GOD, you’d have thought we were past all that at this stage.

IF YOU’RE looking for a single word to sum up something that requires lengthy description in English, chances are you’ll find it in another tongue.

TUESDAY, and the Killiney Castle Hotel for the announcement of the Irish rugby team to play Italy in Croke Park tomorrow.

FIRST things first. The next time Munster play Northampton, in the Heineken Cup quarter-finals, there better not be fog.

THIS COLUMN doesn’t share that much with William Goldman, the acclaimed screenwriter responsible for Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, All the President’s Men and the Princess Bride.

NEWS will have reached you that former baseball star Mark McGwire recently confessed to using steroids, though news may not be quite the right word.

WELL, what else is there to talk about? If the national finals of the tiddly-winks federation were taking place this weekend, the organisers would be inundated with spectators, there’s so little sport on offer anywhere else, inside or outside.

FOR THE love of God can everyone keep IT DOWN back there? Shh. Less of the noise and so forth.

WELL, you’re probably familiar with the story but we’ll air it again anyway.

CHANCES ARE you still feel a bit queasy, a shade of green inching up around the gills this morning?