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14 December 2006 Edition

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Fifth Column

Face off

Candidates in next year’s Assembly and Dáil elections will be facing up to new research showing that good looks really do count in politics and can add an extra 2 per cent to their vote.
The findings come in an examination by the Australian National University into the results and voters’ attitudes to faces on election flyers in Oz’s 2004 general election.
There’s hope, though, for the ugly mugs: some of Australia’s most successful male politicians are rated among the most unattractive. Apparently, looks are less important when a politician becomes well-known, according to researcher Andrew Leigh.
“Once voters come to know a politician, their physical appearance doesn’t matter as much.”
Which must be a blessed relief to members of the Fianna Fáil/PD Cabinet and the Alliance Party.

Baron Brian of Ballyfermot
Poring over the entrails of US election pollster Frank luntz’s RTÉ Week in Politics, Children’s Minister Brian Lenihan told listeners to Sam Smyth’s Sunday Show on Today FM that, instead of focus groups, when he wants to hear what the good people of Ballyfermot think he pops into “a local tavern”. Not a bar, not a pub but a “tavern”!
In a local tavern where, no doubt, Baron Brian summons a serving wench to bring him a tankard of ale or some mead to quench his thirst before he takes his aristocratic leave in his ministerial carriage.

Why, Graham Geraghty?

1999 All-Ireland winning Meath football captain Graham Geraghty’s Dáil candidacy approved on Monday night by Fine Gael poses some challenges for the Blueshirts’ spin doctors.
Quizzed on Morning Ireland on Tuesday, still glowing from his triumph at what insiders reported as “a hot and heavy atmosphere”, FG’s bright new hope for Meath West’s first response to being asked why get involved in politics was “Why not?”
And why Fine Gael?
First response: “Why not?”
So when Bertie Ahern is asked by Fine Gael supremo Enda Kenny why did he trouser large wedges of cash from Paddy the Plasterer, Bob the Builder, et al, Bertie can use the Graham Geraghty ploy: “Why not?”

Air turbulence
The Christmas TV schedules will no doubt feature re-runs of Bruce Willis’s Die Harder action movie, all seasonal suspense amongst the snow as New York cop John McClane battles with renegade US special forces in the pay of a drugs baron for control of a Washington DC airport at Christmas. But there was a real-life mid-air drama last week at Washington DC. A gas attack grounded an American Airlines flight... caused by a woman trying to cover the smell of her farting!
Embarrassed by the stink from her seat, the woman tried to mask the odour by frantically lighting matches. Passengers on Monday’s Dallas-bound airliner reported the smell of burning sulphur. Quizzed about the smell, the red-faced miscreant remained tight lipped. So, fearing a ‘shoe bomber’ trying to light a fuse, the flight crew immediately made an emergency landing at Nashville.
“Of course, she was scared and embarrassed,” a Nashville Airport spokesperson said, “but all the passengers had to disembark, all the luggage had to be searched, a canine team was brought in, and about three hours were consumed in sorting out the situation.”
Passengers are allowed to carry books of matches on aircraft but are not allowed to light them.
“Since there was no malice involved and the incident was accidental, she was not charged with anything.”
But the woman was blocked from getting back on the flight and barred from flying on American Airlines. She probably had to bum a lift.

The shirts off RUC backs
Republicans taking a holiday break in Romania shouldn’t be too surprised if they think they’re getting flashbacks after sampling the local hooch when they wake up to see what the locals are wearing - RUC shirts.
A church charity is shipping the old RUC uniform shirts to needy people in Romania because, unlike other uniform items (which the UVF and UDA have tons of), are of no value to military or historical collectors.
It’ll make  a change for someone to welcome the sight of an RUC shirt.
    
Santa’s sack
It’s turning out to be a bit of strange “season to be jolly”.
Renegade UDA gang boss Johnny Adair – in exile in Troon, in Scotland – wants us to believe that him and his neo-Nazi buddies are turning all philanthropic and will funding orphanages for war children in Uganda after Christmas.
Adair groupie and German neo-Nazi bomber Nick Greger has allegedly ‘found God’ but, curiously, at the same time is threatening to help Adair’s enemies find God rather quicker (and more violently) than they might like to when Johnny comes marching home to Belfast.
Back in Greger’s fatherland, a chain of shops has destroyed its entire stock of miniature wooden Santa Claus figures because customers complained it looked like they were giving the stiff-arm Hitler salute so beloved by the Loon in Troon and Nazi Nasty Nick.
Meanwhile, back in London’s West End, Santa’s grotto in the upper-crust Harrods of Knightsbridge has been visited by the families of the Duchess of York, Posh and Becks and other famous faces. But Santa wasn’t his mirthful, merry self when one British Asian family turned up last week.
Evidently dreaming of a white Christmas, Santa asked the family beaming full of festive fun: “What are you doing here? Shouldn’t you be shopping in Tesco?”
As the family left, Santa “lewdly” asked their teenage daughter if she wanted to stay behind and sit on his knee.
Santa is no longer present at Harrods.
Oh, ho, ho.


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Ireland