What else can I be, all apologies?” Brian Cowen is hardly a fan of Kurt Cobain, but perhaps he empathises with the line from the Nirvana song, ‘All Apologies’.

THE past is rising up to meet the present right now but, maybe, that’s down to the future being so uncertain.

LAST week, the country was introduced to the Republic of Sums and Soundbites. The location was the annual gabfest up in Donegal, the MacGill Summer School.

WE don’t do corruption in this country.

During the trial which collapsed yesterday, questions were put to Frank Dunlop about whether he was revealing all he knew about corrupt payments to politicians, writes Michael Clifford.

CAN you imagine Richard Bruton’s reaction when he got the call? The instruction from Enda Kenny may have been: “Richard, I want to get rid of this Seanad thing, and you’re the best man for the job.”

THESE tapes just keep on coming. First, there were the ‘Lowry tapes’, then the ‘Anglo tapes’, and now the ‘Boston tapes’ are hitting the headlines.

IT was a week of two icons, the treatment of one eliciting national sound and fury, the other’s plight little more than a footnote.

ONE word has been largely missing from the reams of coverage of the Anglo Tapes and that word is... morality.

OH, to have been a fly on the wall in Finnegan’s bar.