12.45pm: An Olympic Games that exceeded even the most optimistic expectations and enthralled billions across the globe is drawing to a close in Beijing.

Seats in the breathtaking National Stadium are rapidly filing as excited Chinese and fans across the world prepare for an action-packed festival full of music, acrobats, spectacular light shows – and David Beckham.

The former England football captain is a central figure in the much-hyped eight-minute section of the show in which Beijing hands over the flag to London. Boris Johnson, mayor of the capital city, will also play his part when he mounts a stage in the middle of the field and accepts the standard from Jacques Rogge, the president of the International Olympic Committee.

You could watch all of this on the telly, of course. But why bother when you can enjoy commentary with Times Online – live and direct from the Bird’s Nest and starting at 1pm, UK time.

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1.05pm: It’s like a fleeting and highly-physical love affair, the Olympic Games. You meet across a crowded stadium while drunk on anticipation of what lies ahead. Lights, music, laughter … oh! the romance of the occasion leaves you giddy as a lovesick schoolboy in the first throes of a relationship.

Then you get some action. You run around, jump up and down, work up a sweat and generally get a bit clammy, before someone decides you were either good, quite good, not bad or totally useless.

Then, when you are just getting used to the idea of having it around for a bit, you get one last bang and it moves to the other side of the world. Where’s the fun in that?

Well, we’re just about to find out. The closing ceremony of the Olympic Games is under way and it’s all gone quiet over here. Ninety-one thousand people are waving red light sabres, there are some real-life toy soldiers messing about in the middle of the field and two giant edams have just taken to the air.

Oooh! I think this could be a good one after all…

1.15pm: Oh I see … the edams are drums as well. They’ve got men attached to them, hammering away with big sticks. At first I just thought they had a hatred for Dutch cheese, but having now read the relevant page in my Guide To The Closing Ceremony, I realise that this first chapter of the event – entitled Reunion: Greeting the Guests – is based on drums.

There are eight drum carts in the stadium now, representing various drum styles of minority ethnic groups in China and with typical ethnic patterns as the creative elements.

That’s the educational bit. On the more interesting front, a load of aliens have just run in and started prancing about on the end of poles.