The harmless guy in the pink shirt takes the hit when his halo slips

THE night Mick Wallace announced, on Vincent Browne’s TV programme, that he was morphing into a politician, I was seated immediately to his left at the big table.

In advance of going into studio, whispers in the make-up room in TV3 suggested that Vincent had a Big Scoop. Mick was going to Announce on the programme that very night. But shhhh, you’re not supposed to know. Nobody’s supposed to know.

“Who’s Mick?” I asked, trying to get a purchase on the magnitude of what was happening.