SPEAKING at two public sector conferences last week, I was struck by a palpable wave of incoming nostalgia. It was like being at an emigrant wake. All present had the sense of saying goodbye — to each other and to the possibility of a similar conference next year.

The man with the sandbags is one of them. He works for Fingal County Council.

“Oscar Wilde devoured and luxuriated in books. When he was sick and when the prison doors were closed upon him, books were the first things he asked for.He turned to them, too, as he crawled towards death in his final years, for comfort and consolation …"

Someone once said that there’s a solution to every problem that’s simple, obvious — and wrong. The selection of Joe Biden as running mate by Barack Obama could be just such a solution.

Michael Phelps has won a lot of Olympic medals. This time. Last time. And, according to himself, will win them next time around as well. The world is so united in praise of the human dolphin, to disagree is to take one’s life in one’s hands.

OUR grandparents used to tell stories of terrifying storms they had witnessed. Beatrice Coogan wrote a novel about the night of the Big Wind, a legendary storm.

She knew where every plant was hidden under the overgrown weeds, and had the Latin name for each. She had a particular hatred for a plant called a Veronica, a low-slung woody bush that would take over the world if you let it. Piles of uprooted Veronicas grew higher and higher.

I’d got to the stage of elasticated waists, edge-to-edge jackets and raucous necklaces designed to distract from the horror lower down, those necklaces matched at the other end by extra-high heels in the attempt to look tall enough to be this fat.

THE motorcade was impressive. The army officer with the white gloves did a salute as the French president emerged from his car.

One of the many reasons no sane person should ever consider politics as a career is that it’s the only profession where ears matter.