SMOKES & DAGGERS
A mischievous mix of (mostly) news
THE problem at the MacGill Summer School isn’t just gender balance. It’s the dull line-up. It prompted one online observer to describe it as ‘a version of the Marian Finucane show – just on holidays in Donegal’.
POLITICIANS always like to be seen as regular blokes, and Simon Harris did his bit to promote that image by posting a brief video of himself yesterday putting burgers on the barbecue. Alas, he can’t relax. He was glaring at that uncooked burger the way he must glower at errant HSE managers.
SINN Féin’s declaration that the time was right for a woman Taoiseach (guess who, Mary Lou!) sparked a loyal dismissal by Heather Humphreys, who said: ‘That’s nonsense; it is time for the right taoiseach and that person is the current holder.’
THE Irish Times is rarely accused of being sensational, let alone ‘unduly sensational’. But a restaurant review by Catherine Cleary proved difficult to stomach for Brett, Ross and Dery Desmond, sons of financier Dermot Desmond and owners of Dublin burger joint Five Guys. She found her burger disintegrated into a ‘slick of ketchup and day-glo orange cheese’ that had ‘the flavour of molten Barbie doll’. Having also ordered the veggie sandwich she encountered a ‘sweaty bap’, which she had to endure over rock music ‘set to Guantanamo-torture level’. The owners said they found the review ‘disingenuous’ and ‘misleading’… but admitted that they are ‘not best known for our veggie sandwich’.
ALL members of the Oireachtas have been invited to a US embassy bash on July 3 to celebrate Independence Day with Champagne and sausage rolls. Senator Aodhán Ó Ríordáin has called on politicians ‘to collectively and with one voice, given what is happening on the southern border of the US, refuse point blank to attend the reception’. But Smokes suspects Champagne and sausage rolls would be more than enough to soothe the righteous anger of many.
BETWEEN them, RTÉ commentators George Hamilton, Ger Canning, Adrian Eames, John Kenny and Stephen Alkin are calling the goals as they happen at the World Cup. But of those, only Hamilton is in Russia, with analyst Ronnie Whelan. The rest of the team are in Montrose. It’s a far cry from the 1978 finals when RTÉ had four commentators in position in Argentina – the same George Hamilton, left, plus Philip Greene, Jimmy Magee, and Billy George.