At least it’s not on TV, Bertie

HUNCHED forward in the witness box, his slumped head cradled in the palm of his right hand, Bertie Ahern cut a lonely and dejected figure.

It was as if the sheer violence of the previous exchanges had drained him of the will to go on.

As legal warfare erupted around him, he appeared to have zoned out of the proceedings, perhaps finally floored by the weight of the allegations engulfing his premiership and endangering his place in history.