Smile, though your heart is aching, breaking

IT was hard to tell if Brian Cowen was clowning or drowning yesterday, but then when isn’t it?

With his Government’s ship listing ever more heavily, as it drifts dangerously close to being wrecked on the rocks of recession, it was thrown an unexpected lifeline in the form of Galway securing the final stage of the prestigious round the world sailing event, the Volvo Ocean race.

It’s been quite some time since Mr Cowen had any good economic news to announce – his whole Premier League in fact – and he seemed rather disorientated by the prospect. Though the Taoiseach was certainly in a better humour than an hour earlier in the Dáil when he had branded an upstart Blueshirt a “clown.”