Don't be sad it's over. Be glad it happened.

As the great summer of sport, and culture, comes to an end, I wonder what London will do for an encore. I wonder how people will feel when all the Olympic direction signs are peeled off walls in Underground stations, and the paint is burned off the roads in the Olympic lanes. I wonder what the streets will be like without volunteers handing out maps. I wonder how many busy London workers and residents, or tourists, will notice, or care. The flame which once burned brightly has been extinguished, and normality will be restored, in a matter of days for some, weeks or months for others. I know if I went back, I’d not notice unless I remembered to look. I wonder how many people will truly remember, long after the little hints of the games have gone, and long after BBC’s and Channel 4’s inevitable programmes over the Christmas holidays. The athletes, however, will never forget.

I’ve seen very little of the Paralympic Games, and a lot less of the (able-bodied) Olympics than normal. I grudged my taxes being diverted to a competition staged mainly in London, when money needed to be spent on sport in Scotland. I know that the same proportion won’t travel in the opposite direction for Glasgow’s Commonwealth Games in 2014, and I know that, mercifully, London politicians won’t be so quick to jump on the bandwagon to try to ingratiate themselves with competitors to impress the voting public. The nations of the UK compete separately, so Unionists will have a hard time trying to make capital of a Scot draped in the Union Flag. Scotland’s medal haul at the London games was itself sufficiently impressive to provoke debate, but we can’t be sure how Scotland will fare when pitted against its larger neighbour to the south, much less countries like Jamaica.

It remains to be seen if Glasgow can create such an aura around the Commonwealth Games that it will make fans of the sports involved forget about London, but that’s like comparing East Stirlingshire with Manchester City. Instead, Glasgow should look back ten years to the Manchester games. Not only did that event, won by the city after many attempts to net a major tournament of any kind, increase the profile of athletes who competed in London this time, and Athens and Beijing before that, but it sparked a phenomenal regeneration in a city that had left its glory days behind, last century but one. Manchester is, for the most part, now a vibrant, modern city capable of competing with London on any stage, though it’s not without its problems. Glasgow must shake off its other image; that of a city blighted by decades of corruption and lack of ambition. It must stop taking then squandering the money (and the perks for the Councillors) from the events such as the Champions League final, the UEFA Cup final, the Garden Festival, City of Culture, City of Architecture and Design and so on, and start building for the future.

Exactly 50 years after the last tram journey, the city is almost impossible to get around thanks, in no small part, to Glasgow City Council’s relationship with First Buses, who have an effective monopoly in a supposedly deregulated bus environment. The lack of a decent Underground system (and the farce over its upgrading, or not, for the Games) and suburban railway network, as well as the criminal under-use of the Clyde for business, residents, transport and tourism will be exposed again when the Games begin. A half-hour stroll from the National Theatre to Westminster Bridge two weeks ago made me wonder why Glasgow has, for over a generation, failed to regenerate its waterfront for the use of its people. Any Londoners visiting in 2014 will, no doubt, be wondering the same thing.

It’s not true to say that there are no more heroes anymore. Any one person interested in one or more sport couldn’t fail to be impressed or inspired by not just our athletes but also a great many of those from around the world. Everyone who managed to see in the flesh or on television any Olympic or Paralympic event in the last couple of months will have at least one good memory. For me, it’s Katherine Grainger finally winning Gold. Thousands of medals were won, records, and even hearts were broken, and somewhat ironically, for an event that took place in what is, at the moment, my own country, I never even got to see her dream eventually come true, as I was nowhere near a TV. It may prove to be easier with the time difference to be in front of the telly for Rio 2016, when people will have new heroes to look up to.

All over Twitter tonight, the phrase being quoted is one from Dr. Seuss; ‘Don’t be sad it’s over, be glad it happened’; ideal for the end of an event that captured the imagination of even some of the most cynical. There’s none more cynical than me, and not just when it comes to the Olympics. Life has a nasty habit of kicking me in the teeth, and I wonder if I’ll find myself having to say that phrase to myself in the very near future or, like our athletes, will I have to wait until the excitement has died down and emotions aren’t so new and raw, whenever that will be? Like our athletes with London 2012, it's something I'm not likely to forget,.