Earth to planet Bertie: it all sounds implausible

SMALL Earthquake in Dublin Castle: No one killed: Taoiseach’s credibility badly injured.

The tremor was localised to just beneath Bertie Ahern’s feet in the witness box where the ground shifted markedly under him.

The rupture was caused by pin-point questioning over the stg£8,000 Mr Ahern says was slipped to him in the bar of Manchester’s Four Seasons Hotel by businessmen so grateful he had just delighted them with one of his famous chit-chats as Minister of Finance that they spontaneously dug 160 stg£50 notes out of their pockets to shower him with in the now infamous “whip-round”.