Bolt stages his own version of The Fast Show

Jamaican superstar’s entrance sends everybody coy.

Arabella Weir used to play a businesswoman character in The Fast Show who was assertive and assured when dealing with other women, but would become coy and childishly winsome whenever a man she fancied entered the room.

Yesterday evening, Glasgow was that woman and Usain Bolt was the man who was making her blush.

Before he entered Hampden Park for his 4x100m relay heat, the athletics had been proceeding in a festive but orderly fashion. We’d roared on Libby Clegg and Eilidh Child to their gold and silver medals and celebrated Mark Dry’s bronze in the men’s hammer. Unexpectedly to some, perhaps, we’d also cheered on the English competitors who we had fond memories of from London 2012. And we had also welcomed the world’s stars, such as David Rudisha and Blessing Okagbare. In the words of Gabby Logan, “We’ve done alright without him.”

Then “he” turned up and from Steve Cram in the commentary box to Mrs McGinty sat in the back row of the North Stand, everyone got a bit giggly.

Two Scots did their best to make us see sense and remind us that this was the man that was reported to have described Glasgow as not quite Sherwood Content (his home village) or words to that effect.

The heroic Lynsey Sharp sprinted down the home straight for second place in the 800m and then tearfully told us she’d been throwing up all night and walking around with a drip in her arm. It sobered us up until the next appearance of the BBC’s “Boltdown” clock, at which point we collectively giggled “20 minutes to go.”

Then it was Andrew Cotter’s turn, standing aloof from the hysteria around him to pronounce disapprovingly “Everyone, not least our strangely named clock, is getting excited about the appearance of Usain Bolt.” I suspect as a punishment, Andrew was not allowed to comment on the race.

Crammy was much more “on message” for the occasion, getting giddy as Bolt entered the arena in the face of 40,000 flashes from mobile phone cameras. “Oh, I hope it goes well for him,” he said in the same way your mum would before you take your driving test.

Any residual bitterness from the build-up was swept away with one little fist pump with his kit box attendee (one of the reasons you can’t help but like Bolt is because we all remember a time when 100m athletes just used to stare down finishing straight when introduced) and then we were off.

“Please get the baton to Usain Bolt,” said the supposedly impartial Cram. But they nearly didn’t. Running the opening bend, Kimmari Roach felt something tighten in his leg and limped (everything is relative, he was still running quite fast) the final 50m. This put Jamaica behind and meant Bolt had some work to do to overhaul Nigeria on the home straight, which he did within a couple of strides as soon as he’d decided what hand to run with the baton in.

“Thank goodness for that,” Cram proclaimed.

After pumping more fists with his rival runners from Singapore and Montserrat (you suspect that driving them to the finishing line was the desire just to catch up with him to be able to say they’d touched a legend) Bolt sauntered over to the BBC’s Phil Jones to conduct a post-race charm offensive.

“It was wonderful, just like London Olympics,” he said. Ok, but I need more. “It’s great, for me everything’s been great so far . . . just the weather..” He shook his head and smiled as if he’d never been anywhere so cold. How we laughed. Twice Phil tried to wrap up the interview but Usain was having none of it. “I want to say something more. To the woman who said it was OK without me. You know who you are. I’m a fun person. I love to have fun.”

Switch back to the usually assured and assertive Gabby Logan now coy and childishly winsome and a shade of red that would have made her Welsh father proud.

“It was OK without him,” she floundered. “But now it’s better.”

True dat, as I believe they say in Sherwood Content.