Proving Popular Then

So how are your Winter Olympics going? And more importantly, hasn't this been a good week for our old friend, the Roman Numeral? Last Sunday's Super Bowl was XL and now we're confronted with XX. Ever found yourself asking 'what have the Romans ever done for us'? (thought not). Well, there's your answer.

The results of the above poll suggest that Olympic Fever hasn't exactly taken off yet. I thought that 22.8 million people tuning into the Opening Ceremony was decent business for NBC but apparently not (it's 50% down on Salt Lake City back in 2002). Still, they've already sold $900 million worth of ads. Let's pray they're of the Geico quality and not Pepsi's 'Brown And Bubbly' (a tagline that, I think, has been removed after less than a week). Back in Blighty and BBC Sport bosses were rightly pleased with their opening weekend: a peak of 4 million for the Opening shindig and 4.2 million punters - that was 21% of the entire TV watching audience - tuning in for last night's ski jumping.

As for the sport (yeah, that takes place too), it's probably been more entertaining than I thought it would be. Britain's reigning Gold medal curlers - or housewives on acid as I like to think of them - won their opening match this morning and I'll be delighted if any of our athletes finish on the winning podium at all. Mr. Hype himself, Bode Miller, failed to win a medal yesterday but was seen in Torino's local nightclubs before his event which will please his paymasters over at Nike no end and 'The Flying Tomato' Shaun White won snowboarding Gold. You can debate the merits all night long as to whether it should even be an Olympic event but any outfit which has room for an ipod must surely be applauded. Did you see his interview with Bob Costas? When asked what the Gold medal might do for him, the Tomato expressed hope that it would make him more attractive to women. He's certainly got plenty of time to ketchup (boom boom). And isn't it good to see the original Olympic ethos hard at work: you know, it's not the winning that counts but the banging of babes? God Bless America.