We British are not suddenly such a lovely people on account of all our medals

Two cruel examples, this week, of the inevitability of disappointment. I don’t just mean the Wordsworthian sinking of spirits, dropping from delight to dejection for no other reason than that we are framed that way, hourglasses whose vital energies run out like sand the minute we are full and have to be turned over. I am thinking more of the way the facts of our nature return to mock us – whether in Hillsborough or Benghazi – every time we believe we’ve glimpsed a brand new dawn.