Torture of Olympic addiction is bringing tears of joy to my eyes

Such stoics would probably point out that, for all the grandiose schmaltz about the 'Olympic ideal', the Games are a quadrennial bout of geopolitical willy-waving (China currently having the biggest willy of them all) organised to swell the profits of the US networks and such lovable 'partners' as McDonalds, Nike and Coca-Cola.

Such cynics are absolutely right, of course, and more arrant cobblers is talked about the Olympics than anything on earth.

That much-vaunted opening ceremony, for instance, may have been more cleverly designed than any before it, but it was still three times too long and six times too portentous, while to the 99.999999999 per cent of humans without tickets to an event nothing is more irrelevant than the splendour of the stadia or the smileyness of the volunteers.

The sporting action looks identical on TV regardless of the venue, after all, and might as well be held in a giant B&Q depot near Cirencester as in Beijing or East London.

What the Olympics are primarily about, for the average viewer like me, is the irresistible power of patriotic pride.

This is why, as Nicole Cooke fought to the finish through very English driving rain yesterday and Rebecca Adlington stretched to victory by a fingertip in the 400 metres freestyle swimming this morning, the tears started to flow.

Admittedly I'd been weakened by sleep deprivation, a standard torture technique, having been up since 2am watching the Games. But I'd have blubbed anyway for no better reason than that Cooke, Adlington and I share the same kind of passport.

Certainly the emotional reaction had nothing to do with the sport itself. It would have been the same had she won gold for belching, farting, balancing a spoon on the end of her nose to the accompaniment of a zither and harpsichord duet, or standing on one leg humming Men of Harlech and juggling pomegranates.

It is the flag, and not the sport or sportsperson, that engages us.

This is why even those who know nothing of amateur boxing affect to be outraged at the failure of a man of whom they hadn't heard last week, Frankie Gavin, to make his weight.

And this is why, for half an hour yesterday morning, the thing that mattered most in this world to me was that three British women would defeat their French counterparts for the bronze medal in archery, a sport you'd normally agree to watch only if the alternative was the application of electrodes to your genitals.

And even then you'd want some time to think it over. Our archers lost to the French, as it happened, and once the recollection that we'll always have Agincourt had restored the spirits it was on to the next Event You'd Never Waste 10 Seconds On If It Wasn't The Olympics - which happened to be middle distance swimming. There are scores more such events to come over the ensuing days, and thank God for them because they pierce the justifiable cynicism.

Corrupt, self-aggrandising, hypocritical and generally ridiculous as the Olympics may be, the opportunity they provide to revere the obscure for flourishing in sports about which no one gives a toss, and the chance for us patriots to well up at the sound of human history's worst national anthem, more than makes the torture worth enduring.