Well, quite. But, er, whence is the money raised actually going? And does the man looking through a pair of binoculars in an accompanying publicity photograph know something we don’t? Meanwhile Dick Roche wins the best Shinner put-down of the week award. Told that Sinn Fein "smelt a rat" over his land-swap plan with developers, a smiling environment minister responded: "When you live close to the ground, you smell a rat in everything."
Depressed farmers of the west stand up to be counted
Is it any wonder that tourism in the west of Ireland is in decline? Sinead Mooney, an RTE reporter, was sent to Ennis to interview farmers at a cattle mart last week, and what a depressed, sourpussed lot they proved. Not one of them was happy. One said it was "impossible" to find a wife, and things were so bad he’d marry the first "reasonable" woman he met. Another said he "hadn’t the life of a dog", while one farmer’s wife complained that she’d never been on holidays, except for one weekend in Killarney.
Determined to find even a mildy satisfied farmer, Mooney persisted. "I’d be no good to you," another horny-handed son of CAP complained, declaring that he was 66. "Sure, he hasn’t rose up to me in about five years," he added.
Advertisement
Enda if you can't take the heat, get in the kitchen
He’s climbed Kilimanjaro, cycled around Ireland and now, in a further dereliction of his political duties, the opposition leader Enda Kenny is to be the "mystery chef" in a celebrity cooking television programme. All politics is local, so the Fine Gael leader’s menu for RTE’s The Restaurant is packed with native fare. There’s wild Atlantic salmon, Clew Bay oysters and beef "from the heart of Mayo". Expect plenty of ham from the same quarter. Perhaps there will also be some stir-fried Greens to go with a Rabbitte stew? Actually, over-eager scriptwriters in RTE have already been trying out puns in promos for the show. Will Kenny’s menu be passed at the first reading, they wonder, or will the critics demand that it be examined at committee stage? Kenny provides all the culinary metaphors himself. He says that, at home, his contribution to cooking is more along the lines of "a good commis chef" than that of a fully-fledged head chef. He’s too hard on himself; sure hasn’t Inda whipped up support for his party, blended with Labour, brought Michael Ring to the boil, and come up with plenty of half-baked ideas?
Oops - sorry for sinking that other French fleet
Break out the fine bordeaux and don’t mention the war as the Trafalgar celebrations open this week in memory of the afternoon in 1805 when Horatio Nelson’s Red navy defeated a Blue navy that was definitely not French, dear me no. The organisers have gone out of their way to avoid upsetting our neighbours, so perhaps it’s best not to mention that next Sunday — when the celebrations will be in full swing — is the 65th anniversary of the day when the French fleet was attacked and sunk off Algeria by the polite and sensitive British, who feared the ships would fall into German hands.