TV ads for beer establish an atmosphere and context of collective happiness, writies Terry Prone

THEY PUT her in a home, the two sisters and their brother. They couldn’t believe that the pejorative phrase would apply to them and to their mother, but it did.

IF I WERE to say that Finance Minister Michael Noonan is off with his statistics on economic recovery, he would come after me and give me a black eye to match the one he’s sporting.

More information on waiting times in hospitals would save everybody a great deal of anxiety, writes Terry Prone

IT’S a cartoon, drawn by artist William Hogarth in 1751. Entitled Gin Lane, it shows a crowded, chaotic, 18th century street scene, every detail of which tells the story of what one alcoholic drink — gin — was doing to the city life of the poor. 

THE up-side and down-side of rancid sexism are hard to distinguish from each other, these days.

THE symptoms of diseases are often misinterpreted. Diabetics, when they need sugar, talk nonsense or collapse, and people mistake it for drunkenness. But that’s a misunderstanding of the symptoms.

HEALTH Minister Leo Varadkar’s plan to take patients on trolleys out of A&E and put them, together with their trolleys, on wards, can be criticised, but medically it would have advantages. 

The great thing about the days on which Christmas and New Year happened, this time around, was the way it provided a week-long holiday.

JUST as our personal virtues, over time, become our vices, so, too, our national advantages, over time, can become disadvantages.