WE in Ireland have a general response to external disaster such as the earthquake in Haiti.

IT’S the level of treachery from the AA that’s getting to me, and, if the Met Éireann forecast is accurate, we’re due a lot more of it.

A WRITER named Ambrose Bierce, some considerable time back, published a wry reference book entitled The Devil’s Dictionary.

GIVEN the capacity of every mobile phone and computer to provide you with a diary application these days, you would think that diaries in the physical sense would be dying off.

I AM going to choke the girl who sings the ad for the sat nav gadget.

THEY’RE cheap; they’re pretty; they’re conversation-starters; they’re useful.

ONE of the sure-fire stocking-stuffers this Christmas is a little paperback called My Mother Always Used to Say, a collection of truisms gathered by Valerie Bowe, with all proceeds going to charity.

NOW, class, settle down. Settle down.

Elite panic is the fear engendered in the governing classes that a natural disaster will provoke the non-governing classes to get above themselves, will release them to loot, murder and pillage, and generally, in the absence of normal restraints, reduce society to chaos

She went off to Australia. Back then, emigration was just fun. Now, as part-owner of a house worth nothing, a massive mortgage, three children and parents whose health deteriorates by the day, emigration not only doesn’t look like fun, it doesn’t look possible.