There will be no easy, quick-fix, sugar-rush economic boost from the Olympic Games. It would be childish to expect it. But there’s the real lesson. The American sociologist Robert Putnam famously argued in his book Bowling Alone that by shunning clubs, unions and group activities of all kinds in favour of a selfish individualism, westerners were impoverishing their societies and their lives. If Britain’s remarkable per-capita success at these Games teaches us anything, it’s that when we bowl together, we bowl better.