FRIDAY the 13th is an auspicious date anyway, but it may have a special resonance today for the future of Northern Ireland, or so we are led to believe.

IN the political sense, the country is now morally bankrupt. And that’s official. The high moral ground has been vacated by the Progressive Democrats and apartments are to be built on it.

BERTIE AHERN’S misfortune stemmed from a comatose loan that was awakened anonymously and revealed to the Irish Times.

EXACTLY what part of ‘I’m deeply sorry’ militant Muslims do not understand is difficult to grasp.

AS a phrase, it ought to be a harbinger of something good, but when new PD leader Michael McDowell said “the best is yet to come”, it sounded more like a threat than a promise.

YOU might not realise it, but every time you take the plunge in most of the swimming pools in the country, or plonk yourself in one of those spas, you are taking your life in your hands, and it’s not necessarily through drowning.

IT USED to be said the streets of London were paved with gold, but if you have €500 to spare, and are stupid enough, a Dublin hotel will pave your palate with a cocktail containing 23-carat gold flakes.

ONE would have imagined US President George W Bush had enough on his plate in Iraq and Afghanistan, but it is characteristic of the man that he is now concerned with the democratisation of Cuba.

THERE are 473 million consumers in the EU and you would assume that such a huge number would make a powerful lobby.

IT IS utterly absurd. Having spent just 95 days in their place of employment since last September — about the equivalent of another man’s overtime — our TDs are reaching for the Factor 10.