SIXTY-TWO years after Mao Tse-tung led the revolution that established his autocratic, brutal and hugely influential communist People’s Republic, China has become the world’s second largest economy by leapfrogging its neighbour Japan.

THIS COLUMN doesn’t share that much with William Goldman, the acclaimed screenwriter responsible for Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, All the President’s Men and the Princess Bride.

IT was a case of win or Luas with the St Patrick’s Day parades yesterday.

THE furore over Britain’s Prince Harry wearing a Nazi armband brought hypocrisy, tendentious social commentary, political doublethink and historical myopia to new levels of absurdity.