ONE point two million. That’s how many children there are in Ireland (if you count 18-year-olds as children). Just under half are girls, and they constitute about 30% of our population.

I DIDN’T know, although I should have, that Auschwitz was liberated 61 years ago last Friday.

WHAT have MRBI and Thomond Park got in common? One is a highly respected opinion poll company, the other a cathedral of rugby (actually, maybe the Vatican of rugby).

I KNOW George Hook enough to know that my original impression of him was wrong.

ISN’T it funny how sometimes really important things happen and nobody pays them a blind bit of attention?

A LOT of public works are going to be finished this year, and they’ll improve our lives immeasurably. Quite right too, considering the investment we’ve made in them.

HERE’S a little taste of things to come in 2006. Don’t let it spoil your holidays — it might never happen!

THOUGH he had never met him, Richard Nixon hated Alger Hiss. Nixon was a young Congressman who had struggled against poverty all his life.

WHAT sort of values is the West fighting for in its so-called war against terror? It’s no longer about freedom, is it, or democracy?