Charlie gets some muscle in Brussels

DURING the summer, Leinster House is like the desolate Overlook Hotel, where Stanley Kubrick’s stomach-churning horror film The Shining takes place.

The tourists have long gone back to their constituencies. The long corridors are eerily deserted. The few journalists billeted on the top floor wander around like the Shelly Duvall character, their eyes popping out of their head with fear. The air is of impending doom, of something truly awful about to happen, like a breaking story.

And then when you least expect it, the hatchet smashes through the door. The indolent hacks are woken from their slumber by a blood-curdling yell: "HERE'S CHARLIE!"