Bloom's dodgy budget

You need to get up early in the morning to catch out Minister for Finance Michael Noonan. During his trip to the US this week he abandoned economics briefly to do a reading at Imagine Ireland's Bloomsday Breakfast in Bryant Park, New York. The Minister read a passage from the Wandering Rocks episode in Ulysses, and read it well. He was later approached by an agency reporter about the piece he'd read. Michael was only too happy to talk about it.

“The David Sheehy MP that was referred to in the piece represented Limerick, as I do,” he said. “He represented it in the House of Commons; I represent it in the Dáil – so things have changed. And he married a woman who lived up the road from us at home. They were a farming family – that was the woman that was referred to in the piece.”

The journalist sounded taken aback by Michael’s knowledge, replying: “Oh, because there was some talk that the organisers had asked you to read the bit about Bloom’s budget – it balances perfectly, but he leaves out the money that he gave to the whorehouse to cover Dedalus’s expenses.”

“Well, you see, if I read that I’d be afraid I’d be misquoted, because I’m only going for the one budget this year, and any talk of other budgets would only distract people,” Noonan countered.

The reporter went back to questions about senior bondholders.

Sporting the ties that bind

Anglo-Irish ties have never been better. In fact, they are so good that people are willing to pay good money for them.

When the British-Irish Parliamentary Assembly met this week in Cork, Taoiseach Enda Kenny and the two co-chairmen of the assembly sported the assembly’s official neckwear when addressing the media. As a result the red, green and gold tie, which is decorated with the Oireachtas harp and the Westminster portcullis, featured on the evening news, modelled by Enda (centre), Fine Gael’s Joe McHugh (left) and the Tory peer Lord Cope of Berkeley (right).

Since then the assembly leadership has been inundated with requests from members of the public anxious to get their hands on one of the ties. “I’m actually getting e-mails from America from people looking for the tie,” says McHugh. Unfortunately, this particular little silk number is reserved for members and guests of the assembly (female members receive a brooch).