Commentary based on speculation, or speculation based unconfirmed reports, is usually best avoided but exceptional circumstances very occasionally make it unavoidable.

Today marks the fourth anniversary of the first euro crisis summit.

Last month’s establishment of a commission to consider if the grim prospect of super-sized pylons strung across our attractive countryside might be averted by burying 440kV power lines seemed as good a kick to touch as anything contrived by the splendid Johnny Sexton at the Aviva stadium on Saturday.

Yesterday’s Sunday Times report that the Garda Síochána Ombudsman Commission’s offices were the target of electronic surveillance cannot be left hanging in the air, unanswered and fuelling rumours that destroy faith in our justice and political systems.

The growing concern around inequality made the agenda at the World Economic Forum annual meeting at Davos, though that does not signal a willingness to challenge the world’s status quo.

One of the deceits, one of the by-now unsupported imaginings that defines our notion of ourselves is that we are all pretty alert to the rhythms of nature, that we have a special empathy with the physical world around us. Most of us, are after all, just a generation or two, maybe three now, away from the family farm.

High on the list of qualities people expect of judges are fairness and balance in measuring out justice, a large dose of common sense in the verdicts they hand down, and a level playing field in their appointment.

Any parent over 50 who can genuinely claim to have resisted the urge to slap their child can rightly be classified as a saint.

Recent days and weeks have been more than challenging for those affected by the floods — and, as the weather forecasters have warned, that challenge is far from over.

The western world has not seen an empire collapse as spectacularly as the Catholic Church since the Habsburg and British empires began to lose their unquestioned — and unquestionable — power just over a century ago. On this historical scale the relatively brief terror of communism is irrelevant.