

Now, I don't know how long they've been doing this in international sports broadcasting. However, I've seen footage of the TV feeds of Olympic Games stretching right back to the 1960s this summer, and I can tell you they didn't always use them. Fox's, however, have been making the comestible version - the Sports Biscuit - for fifty years. As such, I can only assume that someone at the IOC has finally taken the heads up from this venerable biscuit. I have to say, the graphics are a welcome addition to the coverage, not least because of the old game you can also play with the sports biscuit - the "what the hell sport is that?" game. Of course, playing it with the TV graphics tends to spoil the game, what with the sport being written down next to it. My request to the TV directors: let's just have the pictures. No other details. It would be the best Olympics ever.

* The events depicted in the image at the top are as follows: (Top row (left to right)) Synchronised Fishing; Pairs Drowning; Swimming in snakes; Dressing to the left; Water Boxing; Sado-Masochism; Roadworks; (Second row) Weightlifting; Fly swatting; Eel poaching; Sex; Arm-wrestling; Boxing; Scaring the elderly; (Third row) Football; Close encounters; Bee chastisement; Freestyle farts; Abbatoir; 1500m Escaping Radiation Leak; Catholic Dressage; (Fourth row) Fencing; Slapstick; Volleyball; Saving Picnic from Ants; Wasp Revenge; Baking; Gay Sex; (Fifth row) Tennis; Epilepsy; Hoovering; Showing Off to Girls; Running; Fight with Gladiators to the Death; Helping Fat Relatives Out of Bed.

Day 6: Ping Pong!

It's Day 6 of the Olympics, so I'm busy writing erotic fan fictions featuring Hazel Irvine, Sue Barker and a visit to a honey factory. Relief comes in the form of televised coverage of sporting events! And yesterday did not disappoint me, as I enjoyed the Men's Team match between South Korea and Sweden in the Table Tennis. An Olympic sport which is also beloved of social workers and prison inmates is always a strong start, plus it is another activity which is very easy to understand and pick up when you are a spectator.

The table tennis had everything to keep me entertained. Firstly, the rules are straightforward, and even the format - a best-of-five rubber format with four singles matches and a doubles in the middle - is familiar to anyone who has seen the Davis or Fed Cups in Big Tennis. However, it's the little things which really enlivened yesterday's contest for me. For a start, the umpire was a heftily built bloke with big fuzzy hair, wearing a powder blue blazer, grey slacks and a white tie. He was, to all extents and purposes, Chubby Checker. I was delighted. The other umpire, in charge of calling the scores and mopping up sweat from the table with towels, marks the game progress with little score flip-cards. Like Blankety Blank. Marvellous.

The gameplay itself also had surprises in store. Having seen competitive table tennis before, I was ready for the bewildering array of sleight-of-hand services the players will try to bamboozle their opponents. I was even ready for the size and scale of the arena. But it's still a remarkable sight. During the most spirited rallies, the two athletes are standing at opposite sides of the room, hitting a ping pong ball towards a tiny blue rectangle somewhere in the middle. I imagine good eyesight is a requisite for top players. When viewed as tennis on a small scale, Table Tennis at the top level is an oddly confrontational sport. Penned in on all sides, the players are by far and away the bigest things in the game arena. The doubles looks not dissimilar to a fight in a pub car park. A peculiarity of the game of doubles in Table Tennis is that the competitors have to hit alternatively - hugely handy for the attribution of blame - so maybe a brawl isn't too far off after all.

This sport also offers the greatest solution ever devised to any sport where keeping a ball within a specified game area is significant to the outcome. I have written before at my dislike of the Hawkeye system in tennis, because it effectively makes the show courts slightly different arenas in terms of rules as well as scale to the smaller courts or lesser events. People arguing for goalline technology in football offer identical arguments: it is wrong to introduce new gadgets at the top level of a professional global game which will not be available elsewhere in the pyramid. All or none, in other words.

In Table Tennis, the answer is simple. Was the ball in? Well, did it hit the table?

For football, tennis and rugby, the writing is now on the wall. Hawkeye and Video Replays are hugely useful tools, but they should not be for the big boys only. Either make provisions for global availablity for everyone in the professional game, or start to play on a giant table. Did it cross the goal line? Yes, it fell off the table. Was the ball in? Yes, it hit the table. Was that a try? Yes, the man holding the ball just fell head-first off the table.

Today's other sport

Archery. I have enjoyed this sport immensely, too. All the pregnant drama of darts with none of the cholesterol problems. This morning, China made history in the women's singles by beating South Korea for the first time ever in Olympic competition. Yesterday's game, in an earlier knockout round, was totally spoilt for me by Eddie Butler commentating on a game featuring a British competitor which wasn't even being televised, whilst a completely different match took place in front of us. Not impressed, Eddie.

Day 5: The village people

It's day 5 of the Olympics, which means I've started to find Hazel Irvine oddly attractive. But no matter, because there's SPORT to be viewed. Yesterday, I mentioned the fact that I'd been watching the men's tennis, so now is as good a time as any to hold forth.

For a start, the tennis is - aside obviously from the weightlifting - the first sport I have actively sought out so far at the Beijing games. I really do like a bit of tennis. I've watched Wimbledon every year since the days of Ivan Lendl in shorts so short they gave him a wedgie. In recent times, I've had the man love on for Roger Federer. For me, he is the single finest sportsman in the world, not for his results but for his style - power, grace and breathtaking ability.

This year, I've noticed a change in Federer. His shoulders seem down, perhaps crushed under the weight of his record-breaking spell at number 1, perhaps with the looming spectre of the record 14 Grand Slam titles of Pete Sampras. In fact, BBC commentator Sam Smith probably hit the nail in the head during his second round match yesterday. Federer is spooked by the first man to come along and really be able to go toe-to-toe with him, Rafael Nadal. Nadal has already ended Roger's epic run on grass courts, plus deprived him three times at Roland Garros of the French Open title which would probably secure Federer's place in the annals. Next week, he will take his world ranking, meaning Federer will not be the top ranked player in the world for the first time in five years.

It was inevitable, of course. Every great sportsman will always encounter those two great enemies - time and the young player who they had been to the previous generation of stars. For Federer, though, it must be hard to take. He is still demonstrably superior to more or less everyone else on the tour, but Nadal is just brutal. Federer has spoken of his desire for an Olympic Gold for years, but now, in 2008, it's a matter of some urgency. He's now 27, meaning that he may not even still be playing when the games comes round again. Furthermore, in a season where 3 Grand Slam titles would have made him the Open era's most successful ever player, he has so far won none, beaten to the post by the young guns of Novac Djokovic and Nadal. He's just not accustomed to this sort of pressure, and it is fascinating to see how he handles it.

He makes what I consider to be some odd choices. Firstly, the Federer travelling entourage does not contain a permanent coach, a man to be able to be an extra pair of eyes, to point out things which the great man may not even have considered. Secondly, and more Beijing-specific, he's opted to not stay in the Olympic village. His reason for this is that the number of people who want pictures and autographs in there become a distraction to him. It's an argument which I find difficult to dismiss, as I find it perfectly plausible that Federer is so afflicted with fans and well-wishers wherever he goes.

However, I can't help but feel it's a shame, and worryingly, increasingly common amongst the Games' top professional sportsmen. Looking at this from the other angle, the semi-pro sportsman who has delightedly qualified to represent their country is naturally going to be disappointed that any chances to meet world class sports stars in the village has been deprived to them because of Ramada Jarvis. It seems to go against a bit of the Olympic spirit to me, and I was pleased to learn that Rafa Nadal is staying in the Olympic Village, reportedly starstruck. My fear is this: how long before the village just becomes a ghetto for the also-rans? Losing is an occupational hazard of the sportsman of whatever level. But losing to someone who helicopters their way in, speaks to no-one, wins and then buggers off is hardly in-keeping with the ideals of sportsmanship.

This said, no-one can accuse Federer of bad sportsmanship. In the last 5 years he has been an exemplary gracious winner, and all signs are that he is equally adept at being a gracious - if unwilling - loser. It will probably stand him in good stead. So far, Federer has been as imperious as expected against some low-ranked opposition, whilst Nadal blustered to a three-set win in his first match. Yesterday, however, Rafa absolutely blitzed Lleyton Hewitt 6-2, 6-1. I'll be surprised if Sunday's Olympic final isn't another installment of Federer and Nadal's summit duel. But as it stands, I'd expect Nadal to be the favourite. My hope is that Federer, if he loses out on a gold medal, doesn't lose out on enjoying the Olympic experience too.

Day 4.2: That's nearly an armful

In the annals of human history, it's perhaps the conspiratorial thinking which sets human kind apart as a really very special bunch. But even within this paradigm, there are some utterances which are better than others. Few I have ever encountered, however, have ever quite matched up to this one: the Jamaican sprinter Asafa Powell, former world record holder, claims that he has been blood tested to such a degree that he will be weakened when he comes to compete.

This poses so very many questions. If we may put aside the obvious one about whether or not Asafa Powell has lost it, the major one of these must be to ask how much blood they are taking per test. I have always assumed that even a small vial of blood would easily be classed as a representative sample, and that the sort of amount which I have given in the past for testing would be fairly easily replenished by the human body. I can only therefore assume that the IOC hang athletes up like the Mussolini massacre and then bust up their corotid arteries. Milk maids are subsequently employed to carry the gently steaming buckets of blood across town to the testing centre, where the scientists bathe in it.

A BBC correspondent wrote a piece for their website's Olympic blog yesterday, bemoaning the standard of food available to spectators at the Games so far. My advice to them all would be to steer clear of the black pudding.

Today's sport, incidentally, was Judo. And no, I have absolutely no clue what's going on there either, sorry. I also watched some of the men's tennis, but more of that tomorrow.

Day 4.1: Jargon busting

It's breakfast time, so that means it's time for Synchronised Diving! I honestly feel that this should be a permanent thing. I'm indifferent to whether to participants would be the usual newsreaders and whatever the hell you call the ones on GMTV, or your actual divers. All I know is, it's exciting, splashy and just the right amount of bewildering for the bleary eyed.

I have been watching Synchro Diving now for three days, and I have a number of questions. Firstly: if one of the divers bangs their nut on the board, does the other one have to do it as well in order to maintain high synchronicity scores? Second: Why does the diving pool have nozzles attached to the the diving platform, constantly hosing fresh juices into the pool? Thirdly and most importantly - why do the divers all have showers after every dive? What have they filled that pool with? My suspicion: meths.

There is one thing which I feel is beyond question by this point, and that's the scoring. My deep dislike of sports decided by judges scores is likely to be a running theme in the coming weeks, but with the diving, even the commentary team seem to be a little bit confuddled as to exactly what the hell is going on with some of the marks. The judging panel, no doubt, will point out that we should expect no better from people from a country who have finished last in three finals. However, it is equally valid to suggest that the a large part of the reason for this is them all playing X-Factor.

I'm not, let's make this very clear, suggesting any impropriety. I think it would be nice, though, if the judges were to be more accessible to us plebs. In events where they are the kingmakers, a little bit of accountability and explanation would be most welcome. The synchro diving is one of those sports which works on two levels. You could enjoy it if you understood all of its vagaries, but it is equally easy to get rewarded just for watching it for its aesthetic properties. However, in the spirit of the Games - and until the judges come down from their ivory tower - I thought I'd do some research and try to unlock some of the secrets of the sport, to give us viewers a deeper and more satisfying level of enjoyment. So, I present my Olympic Synchronised Diving Jargon Buster.

Tuck
This is a dive completed whilst eating a Mars Bar. It is particularly popular amongst the high-board divers. The 3 metre competitors prefer a fun-size. Very tall competitors may favour the Mars out of a box of Celebrations, but it is worth bearing in mind that this will subtract significant difficulty marks from the dive.

Pike
This dive is notable for the presence of a large fish in the leotard. A dead example is most common, but the most adventurous competitors will go for the live pike.

Twist
The diver will enter the water thinking thoughts - usually of a sexual nature - so improper it would be possibly illegal to vocalise them.

Backward
Divers with an IQ of 55 or less

Reverse
The diver jumps from the pool back up onto the platform

And, for really high difficulty marks:

The Jethro
A dive completed whilst wearing a tweed cap, mutton chop sideburns and a pipe. A Single Jethro sees one competitor so attired, a Double Jethro has both. With a sheep under one arm.

Lutherian
Here the diver is expected to convert to Protestantism before impact with the water.

Panto horse
A dive which earns the maximum 4.0 for difficulty. Both divers are within a single pantomime horse costume. The really world-class divers will also be able to lift the tail and shoot an arc of diarrhoea before the splash.

Day 3: Come on, boys!

I don't want to put too much of a dampener on Great Britain's decent start to the 2008 Olympics, but there is one element to it which I can't help but find distasteful. The partisan commentary. Now, I know that it's not a particular sin to be proud of home success, but is all of the hysteria really necessary? Britain's two gold medals so far - Nicole Cooke in the road race cycling and Rebecca Adlington in the 200m Breaststroke - were greeted with a wall of sound, the Last Night of the Proms shot through a Daily Express prism of fervent national pride.

Perhaps I'm wrong, and just a curmudgeon. Perhaps it's the modern blanket media coverage, with replays and repeats at our digital digits, showing us the moment of success out of the context of the event's preceding action. But I honestly don't think so. Even when I am lucky enough to catch a Big British Bonanza live and am caught up in the moment, I still find some of the commentary way over the top. Youtube fanatics may be able to find all sorts of examples of this, but for my money, the best examples of this creeping phenomena come in the rowing, where Garry Herbert's leanings leave very little to the imagination. This patriotic excitement in the latter stages of a race undoubtably served him well during his time as a Cox, for which he won an Olympic medal himself in 1992. Steve Cram, on the other hand, has no such excuses for his unabashed screeching in Athens 4 years ago, imploring Kelly Holmes to keep...on....pushing. In a way, I wish there was. I for one look forward to the middle distance runner who commentates on the last lap of their own races with a growing fervour. Until such a point, a bit of journalistic balance surely wouldn't be too much to ask of people who are now professional journalists. And good ones, too. When the sainted races come along where Great Britain have no involvement, both the men I have mentioned are knowledgeable and measured.

Perhaps I'd not have the same problem with the braying national bias of some of the commentaries if there was a consistency in those races where British athletes were not a factor. "Here comes the German runner now, leading by a length into the last lap, although it's worth bearing in mind that he's a rapist, and he does goats". But here is the double-standard, because none of the worst offenders would ever dream of such a thing. Had Steve Cram's pleading commentary fallen on deaf ears in Athens, and Kelly Holmes had been pipped at the line in the 800 metres by Maria Mutola, he would have given a balanced and appreciative reflection of the winner's talents. The problem is, with his man in the pub commentary, the more consistent response would be to say, "oh shit, well, she must be on drugs, boo!"

Today's sport
Today's sporting choice for me was a mixed bag. What really sticks in the mind for me were doses of women's basketball, men's synchronised diving and men's tennis. Basketball is a sport whose appeal has always mystified me somewhat, simply because the game really boils down simply to the last few minutes, rendering the previous 46 a complete waste of time. Of course, the real waste of time is probably anyone other than the Americans bothering to compete. In the diving, 17-month old Tom Daley came 8th but looked delighted regardless. A word of praise for the commentary team on Andy Murray's two first round matches in the tennis, though. His surprise defeat in the singles to Lu of Taipei saw the commentators reflecting the excitement of an unexpected winner, rather than on someone who happened to be from the United Kingdom. Sadly, I don't know who they were. So, congratulations to Sam Smith and Morris Scroakes.

Day 2: Faces of the games

In days past, being the face of the Olympic Games was a matter of retrospection. Jesse Owens, Bob Beamon, Mark Spitz - they all went into their competitions free from huge expectation. Nowadays, the Face of the Games is decided long in advance, probably by a baying committee of tubby journalists. This poor soul's own personal goals become the hopes for all of humanity, meaning failure won't just be a personal disappointment. In recent years, these poor souls - Michael Johnson in 1996, Cathy Freeman in 2000 - have managed to come out of the pressure cooker having achieved their goals. Beijing's cause célèbre, US swimmer Michael Phelps, currently remains on target for his unprecedented 8 golds in 8 days. But my word, he must be knackered.

Swimming is perhaps the sport I have watched the most of at the Olympics in recent years. This is mainly because the BBC's coverage of it is particularly thorough, but also because it has that great quality for any Olympic sport - what the competitors are trying to achieve is completely obvious even to the uninitiated. Within this, however, I have to say that the racing in the pool interests me because it has an artificiality to it that its track counterpart does not have. Take, as an example, the 400m Individual Medley, the scene of Phelps' first gold of the games. Eight lengths of the pool, 2 each of butterfly, breaststroke, backstroke and freestyle. I think that this would translate brilliantly to the running track. It would also make the Olympics more accessible and understandable to any of us who ever competed in a school sports day. The 400m Individual Running Medley would be one lap of the track, the first 100 metres backwards, then similar increments of hopping and an egg and spoon element, ending with 100 metre freestyle.

'Freestyle' is also something of a misnomer, I find. Everyone swims the exact same way. There is more demonstrable variation in individual swimmer's breaststrokes than there is in the freestyle, and I think this is a shame. I'd be thoroughly supportive of any swimmer who decided to totally be-bop his freestyle element. Because the sad fact is, 'freestyle' is in fact the name given to a stroke which should really be called 'fastest style', to try and blind the watching public to the fact that the swimmers could actually be going a lot faster than they are, when they're flailing around with elbows flying. Nevertheless, for all this artificiality, I do love watching the Olympic swimming, and the ongoing Michael Phelps story gives the whole thing a welcome Hollywood aspect.

Today's sport

The sport I particularly enjoyed today was the women's Archery. Again, it is a sport which benefits from crystal clear objectives and scoring - compare, for instance, to Judo, which to the casual viewer looks like people in pyjamas re-enacting the fireplace scene from Women In Love. The final was fairly comfortable for the Korean team, who last didn't win this event at the Moscow Olympics in 1980. It would have been a Herculean feat for them to win that year, as they were boycotting the games. Their opponents yesterday were the China team, who delighted me. Firstly, they all pulled their bow strings back and made their noses and lips go like a wonky Elvis. Secondly, one of their number - as a result of this - had a black line up the middle of their face. I suspect that Guo Dan had falled victim to a Chinese Archery team prankster. The inky bowstring. The old classic.

The competition also put me in mind of the mooted inclusion of darts in future Olympiads. The skills required, it is beyond argument, are very similar to the ones I saw on display yesterday. The problem lies in something I did not see yesterday. A single morbidly obese competitor. I honestly think that the only thing holding darts back from serious Olympic consideration is the general appearance of the competitors, but this is something which could surely be sidestepped by having a boxing-style weigh-in. Or weightlifting-style weight categories. The sight of tattooed and bejewelled darts players in the Olympic village, scarfing down pies in a last-ditch attempt to get up to 179kg, it would virtually be a sport in itself.

A word about something hardly related to the Beijing Olympics at all

Yesterday saw the passing of one of your actual living legends, Isaac Hayes. Hayes will probably be remembered as the bloke who did the voice of Chef until he was subsumed by Scientologists. But he shouldn't be. Remember him as the first African American to win an Academy Award for a film score. Remember him as having written any number of the greatest soul songs of all time. Better yet, listen to his 1969 album Hot Buttered Soul - my all-time favourite soul record - and remember him like that. R.I.P., Isaac Hayes.

Day 1: Men's Gymnastics

It's probably the circular nature of it, but gymnastics is a sport which it's quite easy to lose vast chunks of time to. If not, it's difficult to explain why it had me so entranced. As a sport the results are ultimately decided by subjective scores as much as objective happenings, which I don't particularly hold in any esteem. The practitioners, however, are demonstrably outrageously toned physical specimens. So maybe it was a voyeuristic aspect. Perv ahoy.

The thing which pleases me the most about the activity when taken in isolation is that it is one of the few sports where, at the very top level, competition is not unlike gym in school P.E. lessons. The competitors are divided up into groups - by nation in this case, although discrimination laws probably forbid that in the school - and then they rotate around the apparatus. Some of the stuff they use looks familiar to the schoolboy, too, albeit slightly less moth eaten and spunk-hewn. Of course, what the Olympic competitors achieve when they are on it is fairly distinct from the efforts of pasty, pudgy pre-teens trying desperately to hold their farts in in front of girls.

The disciplines - pommel horse, parallel bars, rings, high bar and vault - all have their moments, but some are more spoiled as a spectacle by the minutiae of the rules. I can understand docking points for falling off the rings, or getting your foot wedged in the pommel horse handle, or having all your change fall out of your pocket on the high bar. But hearing about fractions being docked for not having hands in straight lines whilst on the leather tends to make me feel a touch out of my depth. At this point, I naturally retreated into liking the more spectacular things more. Someone can have a wonky spine on the high bar or lose a trailing toenail on the vault for the deduction of 0.3, but at the most basic level you will still see a hugely impressive spectacle. Not unlike watching monkeys in the zoo, come to think of it, which is probably a strong part of the appeal. I reckon a gibbon would clean up in high bar.

The BBC's Olympic coverage is bound to be a regular source of comment for me throughout the games, most of it gripey and nit-picking, so I want to say at this point that - come what may - I think their broadcasts are brilliant. With the advent of digital, it is easy to forget that for sheer depth and breadth, the BBC used to deliver even in the two-channel analogue past. It's a testimony to their ubiquity as THE sports broadcaster that I feel able to muster up the complacency to mock their commentary team. It was comprised of Matt Baker, the former Blue Peter presenter who, as a spotty teen, was a competition gymnast, plus some old bloke and some woman (I probably need a researcher). Baker took the general lead role, introducing people and sounding very delighted to be there, much like John Noakes at Crufts. His grounding in kids' TV, however, couldn't help but detract from it slightly for me. That said, he was a refreshing voice compared to Old Bloke, whose role seemed to be to point out the most piffling faults and explain why the fat judges were all so bitter. Some Woman, meanwhile, kept her powder dry by making predictions about what will happen shortly after it happened. "I thought that would happen", she said. Criticisms aside, they did what they were meant to do, which is to help someone who has no clue (HELLO!) understand a little bit of what was going on. And I learned an important new piece of sports jargon: "he knows how to spin horse".

Query: at the first Olympiads, was the pommel horse an actual horse?

I don't know who was winning or who won. Is that really what it's about unless you're wearing a chalky leotard?

Opening ceremonies

Opening ceremonies are, I think, the bane of the forgetful sports fan's life. You get so hyped up and excited by all the coverage, all the previews, all the press that you tune in to watch right from the beginning. And what you invariably see is folk dancing and people in suits remaindered from the set of It's A Knockout. If you're really lucky, you may even experience David Coleman or Barry Davies commentating on affairs. That's the final kick in the teeth, really.

I've been stung by opening ceremonies too many times to be tricked into watching this afternoon's extravaganza from Beijing. Besides, I can already imagine what it will be like. Fan dancing and dragons will be very much in evidence, all served up with a chaser of faintly unsettling fanaticism. I will, however, break this self-imposed exile if at any point I hear rumours about athletes requiring nebulisers thanks to a big smog cloud. But smog can wait for another day.

Because I'm happy to reveal that I have been bin diving outside Boris Johnson's barbers, and am able to exclusively reveal the itinerary for the London 2012 opening ceremony. Remember where you read this first, folks.

6:59 p.m. The Dance of the Construction Workers. Men in suits with 14 laminate security badges chase the last of the builders out of the stadium, where they were hurriedly trying to secure the last bit of roof. The builders are later seen handing out spanners and plastic seats to the spectators.

7:02 p.m. Cockney knees-up. A one hour celebration of local culture and colour, led by Chas and Dave. A troupe of dancers, all dressed as Pearly Kings and Queens with pugs under their arm, do the Lambeth Walk round the running track. From 7:30 p.m. the theme will undergo a subtle shift, and start to celebrate diversity and the Olympic ideal - but still within the framework of a knees-up. To this end, traditional dances from all over the globe will be on show, but their practitioners will all be dressed as Pearly Kings and Queens.

8:00 p.m. The Olympic Torch enters the stadium, carried by Linford Christie who will be pretending to have Parkinson's. To light the stadium beacon, Sally Gunnell will fling it.

8:10 p.m. The speeches. The Head of the IOC declares the games officially open. The Queen is later seen hoofing him in the pods for being so presumptuous.

8:15 p.m. Riot.

8:25 p.m. A live celebrity The Weakest Link takes place in the infield, with the cast of EastEnders and Noel Edmonds if he's not busy.

9:30 p.m. Curfew.

Feel the quality of my rings

Fans of me will not be surprised to learn that I'm a big Olympics follower. Over the next few weeks, it will be absolutely inevitable that I will become entranced with some ludicrous sport, probably one which can't be played unless you have a horse and a gun and are in some way related to a Marquess. But no matter. Because the Olympics is where it's at. Nothing else in the sporting realm is like it for me. Nothing has the same excitement and, in no small part, the same emotion. Match of the Day has never seen me shouting at the TV set at 6 a.m., or getting weepy in my dressing gown at 11.40 p.m. as someone manages to achieve their actual dreams.

Winning at the Olympics must be the very greatest thrill of them all. I live in hope that the London games in 2012 will introduce a raft of new sports which will allow me to compete. I'll only be 32 then, and clearly in my physical prime. As such, I'm going to cover all my bases, starting with darts before moving onto the tactics and strategies of Screwball Scramble. I also believe I would be able to challenge for gold in drunken armwrestling, as long as my friend Kate isn't also in the team. Or any of my other friends. Or anyone I know, or will meet between now and then.

As befits my role as a sports enthusiast AND an internet celebrity, I will do my best to blog the buggers out of the Beijing games in my usual hard-hitting and thorough style. On certain days, I will claim to be in China. You will have to indulge me on this. I will be giving all my Olympic posts the fetching tag 'Dotlympcs' for easy access.

People who enjoy my sports blog-me-do AND also like motor racing might be interested in this new blog, wherein I will dump any thoughts I have about racing cars and/or Katherine Legge.

Behind the Art 1 - Jacques-Louis David's Death of Marat

Advances in technology have opened many doors to us, not least in the realm of art criticism. Using x-ray machines, we are now able to look behind the paint and onto the canvas itself, often picking out early drafts, mistakes or major changes. Such an ability has often caused fundamental shifts in our knowledge of the way the great masters worked or even thought. This has never been more true than for David's famous painting, The Death of Marat.

The story behind the painting is reasonably well-known. Jean-Paul Marat was a mathematician and social philosopher who rose to prominence during the French Revolution. As a publisher of a newspaper called The Friend of the People, he propagated the abolition of the monarchy. Following the Revolution, Marat was elected into the National Convention of France to represent the people. As his power and influence grew, so did his number of enemies. On July 13th 1793 he was assassinated in his bath - where he would frequently retired due to a chronic skin condition - by Charlotte Corday, an anti-Republican Girondin.

Marat had, ironically, more or less retired from public life and service by this point. However, his popularity endured, and David had been planning to immortalise him in oils for some time. With a peculiar synchronicity, he had just finished an early draft of this painting when news of Marat's death broke. As we can see from the x-ray, David originally depicted Marat's bathtime activity as having a frenzied tug with his thumb up his arse. With a keen eye for history and drama, David hurriedly painted over the first image with the picture which has become the enduring portrait of the French Revolution.

Not available in any shops!

For reasons best known to nature and glands, the other day I had a very unsuccessful night of sleep. It was 60% sweating and c.40% slumber, although either figure may need to be adjusted to take farts into account. When I'm awake, I've never been willing or able to just lie around in bed, always choosing the option of getting up instead. And so it came to pass that I got up at 5 a.m. on Wednesday morning and was able to indulge one of my greatest passions - watching informercials.

Infomercials are perhaps the greatest American invention of them all. Glossy women and over-earnest men hawking products of almost obscene brilliance, sometimes in front of a live studio audience but always interspersed with vox pops from "real members of the public" and sepia-tinted flashback sequences of the bad old days. Aren't you tired of your can opener only opening cans? This one has a light!

I love them. I love their way with words. I love their bad acting. I love their repetitiveness - a factor which makes them perfect viewing for drug trippers and toddlers alike. My particular favourites are usually for household products, especially for cooking or cleaning, but sometimes health and beauty ones scratch me just where I itch too. The only ones I have no time for are the ones that hawk muscle toning or exercise equipment. Horrifically toned people judging me will never replace smiley women telling me how to get bad, bad stains out of a carpet in my affections.

I've often told people I have, in my mind, a list of my all time favourites. I've never committed this to print, type or paper before, though. UNTIL TODAY. Oh yes.

Jack LaLanne's Power Juicer
This absolute stormer is probably the infomercial I have watched the most times. Shamefully, I would often read the schedules of home shopping channels in advance, just so I could watch it. LaLanne is American TV's original body building superstar. Now, at the age of 163, he and his wife have invented a nuclear-powered juicer to teach us the joy of healthy eating. Joined by a dazzlingly deferential smiley woman, they extol the virtues of this miracle product. So many juicers lack the power to get all the juice and, therefore, nutrients from your fruit and veg. Not the Power Juicer. It's engine - albeit 'whisper quiet' - is an old Soviet army W16 with the power to juice a tree. Once the comestible is in the system, the Patented Extraction Technology reduces absolutely anything - pears, cucumbers, coconuts, cannonballs - to a huge slurry of juice and a small pile of bone dry pulp. This pulp is full of fibre and nutrients... don't waste it, mix it into muffins or pasta sauces! Your whole family will be as regular as the Swiss railways! The juice that comes out, perhaps by virtue of the atomic force of the motor being able to reduce even that which contains no liquid into juice, looks not unlike a pond at the end of summer. However, wiping the thick sediment from their hungry chops, members of the public assure me that this is the most delicious juice ever seen. What's more, the Jack LaLanne power juicer is dishwasher safe! Order now and receive a huge bushel of Mrs. LaLanne's delicious juice recipes absolutely free! If you're not shitting through the eye of a needle within 30 days, you get your money back!

No-Wet Wonder Foam
This infomercial is another to fit into the 'scheduling a day's viewing around it' category. This is because it is my favourite ever TV product. A product so good, they just can't sell it in the shops, it would make the other cleaning products feel bad! A British-made mercial, No-Wet Wonder Foam is a super-concentrated upholstery blitzing compound which will take the stains out of anything, leaving your skin intact. The reason this was such a magical infomercial, as is so often the case, was the beauty of the demonstrations. Here, an undyingly affable Jewish man, who you'd genuinely love to be your uncle, takes areas of carpet and proceeds to make them filthy with the help of red wine, beetroot, Biro pen and shoe polish. Then, with just one tiny amount of Wonder Foam, he makes mincemeat of the stains. The miracle jollop - which can be used neat or in solution (or with the handy foamer bottle you receive FREE) - sucks up all the stain within its frothy goodness, simply leaving a filth-blackened dry foam residue which can be vacuumed up afterwards. Its awesome power and versatility also means you can use it to completely remove stains anywhere and on more or less any fabric - a boon for serial killers.

The Ped Egg
Aren't you tired of not being able to wear your most beautiful strappy shoes because your heels are so grotesquely cracked they look like Boris Karloff eating a bowl of cornflakes? You can spend fortunes on pedicures or on files and knives you use at home, lopping off toes and leaving great snowdrifts of dead flesh lying around for the vicar to see. Or you can buy the Ped Egg! It's ergonomically designed to fit in your hand! The microfiles only grate off the dead skin - it's so gentle it won't even burst a balloon! And the Ped Egg keeps all the bits of dead you INSIDE its shell until you're ready to empty it, so there's no mess! In this infomercial, a blonde piece who is so happy you could probably power cars off her goes to a dance studio to introduce this miracle product to a troupe of dancers whose feet all resemble Shrek's first wank. They're thrilled! Look at all the skin that comes off! I can walk again! My feet used to look like an Ankole Cattle's head! I can use this anywhere! I tell you, I'm completely sold. I want one. Basically, this blog post also serves as a gift wish list, should you feel the need to shower me with affection.

The Steam Buggy
Household cleaning! It's horrible, and to get off the most grimy, ground-in, stains, you need to fire nothing less powerful than depleted uranium shells at it. Not any more! The Steam Buggy - a device which could very conceivably also be used as a self-defence weapon, now I think about it - is a light, shoulder-mounted bucket o' water which fires out super-heated steam at ferocious velocity. It completely removes anything in its path. Oven guano! Floor dirt! Skin! With its numerous attachments, it can be used to steam clean wooden floors you THOUGHT were clean, but no! After using the steam buggy, your head is 3 inches further from the ceiling than five minutes previously. My favourite demonstration of this awesome device comes in the bathroom. The woman wielding this mighty tool is a bubbly, permed blonde with an electrifyingly expensive smile. She demonstrates how the steam buggy is great for cleaning shitters. The steam sterilises your filthy, filthy hole, and can also remove biological waste you didn't even know was there. With that, she fucking well blasts the seat hinges, revealing years of dried on urine the colour of which explains why I don't drink Lucozade. The woman in this infomercial is quite a star of the genre. She also appears in a studio demonstration of a hand blender with the power of three suns. It can aerate water and coffee powder into a foamy dessert! It can reduce bricks and nails into a delicious drink in seconds! I have to tell you, I quite fancy her.

This particular product carries with it a corollary. Such was my passion for this infomercial, I'd watch it more or less wherever I went with the right channels. I was at my brother's house one day doing so, and he came in and saw it. As we sat there, mouths both agape in the look which can only be attributed to either brain death or watching infomercials, he decided there and then to get one. I have never quite decided if this makes him an idiot or a genius, all I know is that there is demonstrably no middle ground.

NADS
The most unfortunately named product of all time. This Australian infomercial is not brought to you by a huge, faceless, multinational. It's presented by the inventor of the miracle hair-removal product, an Aussie housewife who, along with her daughters, was afflicted with both hirsutism and lunatically sensitive skin. Waxing was impossible, and as her daughters grew up they felt increasingly self-conscious about the fact they had legs like a Greek fisherman. In a twist worthy of George's Marvellous Medicine, this fine woman retired to her kitchen and did not emerge until she had created NADS... a pain-free, all-natural, waxing product. Just one application of this fearsome green jelly can be used several times, as they demonstrate by removing all the hair from a man's leg and three cats with just one strip. The name came from the fact it was made for her daughter Nadia, rather than its secret ingredient. But fear not, it really is without artificial stimulants. NADS is so all-natural, you can actually eat it. If that sort of thing floats your boat. I once went in a kebab shop in Derby called Nad's. I suspect it was named for much less wholesome reasons.

Miracle Blade Knives
I thought long and hard about my final choice. There are so very many products I could have included. Miracle Blade Knives just beat the Tuxedo Painting System and the old British lad with his insane device for perfect miter cutting. It does so for the outrageous nature of its demonstrations, allied to its wonderful black-and-white "bad old days" footage of women with kitchen drawers full of useless, blunt knives. She must have had 400 in there, it was brilliant. (At this point I feel I should just break the fourth wall and tell you that it's raining really hard). The Miracle Blade Knives are the LAST YOU'LL EVER NEED. Making good use of a metal only found on Mars and Jupiter, they are tough. The best way to demonstrate knife sharpness, infomercials are all in agreement, is to show how easily the knife will cut a tomato. The best way to demonstrate the longevity and sharpness of the Miracle Blade knives is to do this, after they've just cut through a TIN CAN and a SHOE. A bloody shoe, in a vice. Then, wop, straight through that tomato. It's inspired. It's up there with the demonstration of the blender so powerful they felt the need to demonstrate that, if required, it can liquidise a packet of ballpoint pens. Someone, somewhere, is sat in an office, dreaming up these improbable and comprehensive tests for these wonderful products. And I would really like to join in.

Don't just take my word for it. Watch as many infomercials as you can. Record them if needs be. And bask in the life-improving qualities of their incredible stuff by looking at this site.

Unparalleled sporting achievement

For the second year running, there are three British (well, English, heh) teams in the UEFA Champions' League semi-finals. The difference this year, as I see it, is that I think Manchester United will beat Barcelona and give us the first ever all-English European Cup final (although the glamorous Wolves and Tottenham contested the first UEFA Cup final in 1972).

Despite not being unknown in the lesser UEFA Cup competition, and its predecessor the Inter-City Fairs Cup, intra-country European Cup finals are a recent development. They are the direct consequence of UEFA letting virtually every team in England, Spain and Italy who don't get relegated from the top flight into the next season's competition. As is my wont, I decided to look into the plain statistical fact surrounding these modern sports phenomena.

There have been two single-country European Cup finals. The first was in Paris in 2000, Real Madrid beating Valencia 3-0. The second was at Old Trafford in 2003, Milan beating Juventus on penalties after a 0-0 draw.

There have been seven single-country UEFA Cup finals. This was a particular boon for the club secretary in charge of travel, as until 1998 these were two-legged home and away affairs.

1972 Tottenham Hotspur beat Wolverhampton Wanderers 3-2 on aggregate
yes, that's right, they played the game on a fine carpet of gravel and swarf.
1980 Eintracht Frankfurt beat Borussia Mönchengladbach on away goals after drawing 3-3 on aggregate
1990 Juventus beat Fiorentina 3-1 on aggregate
1991 Internazionale beat Roma 2-1 on aggregate
1995 Parma beat Juventus 2-1 on aggregate
1998 Internazionale beat Lazio 3-0 in Paris
2007 Seville beat RCD Espanyol on penalties after a 2-2 draw in Glasgow

As Clive Tyldesley will surely tell you, English clubs have a pretty distinguished record in European Cup competitions. They are beaten only by Italian and Spanish teams in terms of most wins in European competitions. However, whilst a cursory glance at the record books shows that the big names from Italy and Spain have often secured their triumphs after playing against each other, English clubs normally prevail when by some quirk of fate, a pub team reach the final. Here is a list of all the teams vanquished by English opponents in the finals of European cup competitions.

1860 Munich (West Ham, Cup Winners' Cup 1965)
AC Milan (Liverpool, European Cup 2005)
Alavés (Liverpool, UEFA Cup 2001)
Anderlecht (Arsenal, Fairs Cup 1970; Spurs, UEFA Cup 1984)
Atletico Madrid (Spurs, Cup Winners' Cup 1963)
AZ (Ipswich Town, UEFA Cup 1981)
Barcelona (Man Utd, Cup Winners' Cup 1991) Pretty good, I suppose
Bayern Munich (Aston Villa, European Cup 1981; Man Utd, European Cup 1999)
Benfica (Man Utd, European Cup 1968)
Borussia Mönchengladbach (Liverpool, UEFA Cup 1973; European Cup 1977)
FC Brugge (Liverpool, UEFA Cup 1976; European Cup 1978)
Ferencvaros (Leeds Utd, Fairs Cup 1968)
Gornik Zabrze (Man City, Cup Winners' Cup 1970)
Hamburg (Nottingham Forest, European Cup 1980)
Juventus (Leeds Utd, Fairs Cup 1971) Harumph
Mälmo (Nottingham Forest, European Cup 1979)
Parma (Arsenal, Cup Winners' Cup 1994)
Rapid Vienna (Everton, Cup Winners' Cup 1985)
Real Madrid (Chelsea, Cup Winners' Cup 1971) OK, this one's pretty impressive looking
Roma (Liverpool, European Cup 1984)
Stuttgart (Chelsea, Cup Winners' Cup 1998)
Ujpest Dozsa (Newcastle, Fairs Cup 1969)
Wolverhampton Wanderers (Spurs, UEFA Cup 1972)

This dazzlingly starchy list throws up a number of questions, 40% of which begin with "WHO...?". The most interesting of these is likely to be, who were FC Brugge and how did they become Liverpool's most implacable European rivals in the late-1970s. I too wonder this, and live in hope that decent football blogs will one day answer this question.

You can't fingerprint for it

Being a rock star is a major responsibility. Beyond the unreasonable fan expectations and the pressures of recording, touring and contractually-obligated creativity; a major burden at the back of any rock mind must surely be the fact that you're meant to die an exciting and unusual death, often at the age of 27.

Chief among these is, of course, choking on your own vomit. It's a good way to go, rock-wise. Vomit is a wonderful fluid, redolent with the haunting aromas of lost loves and decayed friendships; a tangible reminder of a night out which has otherwise passed into the miasmic fug of history. It also has lumps in it.

What a lot of people do not consider in these cases, though, is that vomit does not just come from over-indulgence in drugs alone. There is no vomit bladder, or any other organ to produce the sickins. For there to be vomit, there has to be something to vomit up, in medical terms. I am an investigative soul and my search for truth has already made me fairly notorious in several village libraries. Not least in Rustington, West Sussex, where I accused a dear old elderly librarian of covering up vital details in the Robert Kennedy assassination. She cried then and she is still crying now. Bitch.

But I digress. What I really wanted to get into the public domain were the full details surrounding the untimely demises of Jimi Hendrix and John Bonham of Led Zeppelin. Many people have wondered exactly what it was they had been eating to cause such a drastic failure of their own bodies' emetic sex-fun systems. I am happy to report that, through careful bin rummaging and my nose - which, had I decided to, could have made me a highly sought-after employee of the perfume industry - I can now exclusively reveal the answers.

JIMI HENDRIX
27.11.1942 - 18.9.1970

The famous American banjoist Hendrix was found dead in his London flat in September 1970. Quincy, the medical examiner on call at the time, decreed that the cause of death was asphyxiation on his own tummy fudge. I tracked down the key evidence in this case in a bin outside Hendrix's old London pad in Brook Street. Tipped off by the blue plaque on the wall, which intimated that there was indeed a Tesco bag full of puke belonging to the great man nearby, I was able to track down the delicious sick. Identifying it at Hendrix's was fairly easy, as it contained 3 afro hairs from his flamboyant rock and roll coiffure, and a gold-embossed plectrum with JIM written on it in biro.

Using a scientific apparatus called the Gas Chromataspuke, I was able to run tests on the sample and create an accurate timeline of ingestion for Hendrix's last few hours. Here are my findings.

19:00 hrs - Hendrix necks a two litre bottle of Tizer.
19:20 - Palate refreshed by the Tizer, Hendrix eats 2 bags of Big D dry-roasted peanuts and a plate of bangers and mash
19:33 - more Tizer
19:42 - Hendrix's girlfriend arrives with a bag of Dolly Mixtures. Hendrix has a pink one and one of those yellow cube ones.
19:56 - Tizer
20:17 - Hendrix and his entourage decamp to a pub in Camden. Over the next two hours Hendrix drinks 4 pints of Watney's Red and eats a bag of ready salted crisps.
22:46 - Hendrix stops off at a late-night shop to buy a packet of sweet cigarettes and eats two. On the way back to his flat he finds a roadkill badger and eats it raw.
23:30 - Hendrix reports to friends that the badger "is not sitting right" and extinguishes the flames with some Britvic.
23:34 - Hendrix throws up the badger

The rest, sadly, is history.

JOHN BONHAM
31.5.1948 - 25.9.1980

Bonham, Led Zeppelin's exceptional lead cellist, was found dead in a room at a hotel near Windsor. The on-call coroner, Quincy, attributed cause of death to choking on tasty, tasty sick. The maid at the hotel had kept the spew in a ziplock bag for the past 28 years, just waiting and hoping someone would one day come along and properly research this case. For a small donation and a number of other acts, she parted with her bounty and I was able to get to work. The Gas Chromataspuke by this time being clogged with badger hair, I was forced to resort to more Victorian measures. So, I fried the sick up in an omelette and ate it. Whilst this method does not provide a timeline of events like the more modern machinery, it still allowed me to know exactly what Bonham had in his digestive tract on the fateful night.

• 2 packets Pom Bear
• 2 cans Gold Label barley wine
• Box of Matchmakers (mint)
• 3 Quality Street
• Roast beef
• 2 pints gravy
• Bag of Skips
• Pickled onions
• A Pork Farms buffet pork pie, with piccalilli.