A zoo led by giraffe with the odd ostrich

HOW do you solve a problem like the Taoiseach?

While Stephen Hawkins warns that it will be dangerous for us to talk to aliens, Fianna Fáil is acutely aware it is dangerous for their leader to talk to us like an alien.

And Brian Cowen actually briefly lost power yesterday – well, an electricity outage cut the lights in the Dáil chamber for a couple of minutes – imagine that, Cabinet ministers scrambling around in the dark. How unusual.