SO there we were sipping coffee in the Burlington Hotel lobby yesterday, waiting for the Springbok press conference to start. Wondering if we had the hotel right.

BECAUSE EVERY reader of this column is an intelligent cosmopolitan with his or her finger on the zeitgeist, you are all no doubt aware that next week sees the release of the new movie in the multimedia phenomenon known as the Twilight series, New Moon.

“I SUPPOSE,” said a sarcastic pal of our acquaintance, “you’ll be writing about your old pal Levi-Strauss this week and how his anthropological innovations underpinned modern French thought in a variety of fields.”

The book focuses on people’s experiences of the association.

IT NOW appears that Kerry footballer Tadhg Kennelly has joined former NBA star Charles Barkley among the select group of sportspeople who have claimed they were misquoted in their own autobiographies.

IT WAS county final weather in Páirc Uí Chaoimh yesterday, and county final conditions.

THERE probably isn’t enough ink to do justice to an afternoon with Stuart Barnes. The former England international and Lion rolls out the stories and anecdotes — the late Keith Floyd figures in a few — in a steady stream.

IF YOU came down this direction to get refuge from the John O’Donoghue furore towards the front of the paper, don’t take flight because you see his name printed here.

THERE’S a moment in Ken Burns’ outstanding documentary series, ‘Baseball’, when Buck O’Neil, an old coach and manager, muses on the impossible glamour that was Manhattan in the 40s and 50s with a faraway look in the eye.

LAST weekend Nicholas O’Leary won the Irish Sailing Association Championships in Cork Harbour.