Do you know the Kaczyński twins?
No, they’re not a band. Jaroslaw KaczyÅ„ski is the Prime Minister of Poland and his identical twin brother Lech KaczyÅ„ski is the President. That’s some achievement, wouldn’t you say?
Here’s Lech:
And here’s Jaroslaw:

Here they are together:

Now, the Kaczyński boys are extreme Catholics of the kind we used to have [...]

Would you like to hear the story of the great big bridge and the tiny little mouse? OK then. Settle in and pull up those cosy covers while I tell you the story.
You see, what happened was this. Once upon a time, the government built a road from one side of the [...]

I see that Bertie is still adamant we won’t ever use nuclear power. Ever.
That’s because Bertie is a nuclear scientist and he knows all the ins and outs of nuclear power. The same as he used his deep knowledge of computer security to call us all Luddites when we questioned the e-voting machines.
Bertie [...]

Dalkey is one of the most charming and salubrious of South Dublin suburbs. It retains most of the character it used to have when it was just a village, clinging to the edge of Dublin Bay. These days, it’s full of bistros. Art galleries. Bijou residences for a million bucks a [...]

I don’t know.
I have no idea what it means to be Irish. In spite of the fact that – as far as I’m aware- my people have lived here forever, I feel very reluctant to call myself Irish, because I don’t know what the term Irish means. I feel even more uncomfortable when [...]

Having said all that about Ryanair, the no-care airline, the low-standards airline, the no-brain airline, in fairness, I would have to say this about them: they’re shit.
However, here’s the question. Who isn’t shit?
That’s right. Scunthorpe United aren’t shit. Scunthorpe United won yet again, beating poor old Rotherham to streak to the top [...]

Well, so much for our weekend in Scunthorpe.
Yeah, they checked us in at Dublin Airport no problem, so we headed off to the bar for a quick drink, feeling really good about this hassle-free experience. Half an hour later, we’re in past security, gawping at a monitor that says cancelled.
What? Cancelled.
Why? Very [...]

Watch carefully now. This is what the loyalist politician of the future – or even the decent loyalist in the street – will be using for all his daily requirements. I’ve designed a handy electronic gadget that acts as an auto-prompter for heckling political opponents, and contains seven hundred different ways to say [...]

Some of our overseas readers might be wondering at all the fuss about a rugby match being played at Croke Park, and so I thought maybe a little background would be in order.
The GAA is the Gaelic Athletic Association, which is a vast, nationwide, amateur sporting organisation, with clubs in every tiny village in every [...]

Did you see those reports during the week about a couple who sued a hospital because a sterilisation operation didn’t work? It seems the woman had a tubal ligation in the Coombe, and on the face of it, that appeared to be that. The end. No more babies.
It’s very final.
No more puking [...]