OLYMPIC fever has struck us all down in the Hirst household – and we never really saw it coming.

It started as sniffles or even a slight chill in the run-up to the games until we joined the throng in Marsh to watch police motorcyclists high-five the crowd – oh, and even got a glimpse of the Olympic torch.

It then became a cold after the opening ceremony and a show that had slapstick comedy alongside a brilliantly ridiculous Royal cameo, chimneys miraculously emerging out of the ground like something out of Harry Potter, dancing nurses and children jumping on bizarrely-lit bids and a breeze through five decades of music including the Sex Pistols. We can do some things right in this country.

Even Kenneth Branagh was beaming in his role as top-hatted and large side-burned Isambard Kingdom Brunel. Yes, smiling. He’s become so synonymous with morose Swedish detective character Wallander, we began to wonder if he could actually manage one. But at least he’d left that character at home in Sweden, staring wistfully out of a window with yet more murder and mayhem unfolding in the background.

But now that a bloke with a good solid Huddersfield name – Bradley Wiggins – has won gold it’s a full-blown viral infection at our house. Within months it’ll be Arise Sir Sideburns.

It was never less than hay fever with my seven-year-old son, Harry. Even in the early part of this week with the fourth places, the near misses, the glorious failures and the magnificent efforts that didn’t quite end up on the podium, Harry rose above us all with his never-ending sense of optimism.

Great Britain beating the United Arab Emirates ended up with minute-by-minute updates from the living room.

And all this excitement and anticipation from sports we never knew existed, performed by athletes from countries we’d never even heard of before.

Now we’re into the games themselves, the mystery deepens as to why some sports are in there and some aren’t. No-one in their right mind is going to knock beach volleyball – especially the women’s – even though every ounce of commonsense tells you that playing volleyball in a giant sandpit can’t possibly be much more than a fun holiday knockabout.

And what an earth is judo about?

"Was that it?’’ was all we could say. Blink and you miss it stuff. Take the first day of the Olympics. A couple of blokes – one from Russia and the other from Japan, strutted around the arena on their way to the mat looking suitably menacing. OK so far.

Then suddenly they’re on the mat prowling around staring into one another’s eyes in a particularly unloving way. I poured my tea, dunked a biscuit, looked up and it was over. Yes, over. Finished. All done. The end. The judges were conferring. The Russian smiled – possibly, like Wallander, for the first time in his life – waved to the crowd and walked away. He’d won. His Japanese rival looked like he was contemplating doing the decent thing.

The bout had lasted barely a minute. You don’t get a second chance in that game. One strike and you’re out.

My nephew tried to explain the rules and scoring system. It made the offside rule sound simple. Something to do with victor ending up on the vanquished one’s back. How bizarre.

Over to the pool and Missy Franklin from the USA strutting her stuff in a horizontal manner. Surely she’s a rap artist isn’t she. Perhaps she raps while swimming to give her that extra oomph.

And all the controversy over turbocharged Chinese swimmer Ye Shiwen. The talk’s been about drugs but has anyone thought to check her feet for tiny jet engine implants. It’s amazing how the obvious can be missed.

The swimmers just dive straight in. Whatever happened to doing it the English way going in slowly inch by inch and then jumping about as the water creeps over the top of your trunks. That’s always the worst – and coldest – bit. Surely that’s the proper way. It is at Colne Valley Leisure Centre. Lucky they don’t train there.

Next moment there’s archery from Lords cricket ground. Whatever happened to the spirit of Robin Hood and his merry men? This lot are all tooled up in the technological sense of the word, equipped with bows that look more like they’ve been assembled by a bunch of boffins than athletes. You can’t help but wonder of the skill factor has been diluted along the way somewhere.

But as the days unfold Harry’s interest remains unbowed.

And he exclusively revealed that England goalkeeper Joe Harte is married to the women’s team keeper on the solid matrimonial basis that "they wear the same shirts.’’

And if the games have one big legacy it may just be that by staging them in the UK they have inspired a generation of kids to look at trying out new sports.

Even if it is only swimming at Colne Valley Leisure Centre and it takes them 10 minutes to get in.