WHENEVER I’m speaking at a conference, I try to get to the venue at least an hour ahead of the time at which I’m slated to speak.

No woman felt diminished when one of the women candidates didn’t make it on election day.

I WANT to propose a new quango.

WATCHING the elections and referenda from Sweden, where I’ve been working for the last week, I’ve been struck by the emerging myths around the presidential election, the first of which was that “there were no winners”.

TONIGHT’S Frontline is the last Presidential Debate.

IMAGINE it’s 14 years into the future. Imagine that you run a major charity. Or you’re a successful MEP. Or you’re a TV star. Or a senator. You’ve done well, you’re popular, you’re happy.

THE name of the company is irrelevant. It’s a big one with systems.

IS Eamon Dunphy grateful to Gay Mitchell? He should be. He should be SO grateful. There Dunphy was yesterday, in the Newstalk studios, having been turned down by a bunch of presidential hopefuls he had invited onto the programme.

BEING topical without talking about the presidency or the economy requires me to let you know that I was invited to be a Secret Millionaire.

A WONDERFUL moment in a wonderful play. It’s the point in A Man for All Seasons where Thomas More faces the evidence trumped up against him to get him beheaded and rid Henry VIII of a turbulent priest who will not countenance the monarch divorcing his wife.