Good night, good night! Parting is such sweet sorrow (or Barry Davies’ last night of commentary from Beijing)

02:02: Our penultimate night at the Olympic couchface. We must first commend boxer Kenny Egan, who proved again that what we saints and scholars do best as a nation is beat the lard out of people from other countries. Verily, it makes us want to weep tears of patriotic pride.

02:10: RTE, as has been the station’s custom in recent nights, is sipping cocktails from a hammock somewhere. Another lordly snub to the sport of women’s taekwondo. They could kick you into the middle of next week, you know.

02:18: The BBC, because it is paying two men to make bizarre comments about the sport, is screening the martial art. ‘One of the criticisms levelled at taekwondo is that it wouldn’t work in real life,’ says Taekwondo Man #2. ‘Well, hopefully it wouldn’t, cos you wouldn’t want to be kicking anyone.’ An interesting perspective. All Night Olympics can think of a few individuals to whom a good kicking could quite justly be administered.

02:51: Clare Balding, performing an important public service in the grand Reithian tradition of the BBC, has important news. Pay attention now: ‘On only two days have Team GB failed to win a medal.’ Really, Clare? We’ve been in such a daze from Team GB’s athletic excellence, we thought they’d only failed to win a medal on zero days.

02:51: And who was it won the World Cup in 1966? We can just never remember!

02:58: What follows is an exact quotation. Team GB taekwondo fighter Sarah Stevenson ‘did not know what an Olympics was the first time she competed in one.’ Just hang on a moment here. She was:

A)    An athlete competing at international level

B)    Not apparently suffering from any major sensory impairment

C)    Living on Planet Earth

What else could ‘an Olympics’ have been? A brand of vacuum cleaner? A species of exotic fish?

Sarah, a former world champion, was once ‘best on the planet.’ What they don’t tell you about is her dismal and repeated failure in interplanetary competitions on Pluto and Jupiter.

03:05: Four-year-old Team GB diver Tom Daley has been coaxed away from his Bob The Builder DVDs, presumably with a six-pack of Milky Bars, for long enough to compete in the 10m diving. Daley dives. Says the diving analyst: ‘For some reason, he just missed his entry into the water.’ This comment intrigues us. Did we miss something whilst scratching our eye? Was there major tectonic disruption? Did Godzilla turn the entire building upside-down?

03:12: ‘Come on Peter Waterfield,’ shouts Diving Man. HE CAN’T HEAR YOU. HE’S NOT WATCHING TELEVISION. HE IS COMPETING IN THE OLYMPIC GAMES.

03:37: Baseball: US v Japan in the bronze medal match. ‘We must remember this is for a bronze medal and that is still important,’ opines the American commentator. Decoded, this means: ‘Cuba beat us in the semi-final. Commie filth.’

03:48: ‘We continue our coverage of the 2008 Summer Olympics.’ A handy reminder of what season it is for the millions of disappointed viewers tuning into the baseball who were expecting a night of Alpine skiing.

04:10: Hockey: Team GB v Some Country That Is Not Team GB. Barry Davies’ co-commentator, presumably miffed at the amount of coverage Barry has been receiving, chips in with a line of his own: ‘Sometimes penalty corners are a bit punitive.’ This man has a subtle and brilliant appreciation of the English language.

04:12: Barry Davies, is there anything you would like to say to All Night Olympics this morning? ‘He’s a competitive fellow, Richard Alexander.’ Alexander has just brutally upended an opponent. This behaviour is known as ‘character’ or ‘pluck’.

04:19: ‘Danger here!’ says Barry, shamelessly stealing an expression long since patented by George Hamilton. Sue him, George!

04:57: Argentina v Nigeria in the football final begins in a few minutes. RTE, refreshed after their nice little rest, have deigned to broadcast the match live. Remember; Argentina are flamboyant but temperamental and Nigeria are talented but defensively naïve.

05:03: Argentina are appealing for a penalty. Jeez; they’re taking it so seriously. They clearly do not realise they are playing in a tournament with approximately the same level of prestige as the Zenith Data Systems Cup.

05:20: ‘It’s a real global game now.’ Stephen Alkin really knows his football.

05:46: Nil-nil at half-time in the football. There’s just time to check on Team GB’s medals haul, so helpfully on a loop on BBCi.

05:47: Phew! Yes, those silvers won in the women’s quadruple sculls are still secure. All Night Olympics can now sleep easily.