MARY HANNIGAN'S OLYMPIC TV VIEW:Britain's athletes give us the blues, as do their commentators

WE ARE, need it be said, thrilled for our neighbours that all is going so well for them in Beijing. Every morning when we awake to hear they've won yet another medal, even if it's only in sailing, we go "ah, that's terrific, good on them". But we feel they should give at least some thought to those less fortunate than themselves who might be tuning in to the BBC, even if we don't actually pay them a licence fee.

"Doesn't that look a lovely sight," purred Adrian Chiles as his eyes met the medals table yesterday morning.

"It sure does," said Hazel Irvine.

"Mmm," said Adrian.

"It really does," said Hazel.

"Mmm," said Adrian.

"Twenty-six medals so far," said Hazel.

"Mmm," said Adrian, by now sounding like Homer Simpson when his eyes meet a beer. Or doughnut.

They even have more gold than Michael Phelps, who, if he were a nation, would be level with Russia, South Korea and Japan on the golden front, and two ahead of Italy. And eight ahead of ourselves.

Granted, if someone from Bognor Regis tuned their satellite dish in to RTÉ and wrote to complain that, say, Jimmy Magee hollered "DECK HIM" when watching Kenny Egan square up to Washington Silva in the ring, we'd say "hump off and mind your own business". But still, we wish Adrian and Hazel would be more humble about the British medal count, at the very least throwing in a "just getting there is an achievement in itself" to comfort the rest of us.

Mind you, they don't have a Hasty Hession to boast of. Paul, a native of Athenry, raised our spirits to ceiling level yesterday after a series of disappointing Irish disappointments, winning his 200m semi-final. "Low lie the Fields of Athenry, where once we watched Paul Hession fly," we could hear his neighbours sing.

Jerry Kiernan, in the RTÉ studio, knew Hession had made history - "He's the first white man to . . . well . . . he's the first white Galway man to make a semi-final" - even if he wasn't certain of what kind, but, like Sonia O'Sullivan beside him, he was well chuffed.

As was Bill O'Herlihy come evening time. "I think they should be dancing in the streets of Athenry because they've reared the fastest white man in the world," he said. Jerry and Eamonn Coghlan agreed.

"I said to Michael Lyster that he was the greatest sportsman Galway had ever produced," said Jerry. "He threw in a few hurlers, but that's Michael."

It was, in contrast, a gut-wrenchingly frustrating day for Eileen O'Keeffe and David Gillick, O'Keeffe failing to reach the final of the hammer, Gillick finishing fourth in the first round of the 400m, not enough to progress. "I feel knackered, like," he told Colm Murray after the race.

Coughlan reckoned he'd just put too much pressure on himself, although, next to Liu Xiang, he was in the ha'penny place when it came to pressure. Carrying the expectations of 1.3 billion folk on your shoulders can't - and we're only guessing here - be easy.

"His coach said that unless he won gold in that stadium everything else in his career would be meaningless," James Reynolds, the BBC's Beijing correspondent, explained to Adrian and Hazel after an Achilles injury forced the defending 110m hurdles Olympic champion out of the first round. Nice.

Upon being told by James that the newsreader on the Chinese One O'Clock News had broken down in tears upon announcing Xiang's Olympic demise, Adrian tried to be sympathetic, but he was struggling.

"They do failure a bit differently to us, don't they," he asked. "But he wasn't actually favourite to win this, so, and it's an awful question to ask, and I'm not suggesting he's wimped out here at all, the poor man's devastated, but it's an interesting question, isn't it . . . would he rather go out like this or end up letting the entire nation down by not winning it?"

Jonathan Edwards (triple jump legend), Christian that he is, agreed to differ with Adrian's suspicions, but Bill was no less dubious. "I feel sorry for him, but it's turned out to be a ridiculous soap opera," he said, Coughlan agreeing, dismissing it all as "Chinese propaganda".

Jerry, though, was with Liu Xiang and Edwards, accepting that it was as it seemed, a monstrous bit of misfortune for the fella.

Sure, who knows? All we do know is the Olympics are a mysterious thing.

Nothing more mysterious than the Triathlon. Cripes. Most wondrous of all was how BBC co-commentator Greg Bennett found it in his heart to compliment Australia's Emma Moffatt when she held off her nearest challenger to take bronze.

"A really great effort," he said, just before the fourth-placed triathlete stumbled over the line.

Laura Bennett was her name. Greg's wife.