Bubble and Squeak: Tara, tunnel-dwelling and Turbos

SO SQUEAK gave up her ridiculous protest under Rath Lugh. Can't say I'm too surprised.

Now, don't get me wrong. I admire anyone with the courage to stand up - or, as in this intance, lie down - for their beliefs. Even when they are wrong.

And wrong they are. Frankly, I've more than a few bones to pick with these bath-dodging do-gooders.

For a start, who devises their strategy? Surely they should have realised that digging under the very mound they profess to be trying to save from being dug up was counter-productive? It's like shooting someone in the head to stop them getting cancer.

And secondly, why do ecoworriers adopt childish names like Squeak or Swampy? Don't they see that if they used a nom de plume carrying a bit more authority - like Brigadier Fortescue, Smythe IV or the Duchess of Donaghmede - they might actually have a chance of being taken seriously?

Of course, she and her motley crew of supporters are claiming victory. Cynic that I am, I'd be more inclined to regard her return overground as an ignominous climb-up.

She was, after all, given the perfect alibi by the National Roads Authority (NRA). In addition to the obvious one about concerns for her air supply, she was led to believe she'd won a concession from the NRA that they'd stop work on the site for four weeks.

I'm sure the NRA, far more adept than her at the dark art of PR, and planning a four-week hiatus anyway, were only too happy to ferret her out with this ruse. In the cold light of day, I think she'll realise she's been had.

She'll get no sympathy from me. You dig your own hole, you lie in it. Or not, as the case may be.

That said, nobody could have blamed her for giving up. No amount of smug self-belief can have saved her from the realisation that being stuck in a cramped hole underground with nothing but tin cans and a saxophone for company wasn't much of a giggle. Not to mention a bit silly.

I'm a bit disappointed though. A glorious opportunity for a brilliant practical joke has been missed.

All above ground - crusties, gardai, builders, journalists et al - should have quietly slipped away, leaving Squeak in her burrow, none the wiser.

Eventually, she'd smell a rat and emerge, like a Japanese soldier stumbling from the jungle decades after the end of the second World War, to find herself on a traffic island in the middle of the motorway that's been quietly built as she festered underneath. Now, that would be funny.

Speaking of lunatics cavorting around the countryside, I spent a day last weekend pootling around Kilkenny on the annual classic BMW owner's run. I know it sounds terribly sad. But everyone needs a hobby.

The main attraction was a BMW 2002 Turbo, the epitome of 1970s devil-may-care fuel-guzzling motorised consumerism.

Sadly, a mere 1,672 of these mental machines were built before the oil crisis put paid to production. I've no idea how many are left. Not a lot, I'm guessing.

The problem with them was their rudimentary turbo, which suffered from a lag so unpredictable that many, piloted by inexperienced wide-boys as they often were, ended up wrapped around trees.

Bizarrely, I couldn't help thinking of the erstwhile Meath tunnel dweller as I drooled over the Turbo.

See, like our subterranean heroine, Turbos make a ferocious noise and cause a major kerfuffle when they appear in public. But they can't function without a constant flow of filtered air.

Starved of it, they'll grind to a halt, their impact dulled from that of a hillshaking roar to an ineffectual little Squeak.