FROM some of the early reports from Beijing it was beginning to look like we were going to have to be content that nobody drowned in the pool or got lost on the running track, but then the boxers came to the rescue. Sure we’re famous the world over for fighting.

The gracious way in which Harrington won has further added to his international stature.

IT is probably inevitable that we will be told that the Chinese are exploiting the Olympic Games for their own political purposes, as if the Americans, the Germans, the Russians, the British, or all the others had not done so already.

THE Olympic Games have lost much of their glamour over the drug cheats.

WE ARE approaching the silly season when zany stories get big play because the politicians who are supposedly running the country are off on holidays.

WINNING the Democratic nomination for president is now just a formality for Barrack Obama, and the smear tactics are already in full swing.

RTE’s environment correspondent announced on Monday that the natterjack toad is “unique to Castlemaine” and more than 40 farmers have signed up to save the toad.

THE essence of leadership is good example. The Government is suggesting that people should hold the line and forget about wage increases.

What Mr Kelly described in his email seemed more like torture than treatment.

THE rest of the country may have been preoccupied with the Lisbon Treaty, but in Kerry the topic of conversation this week was the brainstorm that seized Paul Galvin when he threw a tantrum and slapped the notebook out of the hand of referee Paddy Russell.