SMOKES & DAGGERS

A mischievous mix of (mostly) news

THE BBC was caught out during the week when it put up a graphic attempting to show what the EU would look like post-Brexit. It showed most of continental Europe in red, depicting the fact they would still be in the EU. And then Ireland and the UK in grey, depicting the Republic, the North and the UK outside the EU. Could a hard Brexit be even worse than we had imagined?

STAFFING must be tight at Newstalk. On Wednesday evening one presenter was filling in on two separate shows, back to back. Tom Dunne is currently covering for Seán Moncrieff in the afternoons, so is not hosting his usual 10pm show. And some of the Off The Ball team are also away. In stepped Marathon Man Richie McCormack, pictured. He was one of the hosts for the full three hours of Off The Ball, then stayed in his seat to present two hours of music for Dunne.

SMOKES believes the controversial Strategic Communications Unit can’t come quickly enough. We’ve been trying to get an answer from the Taoiseach’s office, to a very modest line of questioning, for the past week and a half. To no avail. We’ve been repeatedly promised an answer. We’ve even tried tweeting the man himself. Nothing. A case of strategic non-communication?

ACTRESS Helen Mirren, pictured, gave her opinion on ageing this

week: ‘The truth is that your heart does get broken at 26 and, at 70, you realise that it wasn’t really broken at all. And other things will come and replace it.’ She couldn’t have been talking about our own Liam Neeson, could she? She lived with him after making the 1981 film Excalibur, made in Ardmore studios in Wicklow. The memory still seemed fresh when he spoke to a US interviewer in 2014 about the dalliance. ‘I fell in love with Helen Mirren. Oh my God. Can you imagine riding horses in shiny suits of armour, having sword fights and stuff, and you’re falling in love with Helen Mirren? It doesn’t get better than that.’