A Century or two ago someone with a bit of time on their hands, "author unknown", but quite probably Scottish, wrote an ode to the sport of curling - it went something like this:

"O CURLERS, come, we're brithers a', come join the curling game;

Our eyes are keen, our arms are true, our courage is aflame;

In winter air, and sport so rare, the stones our weapons be,

We'll make the fight with honest might, to gain the victory:

A man who is a curling man, no better man than he."

Then, last week, another verse was added, to give it a more contemporary feel. It went something like this:

"A NOBLE sport, no one disputes, that's big in Ayr and Montreal,

But watching it on telly is less fun than watching paint dry on a wall."

Though the author of this new verse chose to remain anonymous there's some evidence to suggest that it was penned by Eurosport's Archie McPherson. In the wee small hours of Tuesday morning Archie, courage aflame, provided three hours of uninterrupted live commentary for the men's curling clash of Germany and Norway. That's 180 minutes out of Archie's life.

Persistent snow showers (which, oddly enough, are a bad thing at a Winter Olympics) kept wiping out the only events that Eurosport and the BBC really wanted to show us, so, while we waited and waited (and waited) for the downhill skiing to get the go ahead, we saw enough curling to bring tears to the eyes.

Archie began Tuesday morning's marathon with some enthusiasm for his task: "There's a nice jolly atmosphere about curling, there always is" - but as the hours wore on his mood grew progressively gloomy and he was fast running out of meaningful things to say.

"Very rarely do you see a Japanese person without a camera," he sighed, as he spotted a yawning Japanese person with a camera in the crowd. Silence. "This gentleman does a lot of cooking in his spare time...the, eh, complete antithesis is of what he is now doing," he said of Norway's Eigil Ramsfjeld, the Tiger Woods of curling. Silence. "Fine sweeping by Oliver Axnick and Holger Hoehne." Silence. "We have three German stones in the house now." Silence. "Ooh, look at Germany's Andy Kapp stamping his brush with frustration." Silence. By now Archie knew just how Andy felt. Three hours and 10 "ends" later. "I hope you've stayed with us through the night, all you insomniacs," he said. Translated this meant: "If there's any one still out there you are one sad b------d."

Meanwhile, over on the BBC. "There's no easy way to tell you this," said Ray Stubbs's face. He began shifting uncomfortably in his seat and his co-presenter Jane Hoffen could hardly bring herself to look us in the eye. "Great Britain's men's curling team is currently playing Switzerland - now, only three of the four matches being played are being covered by our Japanese hosts, guess which one isn't at the moment?"

Aw, drat. No more curling? "So, what we'll show you is the match between Sweden and Japan," said Ray. Curling expert Hammy McMillan, who, may have some Scottish connections, could hardly contain his excitement. Yet more live curling! Hammy thought he'd died and gone to heaven. The rest of just thought we'd died.

Tuesday night. Ray and Jane gave us a brief glimpse of a truly thrilling ski-jump competition but then.... "let's just slow the pulse rate down a little now and return to the women's curling" said Jane. Wednesday night. Jane again. "Disappointment so far, the men's downhill is delayed for half an hour - what we're going to do now is concentrate on curling for a while."

Thursday night. Jane. "Can you believe it, the men's downhill delayed once more. But there's always curling." Which meant Dougie Donnelly and Richard Harding were on duty yet again. At least they had each other - if Richard fell asleep in the commentary box Dougie could keep the show going, and vice versa. Or if either man had a call of nature the other could hold the fort. Eurosport's budget meant Archie had to do his shift all alone. Finally, late on Thursday night, the men's downhill got under way and while the viewers woke from their slumber Hammy bedded down for a nap and dreamt of the next live session of curling. He missed stunning pictures and a group of insanely courageous competitors, like Hermann Maier who, after almost killing himself in a spectacular crash, picked himself up, brushed himself down, grinned in to the camera and gave the thumbs up. With all the serious contenders out of the way leader Jean-Luc Cretier stood smiling at the bottom of the mountain, politely waiting for the no-hopers to finish before he could collect his shiny gold medal. And then Canadian veteran Brian Stemmle almost created one of those truly great Olympic stories.

Stemmle, whose best ever finish in a race was 14th, suffered massive internal injuries in an accident in 1989 and was never expected to race again. Even a top 20 finish in Nagano would have been considered a triumph. Two thirds the way down the mountain he was, astonishingly, half a second faster than Cretier...and then he slid out of the race on the soft snow.

"Oh, how close he was to taking Olympic gold," screamed the BBC commentator and the worst part of all was that Stemmle's face told us he knew just how close he was. An ashen-faced Cretier knew how close he had been to losing his gold. It was sporting drama at its very finest.

And then it was back to curling. Although, it has to be said in the sport's defence, that compared to the Crystal Palace v Wimbledon match, live on Sky on Monday night, it is a thoroughly thrilling spectacle.

Eigil Ramsfjeld could produce more excitement in one end of curling than these teams produced in the whole of Monday's snore-inducing 90 minutes. After the match Wimbledon owner Sam Hammam explained to Sky's Richard Keys just why he wanted to foist his team on Irish football supporters.

"The thing about Dublin is that it is really such a fantastic, sexy option," he said. Sexy? Funnily enough Ken Hom used just such a description for a cauliflower salad he had made on BBC 2 earlier in the evening. Well, if Dublin is "sexy" let's hope Wimbledon, if they do arrive, produce football that is somewhat more exciting than a cauliflower salad. "Sexy" it certainly ain't.