Should Boris really be left in charge of the country?

ONE day an academic of my acquaintance went round to his sister’s house and couldn’t believe it when he heard his two young nephews referencing Leonardo, Raphael, Donatello and Michelangelo.

Later over drinks in the local pub he told a friend it restored his faith in the education system in Northern Ireland, that boys of that age had such an interest in art and culture.

The friend, being a father of young children himself, soon copped on what he was talking about but hadn’t the heart to tell him the kids were actually talking about the Teenage Ninja Turtles, the cartoon series then topping the viewing charts across the globe.

The Italian renaissance artists were not on their agenda at all.

I have a three-year-old grandson and, on occasions, I get called to babysit.

My trick to get him to sit quiet is by putting on Peppa Pig.

I presume Boris Johnson must have been trying the same trick when addressing the CBI.

Losing his place on his script he decided to freewheel.

Let me give you a wee flavour of how it then ran: “Yesterday I went, as we all must, to Peppa Pig World.

“Hands up if you’ve been to Peppa Pig World. I loved it. Peppa Pig World is very much my kind of place.

“It has very safe streets, discipline in schools, heavy emphasis on new mass transit systems.

“Even if they’re a bit stereotypical about Daddy Pig.”

He then imitated the sound of an accelerating car with grunts that an official press release transcribed as “arum arum aaaaaaaaag”.

He also compared himself to Moses.

You have to ask yourself one massive question in the wake of all this: Should this man be running a country?

That was the first story to catch my eye last week.

Two days later the headlines took a much darker turn when it was confirmed that 27 people had died in bitterly cold waters off the coast of France.

French Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin said the migrants’ dinghy had collapsed, and when rescuers had arrived it was “deflated like an inflatable garden pool”.

He also confirmed that four suspected traffickers accused of being directly linked to the doomed crossing had been arrested.

Maybe it’s just me, but if they knew these guys were traffickers before this incident why wait to 27 people are dead to arrest them? Isn’t it odd too that in the narrow waterway between Britain and France, one of the busiest shipping lanes in the world, no one saw these poor people?

That no one got there in time to rescue them?

And then, back home, there’s Garth Brooks. What’s this man got that he deserved coverage on the main evening news bulletin on both RTE and BBC? To answer my own question, I suppose the fact that 400,000 people have applied for tickets to go see him at Croke Park might have had something to do with it. Brooks, below, is worth $400million. It’s reckoned he’ll earn many more millions – I read $32million somewhere – from his Irish gigs.

Bet all those local musicians who haven’t been able to earn a penny for the best part of two years will just love him when they learn this.

Losing his place on his script he decided to freewheel