Oh dear. The secret diary of Tom Daley, aged 14 and a half, reveals raging teenage hormones. Thank goodness he had some diving at the Olympic Aquatics Centre to take his mind off the ladies because he is in danger of running away with his status as a junior sex god.

His assured performance at a press conference was punctuated by the inevitable question about girlfriends. But the young ladies of Plymouth should beware, for it seems that Daley is on the prowl for a long-term association. "I have got a bit more attention from girls," he told China Daily, the biggest English language newspaper out here.

"But there will be no serious girlfriends until after the Games." Serious girlfriends! At 14! I don't know. Kids these days. What would you do with them? They are no sooner out of short pants than they are thinking about Kylie's short pants. If I was Tom's dad, he would be confined to his bedroomed with a copy of the Bible and a cold compress when he gets home. Dear, dear, dear.

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What always surprises me is just how savvy the modern sporting youngster can be when it comes to making a few quid. Just watch Lewis Hamilton sometime when he is interviewed. He never drives for McLaren, always Vodafone McLaren Mercedes as he dutifully thanks the sponsors and the team.

Now Daley is at it and he isn't even shaving yet. Apart from the fact that he already has an agent, he apparently managed to list B&Q, Visa and Sportsworld, which is some sort of tour agency, in the space of about two minutes during his pre-Olympics press conference. You can bet Tom's bottom dollar that it won't be long before he is on the telly advertising acne cream or trainers or something.

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Thank goodness the sport has started at last here in Beijing, though. There aren't many times you will hear a cheer in the press room but there was a loud one on Sunday for Nicole Cooke as she put on that storming finish in the women's road race to take Britain's first gold. The hilarity came later as the hacks covering the event came trouping back into the main press centre; they had all arrived dressed for a torrid Beijing summer - shorts, tee-shirts and flip-flops - and found themselves in the middle of a torrential downpour that wouldn't have looked out of place in Leeds.

For those of us involved in some Cooke-style research, there was a smile when an internet headline from the Bucks Free Press flashed up, saying: "Wycombe man inspires first GB Gold". Now, before you all start writing in, I am not taking the mickey for, indeed, I was that local newspaperman once myself and I know the perils and pitfalls of putting a local spin on an international story, and this was a perfectly valid effort. Turns out Cooke's coach is one Gordon Wright, president of the High Wycombe cycling club, and he should be rightly proud. Still made me smile, though.

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Actually, the whole weather thing is bizarre, to say the least. Many of us here are sniffing and snuffling, battered by the alternation of searing heat, suffocating humidity and super-cold air-conditioning that blasts the windpipe with an icy chill. Now we have torrential rain and temperatures have plummeted. We can't keep up - and neither can the Olympic authorities who, on Saturday, were warning that the tennis players may need "heat breaks" to recover from the soaring temperatures. By Sunday, the tennis players were all sat in the Athletes' Village shivering and waiting for the rain to stop. Funny old world, isn't it.

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On the subject of breathing, a sigh of relief from the scoreboard operators at the weightlifting after the 53-kilos category was sorted out on Sunday. For that meant Prapawadee Jaroanrattanatarakoon, from Thailand, who retained his gold medal, had left the Olympic arena for the duration. Wonder if you can cut and paste Jaroanrattanatarakoon on a scoreboard, as just I did here on the laptop? And don't bother writing in if I got it wrong. You try spelling it.

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As Jaroanrattanatarakoon (getting cocky now) will tell you, winning is everything. Actually Pedro Roque, Cuba's boxing coach, said much the same thing the other day in somewhat confused fashion. "Our ten boxers are going to win gold, silver, bronze - it doesn't matter. They will win," he said. But if you win silver or bronze, does that not mean, by definition, that you lost somewhere along the line? Just checking.

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Not sure either about the training regime invented by Ryan Lochte, bronze medallist in the 400m individual men's swimming. "I woke up at six and ate a McDonald's," he revealed. You don't think that was a Tom Daley-style nod for the sponsor, do you? Heaven forfend.