TWO of the foolishnesses that shape our lives came together yesterday with the suggestion that hundreds of prosecutions for drink driving could be in doubt after the High Court ruled that results of alcohol breath tests must be supplied in Irish as well as in English.

LIKE an ambitious business person who pushed the boat out to try to impress wavering clients with, say, a corporate box and an excellent meal sluiced down with enviable wines at Croke Park yesterday, and who realises that the project may not have been entirely successful and is quietly adding up the considerable cost of the adventure, objective voters — there may be a few — are beginning to run the slide rule over the performance of our coalition Government.

FOR more than half a century America imposed a choking blockade on Cuba because it was socialist and dared to offer the Soviet Union a toehold in its orbit, just 90 miles from its shores. The blockade may have been justified all of those years ago, but it was sustained in a cold-hearted way that made an example of Cuba and condemned its people to live in a society, and an economy, that could not reach its potential.

IT is impossible to legislate to control the sale of knives that might be used to kill, injure or just intimidate people. Knives are so everyday that it would be impossible to control access.

IF any of us were to ask ourselves how we might cope if something around 15,000 desperate refugees arrived on our shores in less than two days, and answer the question honestly, we would have to reach pretty sobering conclusions.

ONE of the conventions of those courtroom dramas so very popular in the early days of television was that a prosecutor would never ask a question he — it was always a “he” in those monochrome, mackintosh days — did not already know the answer to. It was a policy that tripped up many theatrical, over-the-top villians.

EVERYTHING is relative — scale, urgency, need, and safety all mean different things to different people living in different circumstances. If you’re living in Aleppo you might have to make choices that would not even occur to someone living in the relative tranquility of Arklow.

LIKE a bright but distracted child, maybe a slightly frightened one, who can’t concentrate long enough at exam time to realise their potential, we seem unable to focus properly on, or even process honestly, myriad warnings about how our relentlessly cavalier attitude towards the environment will eventually change our world utterly — and not by any means for the better.

IT’S Culture Night tonight — and the Rugby World Cup opens in London so most tastes will be catered for one way or another in the next 24 hours. And, if not, then Kerry and Dublin footballers will knock lumps out of each other on Sunday as they try to rekindle the magic the All-Ireland finals between these counties generated a few decades ago.

HEWLETT-PACKARD is to cut another 25,000-30,000 jobs worldwide due to falling demand for its products and the move towards cloud technology. The latest wave of cuts comes on top of the 55,000 layoffs previously announced by the company.