And another thing

Sometime soon I may stop banging on about the Olympics. But till then...

If you are a Games savant, as I am, it will no longer be a surprise to find yourself becoming emotionally involved with all manner of sports you may normally turn your nose up. Boxing, for me, is one of the more unlikely.

The BBC have tried to colour up the GB boxing team by casting them as some kind of Lock, Stock…-style band of lovable scrappers, with special graphics showing mugshots of 'The Beijing Seven' and profiles of each competitor, complete with fascinating trivia and occasional nicknames which may well have been invented by Guy Richie.

Their profile of super-heavyweight David Price reads: 'Nicknamed "Dynamite", he is a qualified central heating engineer.'

Now, while I am admittedly over-enthusiastic about punctuation, there is something strange and unfortunate about the way these clauses seem to be related. If I was to hire a central heating engineer to come round to my house and meddle around with things like, oh, highly flammable gas and the like, I wouldn't enjoy the thought that the nickname 'Dynamite' might somehow prove pertinent.

It was encouraging to see David Price doing his best to inhabit his LockStock-alike alter ego after he knocked out an opponent in an early round. Price ran over to the ropes and bellowed into the crowd 'YER BASSTARD!' entirely audibly, thanks to some manner of ringside microphone. The BBC chose to silence this outburst for the U-certificate early-evening highlights show, but I would have enjoyed it more if they'd overdubbed his profanity with the words 'YOU'RE BUSTED' using the too-plummy voice of a jobbing actor. Budget cuts are, I assume, responsible.