Not that we’re spiteful, but we were planning to deny him the time off - just to wind him up. It turns out, that not only have several of us got tickets to events ranging from basketball semi-finals to archery at Lord’s and Rhodri’s water polo, but so did I.

In the time-honoured Hatfield family tradition of putting things in a safe place, and then forgetting where that safe place is, I had paid for them out of my never-to-be-looked-at savings account and then wondered why my debit account hadn’t been raided. We got the football final - a bright idea way back in spring when the “unimpeachable” Ryan Giggs seemed a shoo-in to captain a Great Britain team in a dream final versus Brazil. On the same date, (a test for the Jubilee line, Boris) there’s also a top athletics night - including men’s 4x100m relay. So, my daughters might get to see Usain Bolt after all.

They are really excited, and will remember it all their lives, which is surely the point. Suddenly, 2012 is tangible.Yes, it is still a ridiculously convoluted ticketing process. But, yesterday even the normally jaded i office was fizzing briefly about the joys of handball and equestrianism and debating the merits of overblown opening ceremonies.

It didn’t last. A saturnine newsdesker, contemplating with dismay his successful application, whined: but would I spend £260 to watch a bunch of East European weightlifters normally? Sigh! Just wait ‘til he asks for the night off! It’ s enough to make you feel some sympathy towards Seb Coe. Well, almost.