THOUGH you might not think it now, this column is about Brian Cowen. Because from now on everything in Irish politics is going to revolve around him, even if he fails in his quest to find the holey anorak.

EARLY next month I will be four years in this job. In all that time, I’ve failed to do one thing for which I have felt not a smidgen of guilt.

AT THE last World Cup, Portugal and the Netherlands met at the knock-out stages of the competition.

BEVERLY FLYNN’S father, “Pee” Flynn, was never a politician given to understatement.

SOMETIME late last night — or even today — in a summit that was tediously snailing its way to either success or failure — two of the Europe’s longest-standing leaders interrupted their colleagues to make a joint statement in the wrapping-it-up part.

IT MIGHT have been high-octane drama (if that’s an appropriate phrase for the Greens) for the past fortnight but its conclusion last night with the naming of the Cabinet was one that might have been ordered by Hollywood executives — make it uplifting, feelgood, non-offensive and 100% bland.

FIANNA FÁIL last night sent out unmistakable signals that the breakdown of talks with the Green Party did not necessarily rule out the prospects of both parties entering coalition together.

THE flux of this election campaign has been unprecedented.

MODERN politics is like a high street garment — designed for obsolescence.

TWELVE days more of a journey on a deeply uncertain course that will come to an end on May 24 with either a Fianna-Fáil led government and more of the same, or a Rainbow Alliance and more of the same.