WINSTON SMITH sat in the bar, alone as always, the glass of gin in his hand. The smells were familiar to him, the smells of boiled cabbage and damp.

DID you ever hear anyone say: “Great night last night. Fourteen pints and I was locked out of my head?”

DID you watch it last night, and are you hooked already? 'Haughey' is already promising to be the most successful documentary series ever produced by RTE, with the potential to attract the same kind of audience as a major drama.

WHEN Peter McKenna died, he was alone, in terrible pain, and frightened. He didn’t know what was happening to him because he couldn’t.

A NUMBER of years ago, I was part of an Irish delegation to the United Nations. It was my first time in the Assembly Hall, and a fascinating place it was. To my surprise, all of the delegations were arranged alphabetically.

NEXT week I’ll be 55. So I hope you’ll indulge me in a personal statement. When I was younger, I used to think that ages ending in seven were always the turning points in life.

Fergus Finlay column

WHAT kind of madness is this? €100 million a year on spin? €2 million a week?

JIM McDAID has character. Perhaps not every ingredient that goes into that elusive characteristic, but he has a lot.

FIVE euro. That’s what it costs to land a passenger in Dublin. To put it more precisely, that, on average, is what it costs an airline to land a passenger in Dublin.