An F-word of warning to those who may slip on political banana skins

COME ON, as Hillary would say, let’s get real here. Nobody was surprised the Taoiseach knew that word and could use it.

The high-minded comments would lead you to believe that swearing in The House is as bad as swearing from the altar of a church. It isn’t. If it hadn’t been a slow news week, it wouldn’t have got half the coverage it got.

It does, of course, point to the dangers of the live mike, and to the advisability of assuming that any microphone in the vicinity is live, even if it looks dead.