I swam and ran today, a duathlon, perhaps. The swimming element went swimmingly, one might say, with another crack at the endurance plan. The running, four miles, was more of a problem, only in that dark thoughts and existential brooding about mortality and so on and so forth occupied my mind as I trudged round. When this happens, I find comfort in the word of the plain people of Ireland, who appear so often in the works of Myles Na Gopaleen, aka Flann O’Brien, or, to give him his real name, Brian O’Nolan. i recreate their wise words in my head as I run. It is a great pity O’Nolan’s centenary last year did not attract the attention it deserved.

Or, to quote another Irish writer, Brendan Behan, ‘a bowl of stirabout and a couple of platefuls of spuds would have cured all the angst from here back to Norway’.