SMOKES& DAGGERS

Inside the corridors of power...

SOMEBODY decided to photocopy official passes for the count centre in Tipperary last week. It seems the supporters of one or more candidates decided they didn’t have enough supporters in the hall at the Presentation Sports Complex in Thurles. So passes were copied and handed out, enabling 30 or 40 extra people to enter… because it looks good on the telly if you have loads of people cheering for you. An offended candidate said: ‘Who even thinks of such a thing? It’s mad.’ IN AN interview in the Irish Times last weekend, rugby star Johnny Sexton was critical of commentary suggesting he had been suffering from concussion and tried to hide it. George Hook, right, was quick to respond: his lawyers wrote to Sexton seeking an apology, the withdrawal of the article and a ‘proportional donation’ because Sexton’s comments questioned ‘our client’s integrity and objectivity’. During the week Hook also threatened Newstalk colleague Ivan Yates with a ‘slap across the gizzard’ because Hook objected to Yates’s comments on water charges. For a man who makes a living from dishing out abuse and invective, poor George is terribly sensitive. The Times is standing by Sexton’s right to express a trenchant opinion. RESEARCH from a firm based at Queen’s University Belfast revealed during the week that Fine Gael was responsible for the largest amount of negative online campaigning during the election, based on an analysis of party Tweets. But Fine Gael missed out on what appears to be the newest, most effective negative technique of all: claiming rival party leaders have small hands. We live and learn. IRISH Rail is seeking help in compiling words for an urban travel dictionary. On Twitter, it proposes ‘frummaging’: ‘The act of “faking a rummage” in one’s bag for something that does not exist. Frummagers have also been known to place their bag on the seat beside them so as to deter potential neighbours.’ What we really need is a word for those nuisances who sit in other people’s preassigned seats. NOEL ROCK, newly elected Fine Gael TD for Dublin North West, was not shy about engaging in some oldfashioned campaigning. A taxi-driver tells us he saw Rock, pictured, standing in a traffic island holding a campaign sign and waving and smiling at cars as they sat at a red light. When the lights changed, Noel turned around to face traffic from the other direction.