I'm briefly coming up for air before the descent into another Olympic maelstrom, to bring you some interesting maps.

When it comes to working out what an area is like for crime, there's nowt better than looking at a top-down view onto which you can plot all the reported nastiness.

Obviously, doing that is another matter. What about burglaries? Plot those on a map and you're waving a mighty great flag over somebody's house, along the lines of: "This one was easy to break into! This one! Here! Next to the tree, with the orange Skoda in the driveway!" Not good.

But if you've ever played Sim City, you'll have an idea of what I mean. Colours shaded across the city to indicate where crime is at its worst, and where there's virtually nothing to trouble the residents.

Here's the Met Police's early attempt at something similar. It's not the greatest looker in the world, but it's actually more detailed than initial impressions suggest. Keep on clicking and you'll get down to "sub-wards", whatever they may be (I'm no councillor in the making), and the colour code corresponds to the level of crime in the area.

Happily, crime chez moi appears to be fairly unusual. I think the map suggested there had been all of two crimes in my sub-ward for the last month.

Given that I cannot remember the last night when I did not hear sirens belting down the road outside, I consider that a minor miracle. If we were judging on sound alone, Northolt would be the centre of an epic campaign of terror the likes of which may never scar the globe again. The map, by contrast, suggests it's actually a bit like living in Ilfracombe. The reality may be somewhere between the two.

The Met aren't the only ones - West Midlands Police have had a go, as have their West Yorks equivalent.

None of which yet compare to the daddies of this idea - the Chicago crime map, and the Booth Poverty Map, which remains one of the most impressive works of cartography I have ever seen, more than a century after its production.

Olympics update: Survived two night shifts earlier and, in fact, must have quite liked them, because I've signed up for five consecutive overnight live text commentary shifts next week. Do stay up and keep me company.

Still doing the US radio on a regular basis. They cut me short today! Cheeky sods. Though they were cutting everybody short so were clearly struggling, and I came off far better than the previous bloke, who had joined live from the Philippines and was practically bundled off air in a sack when he didn't stop talking on cue.

Had the pleasure of writing this Ben Ainslie report today, and the boy had better win gold tomorrow, or else I'm going to look very silly. In my preview of the weekend's Brits with medal chances, I had Ainslie (and the GB Yngling crew) down as "10/10" for gold.

I have been roundly mocked for that decision, since technically Ainslie could be beaten by the American Zach Railey (and nobody else, he's guaranteed silver). But I cannot see how the man could fail, given his 12-point lead with just the medal race remaining. (If you don't know about sailing, I appreciate this will read: "Blargh blargh man blargh blargh, blargh blargh with blargh blargh remaining." Sorry.)

My 10 has since been the subject of some incredibly high-level editorial intervention, and now resides as a 9-and-a-half to account for all eventualities. Chickens, I say. Back the boys!