All of which makes figure skating a source of unreasonable debate, especially around the time of the Olympics. So is it a sport?

Suspicion No 1 Chicks dig it. Not to generalise or anything, but figure skating is the one element of an Olympics that probably won't be forcibly interrupted by Coronation Street or a programme in which a pet/spouse/dead relative gets a makeover.

On Thursday night you had the men's figure skating live from Turin, and Premier League Darts on Sky Sports 1. Both under suspicion of not being real sports, but only one likely to be watched in a mixedgender household without complaint.

Suspicion No 2 The outfits.

To paraphrase Eddie Izzard, there is a thin line between looking crazy sexy cool, and looking like a dickhead. These gentlemen have not seen that line in quite some time. They are admirably, breathtakingly uncool.

Suspicion No 3 The coverage. As this country has not had a year-round ice rink since the last one burned down, it's hardly surprising that RTE cannot be bothered to show it. So we depend on the BBC and/or Eurosport.

Eurosport gives just the facts ma'am, with an occasionally entertaining commentary double act, one of which, uniquely for the channel, actually appears to be in the same building as the action.

The BBC have severe time constraints, and still have to cater for the uninitiated masses. So there is a look back through the ages, but while the rest of the sports get Kaiser Chiefs or Kanye West as the soundtrack, figure skating gets Enya. Add this to pictures of people who looked uncool in the 1980s, and you've got a tough sell.

The creeping feeling that one is sharing a viewing experience with the sort of sports fans who fill Henman's Hill . . . or Murray's Mound or whatever the Daily Mail calls it these days . . . becomes overwhelming. The nightmarish vision of Sue Barker on a white backdrop doesn't help.

On Thursday night, the action itself was over before it really began. Russia's Evgeni Plushenko carried an unprecedented 10-point lead from the short programme into the free, so would probably have had to set himself on fire to miss out on gold. Instead he whipped himself about the place as if he were on dry land, in what Barry Davies described as "a calculated performance". Game over.

The rest of what went on perhaps should not be commented on by someone still amazed that a person can spin around more than half a dozen times without puking on themselves. So let's laugh at the costumes a bit more.

Silver medallist Stephane Lambiel of Switzerland wore a multi-coloured tiger print effort that suggested there had been a competition to dress him and everyone won. Brian Joubert, meanwhile, completed Monday's short programme in a lycra tux with '007' on the back, dancing around to 'Die Another Day', leading crueller members of the audience to wonder, "why wait?". On Thursday he sported a rather more fetching red and silver effort, before attempting to jig about to the theme from Lord of the Dance. Joubert is French, although probably not for long.

Suspicion No 4 The judges. Probably the suspicion with the most validity. After spending four minutes doing incredible things on an ice rink, the competitors are led to the purgatory of what Barry Davies calls the "kiss and cry area" to await their fate.

To an untrained eye (or indeed two, in this column's case) it seems frustratingly random.

This was the reason that John Part, Canada's greatest darts player and worst commentator, suggested last year that figure skating wasn't a real sport, unlike his profession.

The first round of Premier League Darts had less sequins, although it did have 1,300 (mostly) lads getting sweaty in a room in Blackburn. Nowt as queer as folk.

So is figure skating, or indeed darts, a sport?

Somebody once said that the best way of defining games as opposed to sports is whether you can drink while doing it. Darts certainly can, some say should, be played under the influence. A case could be made that you could drink while figure skating although the probability of puking after the spins would increase. Wouldn't make a lot of difference to the costumes though.