She was at the railway station, waiting for the train back to Cork, not knowing if the meeting she had just completed in Dublin had been a success or a failure.

Not being able to LOOK sad may help to prevent you FEELING sad. Your body may have a greater say in your mood than does your brain. And a dilute poison that flattens your wrinkles also has the potential to lift your spirits.

OF COURSE we must condemn it, and we do. Whenever it is revealed that toddlers have walked out of creches or nursery schools or playgroups and headed for the M1 or whatever dangerous road is nearest to them, we rightly wonder what the hell kind of operation the people in charge think they are running.

SPRING is sprung; the daffs are up.

Aeschylus claimed that truth is the first casualty of war. Communication is the first casualty of a medical disaster.

IT WOULD have to come from Scandinavia, wouldn’t it? These days, the minute any discussion gets going about some social progress our nation or any other nation wants to achieve, up pops an expert to tell us the Scandinavians have already done it.

I’m researching the Cardiff Hall shipwreck, which was lost on the Shoonta Rock, at the Seven Heads, in 1925.

IT was the worst thing she ever did as a doctor and it has haunted her every day of the last 15 years.

When you set out to make a point, it’s all too easy for people to miss it if you’re not physically present. It is difficult to make a strong emotional argument by being absent from a colourful parade that involves a million people and goes worldwide through mainstream nd social media.

I may not be transparent and accountable, but I am compliant.