MONKEYS — it’s telling that after a month away from this column our furry little friends are the only ones to surprise.

It was telling that the Taoiseach’s only memorable moment in his worst week in office so far saw him dressed like an extra from Downton Abbey at a black-tie dinner — not the best look for a man now the lead actor in a melodrama fast descending into a Downturn Shabby government.

MEMO to Roisín Shortall: What’s the point in having half a spine?

IT WAS the moment the Coalition finally delivered transformative change — but Leo Varadkar sarcastically singing The Red Flag while Labour lorded it in a luxury hotel favoured by the super rich may not exactly have been the sort of change people voted for.

DISABLED people are valued and respected by the Taoiseach and his Health Minister — but only as long as they are in London winning medals at the Paralympics, and not making a nuisance of themselves at home by demanding basic levels of dignity.

WE demonise as ‘sharks’ the greedy financial fools who laid this country so low, but that is to credit them with too much cunning and glamour — they were just dolphins on the make.

THE CASUAL ignorance of the remark was jaw-droppingly offensive; the so-called apology, if anything, even more damning — and the fact both were uttered by a judge was deeply worrying.

THE hypocrite now crash landing on the runway of cheap publicity is the delayed Leo Varadkar descending from Planet Pompous.

THE Boss blew into town and left a trail of devastation in his wake,

It is the badly written potboiler that everyone is talking about: Fifty Shades Of Fine Gael.