Some day, all of Britain will be shooting clay pigeons

Extra condoms for Sydney," ran a headline in yesterday's Guardian. "He's a one, that Sydney," I thought, tutting admiringly, while marvelling at how Syd finds the time for such a lively social life with so much sport on TV at present.

Turns out, the emergency prophylactic supplies are for the Olympians who have been entertaining us so royally over the past couple of weeks, and now wish to demonstrate their athletic prowess in a private setting.

Outrageous, I say. We had been led to believe that the world's athletes had strained every muscle, stiffened every sinew, and used every last ounce of effort in the quest for gold - or in the British case, bronze. If that were the case, they would surely be too exhausted by now to do anything other than retire to their beds (alone) with an improving novel and a mug of Ovaltine.

Au contraire. It appears the athletes' village is fast running out of what Viz comic's thesaurus of euphemisms calls "lover covers". And this despite the interview I saw on Channel Four's Olympics Live and Unleashed, in which the official supplier of condoms to the village said he had filled the dispensers with sufficient of his product to allow each competitor at least 50 to last the fortnight. That is EACH competitor.

If these generous stocks of what I believe the Americans sometimes refer to as Coney Island white fish are already running low, then that party the swimmers are alleged to be enjoying must make the Fall Of The Roman Empire seem like the Rotarians' annual dinner.

Still, at least we now know what the BBC reporters are referring to when they ask British medal winners when the partying will start.

That has been one of the top two cliche questions of these games, the other one being: "What will this do for your sport back home?" This question is routinely put to every medal winner, including clay pigeon shooters and three-day eventers; the correct answer is: "It will give it a tremendous boost, Steve."

Well, I would not claim to have done any exhaustive research, but I see no evidence of kiddies putting their footballs to one side and taking to the streets on horseback, nor of youngsters with rifles blasting those poor little clay pigeons from the skies. I certainly have not encouraged my children to start toting guns, having seen the damage they can do with a box of crayons.

The trickle-down argument is more convincing applied to a sport such as tennis. It is just possible to believe that by retrieving some long lost racket from the cupboard under the stairs and thrashing around in the park, you could come up with something that looks vaguely like what Tim and Greg do; but as Tim and Greg departed the games without winning a single medal (or match) between them, in the middle of the night when we were all fast asleep, it is difficult to put that theory to the test.

The point is that most Olympic events seem designed for obsessives, monomaniacs who pursue their sport with an intensity it is probably not healthy to try to match.

And so we nod off in front of them at one in the morning, marvelling occasionally at what they do, but not imagining it has any great relevance to our own lives. Weightlifters, synchronised divers, John Inverdale; these are special people we can admire but probably not emulate.

I include Inverdale because he appears to be broadcasting pretty well round the clock. I hear him on the radio in the morning - and very relaxed and personable he is too - and then should I pop in the pub for a spot of late lunch, there he is again on the big screen rounding up the evening's events.

There are those who find these round-up programmes a little unsatisfying, but I am not one. It may be sacrilege to say as much in this bit of the newspaper, but most days these pre-digested chunks show me as much of the games as I want to see.

That is not to say I do not admire and applaud the skill and dedication of the athletes. In fact, I should like to be the first to wish them much joy now, as they relax with other like-minded healthy young people, and plentiful supplies of Casanova's rubber sock (thanks to Viz again).

I had been saving up this joke, safe in my belief that it would come in handy at some point during the games. Now, thanks largely to lottery money, it appears to have become redundant. Do these funding bodies ever consider all the consequences of their decisions? martin@kelner.demon.co.uk