The BBC commentator's over-excited exclamation at a female competitor in something called the halfpipe jarred us out of our slumber after we had nodded off while watching the aerobatic cavortings from Phoenix Park in Pyeongchang during the early hours over the weekend.

However, before the airwaves could be filled by an avalanche of angry tweets from the po-faced protesters of sport's snowflake generation, and assorted women's groups, it transpires that the backside in question was simply one of the tricks of the snowboarding trade, a legitimate term to describe a loop-the-loop on skis.

There appears to be several versions of the phrase. Honestly. We were even informed that one backside was "wind-assisted". Hmm...

And later on: "That's the biggest backside we've seen today".

Kim Kardashian, eat your heart out.

Backsides of all sorts certainly have been much to the fore during the Games, not only when spinning through the atmosphere but on the snow and ice where skiers and skaters have been tumbling on theirs in some abundance; but that’s snow-business for you.

There is many a slip and slide to titillate the snow-bored insomniacs like me who largely comprise the Pyeongchang 2018 televisual audience here in the United Kingdom.

Not, it would seem, that there have been that many bums on armchairs in front of the box around 3am.

The BBC have yet to release any viewing figures but judging from the sporting small talk these Winter Olympics aren't exactly grabbing the average punter by the snowballs.

Down at the Dog and Duck the chat is of Manchester City's stunning FA Cup demise, of Chris Eubank Jr's punishing tutorial from George Groves or whether England can beat Wales in the Six Nations rugby.

No mention of slaloms, hog lines, twizzles, triple Salchows, let alone the snowplow position. Or, more is the pity, even of Lizzy Yarnold's scintillating defence of her skeleton crown, an achievement which on its own may well have justified UK Sport's generous £28 million ($39 million/€32 million) investment into Britain's largest-ever Team GB wintry preparations.

Those of us who have doubts as to whether some of the weird things kids attempt on winter sports holidays deserve Olympic status greatly admire the skill, dedication and fortitude of the intrepid Lizzy and her fellow sliders and bobbers.

So I spluttered over my Horlicks when back in the studio Clare Balding actually declared "there's no more nerve-wracking a sport than curling".

Really? Try skidding down an ice tunnel on a tin tray at 85 miles an hour.

Inevitably, we have been treated to then usual rah-rah BBC excess of cheerleading with even some snow-hopers hailed as potential world beaters. To be frank, switching over to Eurosport every now and again brings a refreshing change of understatement and rationality. 

As always, the figure skating and ice dancing provide a welcome breath of glamour.

One wonders what those who so vehemently decried the skimpily clad young ladies who acted as hostesses at the infamous Presidents Club charity bash in London recently thought of the even skimpier costumes of female contestants in the aptly-named short programme; some made boxing’s ring card girls seem over-dressed and showed more backside than the half-pipers.

A sight for bleary eyes indeed.

But not in the United States it seems where interest in the Games seems to have more or less evaporated.

NBC ratings are said to be dismal with the weather channels getting more.

Maybe it is the time-zone, or the fact the US are not faring particularly well.

Foreigners winning things when the US are not is always a TV turn-off in Milwaukee.

Of course no Games of any sort - Winter or Summer - would be complete without someone failing a drugs test.

Particularly if they are Russian. 

But news that a member of the Russian curling team apparently has failed for meldonium, the same substance which so many of his compatriots, including tennis czarina Maria Sharapova and 2004 Olympic super-heavyweight boxing champion Alexander Povetkin, seem to have swallowed like Smarties, truly boggles the mind.

I have recounted here before how some years ago, when the delightful British athlete Diane Modahl gave a positive test - she was later absolved - Seb Coe sighed: "If Diane Modahl is taking drugs there is no hope for athletics".

Well, if a curler has to resort to dope to help him push a broom surely there is no hope for the Winter Olympics?