SMOKES & DAGGERS

A mischievous mix of (mostly) news

DON’T mention the letter. Leo Varadkar was a bit touchy yesterday when dealing with his fan mail to pop princess Kylie Minogue. The story by our reporter, Craig Hughes, got great coverage during the week and sparked a lot of debate, online and off. But when pressed on it yesterday, a tetchy Taoiseach insisted the Kylie story had emerged from a social media post he hadn’t even been responsible for. He was referencing the original picture uploaded by Tiernan Brady, who failed to be selected as a Fianna Fáil Euro election candidate. Hardly dirty tricks though, as Tiernan is a dear friend. Or at least he was. FINIAN McGRATH’s difficulties with the Garda drink-driving issue continued right up to his official apology, which he gave the clumsy headline: ‘Minister McGrath Apologise to the Families, Victims and Gardaí.’ For a second, we thought Finian might be calling on himself to apologise. A FINE Gael minister recalled a prior Shane Ross slapdown of FG ministers who criticised his drinkdriving measures as being unfit to be in Cabinet. We still await his slapdown of Finian, his Independent Alliance Ally. JENNIFER ZAMPARELLI was a guest on Seán O’Rourke’s radio show on Wednesday for an item on the dangerous psychological strains that reality TV shows place on participants. There was a delightful moment where Zamparelli, pictured, quizzed the host, asking: ‘I don’t know if you watched Celebs Go Dating, Seán, did you watch that?’ She was met with an emphatic ‘No’.