SMOKES & DAGGERS

A mischievous mix of (mostly) news

BRAZILIAN news magazine Veja had to publish a wonderful correction recently about a presidential candidate. ‘The candidate likes to spend his free time reading Tolstoy, and not watching Toy Story, as originally reported.’ FAIR play to one enterprising cemetery. On the back page of the Irish Times the following ad was placed: ‘Enjoy the Papal visit? Be sure to book your place in Paradise today.’ For the record, it was Kilternan Cemetery Park and it was very successful. Apparently people are now dying to get in there. Geddit? SMOKES was surprised at the distinct lack of Fine Gael ministers who turned up for the launch of the new Leo biography during the week. Normally politicians will turn up to the opening of a Smithwicks bottle, but outside of Josepha Madigan, Simon Harris, Hildegarde Naughton, Michelle Mulherin, Kate O’Connell and John Paul Phelan, there was nobody. Not even Defence Minister Paul Kehoe – boss of the book’s co-author Niall O’Connor – managed to get there. Probably off in the Leb again… SMOKES enjoyed this damning description, heard in Leinster House, of Labour’s firebrand: ‘Poor Alan is now a duck without a pond.’ FORMER RTÉ Washington correspondent Mark Little commented on the anonymous op-ed that caused a stir in Washington this week. He tweeted: ‘I’m reminded of the old Irish joke about Watergate: we’d immediately know who Deep Throat was but Nixon would still be in power.’