Happy birthday horses everywhere. And a special happy birthday to yesterday's gold medallists: Barny, King Artus, Opgun Luovo, Butts Abraxxus, and dual winner Sam.

Freebies for corporate partners is nothing new in Big Sports. Corporate partners not using their freebies is nothing new either. But the sight of empty seats - and lots of them - has struck a collective raw nerve at the London Games.

Just like any true Weapons of Mass Destruction, Australia's proved to be non-existent.

The NBC is copping an absolute bollocking for sticking to a (for them) tried and trusted formula in covering the Olympic Games - or as Americans insist on calling them, the Summer Olympics. Taking the day's highlights, packaging them up and wrapping them in a journalistic narrative worked in the 20th century. Problem is, we are now a dozen years into the 21st.

Here is a Youtube playlist of ten of my favourite pieces that were performed at the London Olympic Games opening ceremony.

All I can say is that I am as much in awe of Danny Boyle's craftsmanship as ever. This was the best stadium-based opening/closing ceremony ever, and it should be the last because no one is ever going to have a hope of topping it. Seriously.

If being Australian cricket captain is as important a job as Prime Minister, then carrying the Australian flag at the Olympic opening ceremony must be on the same level as winning a Gold Logie. Well, maybe not quite.

A storification of my Olympic-related tweets and retweets in the five days prior to the opening ceremony of the London Olympics. Most of my #london2012 tweets from the past few months can be found under my automated Daily Twitter collection, which unfortunately hasn't been functioning properly all the time.

The Games have begun. That traditional opening to the Olympics, unknown up till now as Women's Soccer Wednesday. The twelve teams of this Matildaless tournament got the Games of the XXX Olympiad under way, but one team received preferential treatment from the organisers. On the day it was announced that Kim Jong Un was no longer the world's most eligible bachelor, LOCOG chose the ideal present from their wedding gift register.

There is a List A and List B of words that are prohibited in certain combinations. List A comprises Games, Two Thousand and Twelve, 2012 and Twenty-Twelve. List B includes London, Medals, Sponsor, Gold, Silver, Bronze. You can't use two List A terms together or one List A with one or more List B. Sounds like the opposite of opening a bank account, doesn't it?