THE calls and texts weren’t long arriving last Friday. “Your buddy O’Gara this morning — ” (I always like that description of anyone who ever wrote for a paper anywhere, in any era: ‘your buddy’) “— what is he at?”

Ah, springtime.

Here’s a question for you on a Monday morning. How complicit are you in your sport’s failings?

You probably heard about the Chinese women last week — the runners who beat Sonia O’Sullivan out of gold medals in the World Championships held back in 1993, the ones who supposedly subsisted on turtle blood to set astonishing records in distance running.

I had occasion to rock up to the Irish Book Awards before Christmas, a good evening in what used to be known as the Burlington, even if it ended long before the usual evening finish, or even morning finish, you’d traditionally associate with the old Burlington.

I think it was the forlorn tweet from Garryspillane GAA that put it into my head.