IN the last recession during the 1980s the cream of a generation were forced to emigrate. It was an eminently forgettable period, except in the area of sport.

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

“A CROWD of us were going along the Shepherd’s Bush Road when out of a lane came a chap with a donkey — just the sort of donkey and just the sort of cart they have at home,” Michael Collins recalled. “He came out quite suddenly and abruptly and we all cheered him. Nobody who has not been in exile will understand me, but I stand for that.”