Enda McEvoy: How about having the Olympics every month?

More fresh topics for us to pontificate about. More ways of saving us from ourselves.

Locals at the Town Hall, Skibbereen, react after Paul O’Donovan and Fintan McCarthy win gold in the lightweight men’s double sculls Olympic final. Picture Dan Linehan

Would that the Olympics, for all its failings, took place rather more often, if only for the restorative effects it has on the Irish nation.

It perks us up. It brings wondrous new planets swimming into our ken. Above all it saves us from ourselves. For a couple of weeks the usual obsessions – the rugby team in a quarter-final, the soccer team in anything, the state of Gaelic football (ahem, see sidebar) – can go hang. We are all the happier for it.