I'm pretty embarrassed to admit to it now.
This 2012 Olympics has been enthralling – there is no other word for it. And for the Scots – without wanting to put the dreaded kilt on it all – it has been especially fulfilling. There is currently a complex cultural and political game being played out between these Olympics, Scotland's First Minister Alex Salmond, and the theme of 2014 and Scottish independence, but all that aside, these Games have been an astounding success story for Scottish and British sport.
In one way the captivating success of this Olympics is mysterious. For instance, here we are raving over track and field – yet this is most certainly a minority sport which can scarcely grab the attention of three men and a dog during its regular season.
Even cycling and Chris Hoy come into this category. I believe the Edinburgh cyclist is a superhuman of British sport – with his six gold medals he is our ultimate Olympian. But come on, hands up-how many of us knew what the keirin was, let alone watch a bike race from one end of the year to the other?
I've watched rowing from Eton Dorney, women's boxing, women's football, blokes shooting rifles, even some of the fripperies that go in the swimming pool – stuff I wouldn't otherwise subject myself to were a gun being held to my head. Yet the whole experience has been memorable.
People I know who have never previously expressed an interest in athletics have said to me: "I need to be in front of my telly for the 200m final tonight - when is it again?" The whole country has been agog.
Last week I returned to my (rural) home to find a Union Jack hanging from one of our trees and further bits of Blighty bunting draped in our porch and elsewhere.
"What the heck's going on?" I asked my wife in some shock.
"It was the kids," she replied. "They've been watching the Olympics and getting pretty excited. They want to support Team GB." There was no reply to this. Straight away I knew it was the greatest, unanswerable claim about why these Olympics have been so brilliant. Our children are excited by them – is there any greater testimony?
My one caveat is this – the four-year cycle of the Olympic Games makes it even more special. We've waited for this and we are savouring it. Would we have the same appetite if the Games were annual, or even biennial? I doubt it. What we have is perfect, and very special.
My cynicism has gone. I have loved it. Here's to Blighty, here's to Team GB, Jerusalem, Elgar, Land Of Hope And Glory, etc. I'm a convert. It is magnificent.
This weekend the Barclays Premier League season resumes in England – and we look on with envious eyes in Scotland. That assertion, though, is only partly true.
We are the small nation in the shadow of the big nation – we needn't labour the point. It stands to reason that English football, with its astonishing billions – repeat, billions – of pounds of TV income will dwarf our Scottish game. Yet many Scottish football fans don't look on in envy at all. On the contrary, they love English football and savour it as much as any Englishman does.
The one difference I find today compared to my 1970s childhood is the number of Scottish football fans who "support" an English club. When I was a kid you only rarely heard a wee Scot say his team was Liverpool, Arsenal or Manchester United. Today you frequently hear it, just as you also hear of car-loads of Scots going south of the border to take in a game.
It is terrific to me that English football is back. Bring it on, Match Of The Day. This is no time to girn. It is a feast.
The PGA championship in the US is forever dubbed the "ugly duckling" of golf's four Majors, but it still makes for compelling viewing. Indeed, very often this Major happens to have the greatest field of any in the season.
This year's championship has especially attracted me because it is being held at Kiawah Island – the scene of my first-ever Ryder Cup junket in 1991. I will never forget arriving in Charleston of the "Old South" and duly stumbling upon this Pete Dye-created golf course.
The scene was one of sand, sand everywhere, plus that treacherous par-3 17th over water – a hole where a pro golfer on any given day can play anything from 3-wood to an 8-iron depending on the wind. As much as Dye's creation was dogged by controversy back in 1991, it has since come to be viewed as an enthralling golf course.
Like many golf fans I'd never been big on the USPGA – not since Aussie Wayne Grady hoisted that great, outsized jug before a TV camera in 1990 and shouted: "You bloody beauty!" Yet golf, with its new generation of Rory McIlroys, keeps updating its menu and remains as captivating as ever.
I've a feeling, sobering as it is to admit, I'll be glued to tonight's closing round.
