From the days of Mrs Astor’s New York, and probably long before, all networks have had their must-attend parties.

The annual summer party held by the late Sir David Frost, the media personality, is a good example of the sort of thing I have in mind.

Things fell nicely for my colleague and me as we left the now traditional Strawberry Party and press conference at Oslo’s City hall on the eve of the IAAF Diamond League meeting here.

As the global anti-doping community becomes more and more accustomed to the anti-doping rule changes that took effect on January 1 with the introduction of the 2015 World Anti-Doping Code, there continues to be a great deal of reflection on the direction that clean sport is taking.

 It is just as well that among her other sporting endeavours Tracey Crouch is a decent swimmer. For she has been thrown into the deep end in her role as the new British Sports Minister, with FIFA-gate quickly followed by a sensational alleged international drugs scandal threatening to turn already stormy waters into a veritable tsunami.

A BBC “News at Ten” broadcast last Wednesday (June 3) in Britain must have created some sort of broadcasting history.

Here’s a thing about the international football scandal that has gripped us all and stunned some of the game’s most powerful figures.

At any major multi-sport event, the Athletes’ Village invariably provides the heartbeat.

The European Games have been over 50 years in the making and join the Pan American, Asian and African Games in a worldwide network. Each of these were a long time coming and all had their fair share of growing pains.

Ceaselessly pursuing the truth, as I tend to do when I have an odd moment, I noticed a tweet today from the Daily Mirror’s chief football writer, the estimable John Cross: “Wonderful to turn over to Andy Murray and see some actual sport. Almost forgotten what it was like.”

Not for the first time, he wrong-footed us all.

There must have been times during the recent jaw-dropping days of Blatter-gate when those observing the FBI’s timely swoop on Zurich’s Baur au Lac Hotel, disappointed that the biggest fish in FIFA’s sea of sleaze was himself not caught up in the timely dragnet of his allegedly corrupt acolytes, echoed the famous exhortation of the 12th century British monarch Henry II.

With a complicated analogy about padlocks and a bridge, a pleasing mention of an insidethegames poll and a final flurry of digs against the International Olympic Committee (IOC) and the running of sport in general, Marius Vizer resigned as President of SportAccord yesterday.

From taxis and metros to bus stops and lampposts, it doesn’t matter where you look; the Baku 2015 brand is quite simply all over the place here in the Azerbaijani capital.

This FIFA stuff is the most radical story in the history of sport.

So far, 14 people have been arrested on corruption charges relating to the selection of World Cup hosts, bungs for Presidential election votes and backhanders for the placement of multi-million dollar commercial contracts.

In short, FIFA is not an organisation you’d want to be directly associated with at the moment. Or at least, you’d think not…