SURELY even the hardest heart must have felt some pity and compassion for the dogs and puppies in the midlands puppy farm highlighted on the recent animal welfare programme on TV3.

WE got the standard Fianna Fáil tactics of bluster, spin and shooting the messenger in response to Brian Cowen’s abysmal Morning Ireland interview last week.

I HAVE just spoken to a neighbour whose son moved to Canada five years ago. Apparently what astonished the Canadians most about Brian Cowen’s Morning Ireland interview wasn’t his ramblings on the radio, but the subsequent interview with his colleagues cheering him on like he’d scored the winner in a hockey match.

THE old adage of not speaking ill of the dead was correctly upheld immediately following the death of former Taoiseach Charles J Haughey.