THE times we live in are “undoubtedly the most exciting time ever in the history of this island”, President McAleese said the other day.

The trend towards centralisation started in 1970 and has never really stopped. And so, now, a head office in Dublin has ultimate responsibility for, say, home help for an elderly woman in Clonakilty, just as it has for the design and financing of a major new children’s hospital in Dublin.

DEAR MINISTER, I know this is the busiest and most difficult time of year for you. Every Minister for Finance faces an enormous range of choices in the run-up to the budget, and this year will be no exception.

SOMETIMES, secretly, politicians hate the electorate. Well, maybe that’s a bit harsh. The politician who works his back off for the people of his constituency, and then loses his seat, usually goes through a couple of years of bemusement, and frequently bitterness.

KO-KO and Pooh-Bah were the only courtiers who mattered in Titipu. Ko-Ko was the Lord High Executioner, the most important member of the court. He had an unfortunate background, having been taken from the county jail to be elevated to his high position.

HOW could you not fall in love with a country like China that labours massively to make foreign visitors welcome after centuries of isolation?

THE Little Emperors, they call them, and they can be counted in tens of millions. They are the young generation of China, and the main reason why that country will surely become the next and perhaps the greatest superpower in the world.

IT’S almost impossible to describe Shanghai. A city of 20 million people that seems to go on for ever.

I DECIDED last Saturday night, listening to the experts talking, that I finally knew what has been going wrong with the Irish rugby team.

AS they say in the movies, we need to be afraid. Very afraid. There’s a story being told, and it’s a pretty frightening one.