WHEN Michael McDowell removed his teeth from Bertie Ahern’s leg long enough to whisper “We’ve survived,” it was an awful let-down to two groups.

It may not apply across a broad media front. It may not even apply right across the Irish Examiner’s front. A lowly columnist cannot be held responsible for what news editors and leader writers decide.

IN the middle of the current — albeit dwindling — feeding frenzy, a politician who shall be nameless let out a statement which went unchallenged, perhaps because the interviewer was having too much fun pursuing the story of the loans/gifts/whiparounds for Bertie Ahern. Or maybe because the interviewer found the statement inarguable.

Monday, as we all know, is the absentee day. The day when the undermotivated, the hungover, the weather-challenged and the just plain lazy get their mother, their flatmate or their partner to ring the office and say they won’t be in.

Won’t you come into my parlour?” said the spider to the fly.

When you’re almost stark naked, it’s difficult to get a good grip of your busby.

I am on first name terms with a dozen gardaí I’ve never met. I telephone them. I don’t mean to telephone them, but I dial the number and they pick up.

SHE ran. That’s the marvellous thing. She ran. He told her to vacuum his car.

YOU wouldn’t know who to boycott these last few weeks, so many worthies are turning out to have feet, knees and in some cases thighs of clay.

DEPUTY Liz McManus says the time may come when we all have to march empty-handed onto airplanes. She may be right.