SMOKES & DAGGERS

A mischievous mix of (mostly) news

YESTERDAY’S Irish Times Fashion pages had a brilliant article on the sharply dressed, and even sharper-tongued, Dublin City councillor and poet Mannix Flynn. It included a panel on his thoughts on the style of fellow politicians. He ripped through the fashion sense of the Taoiseach (‘appealing to a sensibility that reeks of cash status’); the Tánaiste (‘He has that earnest suit look – he’s not heterosexual, gay or fluid’); Fianna Fáil leader Micheál Martin (‘his boxy suits, more suited to the ‘20s and ‘30s, are out of fashion’); and Minister Mary Mitchell O’Connor (‘kind of Glenageary, south Co. Dublin going out to the shop and dressing up’). But his best was reserved for Housing Minister Eoghan Murphy, pictured: ‘The minister for rebuilding Ireland wears crisp collars and open-neck shirts, American-style, like Bill Clinton, with sleeves rolled up – he’s the minister for rolled-up sleeves.’ IRELAND’S naval reserve is less than ready for action if Defence Minister Paul Kehoe is to be believed. Responding to a Dáil question, Mr Kehoe said that, to date in 2018, the number of days spent at sea by members of the Naval Service Reserve was a modest… nil. CONOR McGREGOR took his rage out on a bus in NYC this week… but that wasn’t his only crime. The drama started with a tweet: ‘You’s’ll strip me of nothing you’s do nothing c **** ,’ McGregor wrote. A crime against punctuation. SPEAKING of buses, the bus that brought Man City to Anfield during the week was also trashed. Typical. You wait ages for a ‘somebody trashing a bus’ story, then two come along at once… THE promotion of Josepha Madigan has come as a relief to Fianna Fáil’s Bobby Alyward. In her previous capacity as a committee chairwoman, tensions were high between him and Ms Madigan, who is sensitive about the pronunciation of her name (emphasis on the e). Getting it right caused Mr Alyward so much trouble that he took to calling her Josie. Which did not help. THE parliamentary question can be invaluable. Fianna Fáil TD James Browne, after reading through his Dáil questions recently, realised a local Enniscorthy school had been re-opened without any Government deputies being told, so Browne got the news to the local media first. THE Beano has sent a ceaseand-desist letter to Jacob Rees-Mogg, ordering him to stop masquerading as Walter the Softie, pictured. Bang to rights!