IN our house the TV coverage comes under the all-purpose heading of Lympics and judging by our competitors' efforts to win a gold medal it may end up as Limp-ics.

My wife, who is going for gold in grumbling, lasted precisely four days before demanding: "How much longer are we going to have to put up with this and why the hell are we suddenly Team GB? It makes us sound like a text message."

The news that Steve Rider and Sue Barker are delivering 16 days of convoluted competitions in Olympics Today and Olympics Grandstand (I'm not sure if I can spot the difference) produced a double gold in glowering.

My critic in the corner also has little stamina for the Olympic trailers constantly showing a hero athlete overcoming mythical opponents in contests observed by Zeus (Philip Voss) and Hera (Tracy Ray).

The BBC's press office informed me helpfully that "the people featured in the Olympic trailers are actors not athletes".

A pity, because Steve Agyei - there is also a paralympic version featuring Khristos Kapelas - looks a far better bet for the winner's podium than our real-life track and field entrants.

At one stage we seemed to be relying on the IOC introducing Sychronised Dog-walking to put us in the medals, but soon the obscure interests of diving, butterfly, badminton, canoeing and archery were providing lively office banter.

The Beeb is boasting 250 hours of coverage, but Tuesday's lengthy gymnastics didn't seem to feature a single shot of a British woman, just loads of Australian antics even though we were ahead of them at one point.

Congratulations are in order for another stirring piece of theme music and incidental soundtrack which is performed by the young opera singers of Amici Forever.

As for those elusive athletics golds, I think our lot are going to have to attend the Kenteris Clinic on Lesbos to find out how it's done.

If my wife had stumbled across Made For Each Other? (C4, Wednesday) unaided - as in the case of What Not To Wear, You Are What You Eat etc - I'm pretty sure I'd have escaped another international session of ear-bashing. It's the standard reality TV format of people with a problem being offered instant solutions, in this case Tamworth couple Sharon and Jonathan who rarely communicate except to bicker.

You could see from the start that wife Sharon caused most of the problems by spending eight hours on the sofa watching television, but I made the mistake of saying so.

My wife immediately retreated to the far end of our sofa and declared: "This is the last time I watch any of your rubbish."

Soon experts Malcolm Stern, a psychotherapist, and divorce lawyer (shudder) Vanessa Lloyd Platt told Sharon to watch less TV and criticised her husband for his caveman attempts at affection.

As Sharon floundered with attempts to be nicer to her husband, and sat on the sofa to read rather than watch TV, my eldest son observed: "You two have a really good relationship." At which point his parents pulled faces at one another.

"There," he said "I knew I was right."

Published: 21/08/2004