EDWINA Currie has a lot to answer for. For example, showing that you can be a big fish and still manage a bit of fiction on the side. It took Maire Geoghegan just 15 months to complete her bodice buster The Green Diamond. Rank and file FF scurried to the foyer of the National Museum to pay homage to the former Minister's literary talents.
Talk at the reception inevitably turned to who the characters were modelled after. No prizes for spotting the likenesses between heroine Derva, a young countrywoman whose politician father wants her to succeed him and become the first woman Taoiseach - a characterisation which obviously comes straight from the heart. But wait, wasn't that Mildred Fox over there?
The assembled throng appeared to hail either from the Dail or perhaps from a coach on its way to a line dancing championship, with the notable exception of Caroline Erskine, whose Saturday show, The Week In Politics, is gathering ever more momentum. As one deputy put it, "Glam, no. This is serious country and western stuff."
Spied: Martin Mansergh locked in conversation with John Wilson (John Taylor's close aide), the author's dear friend Senator Brendan Daly, her husband John Quinn, Brian Lenihan and Mary O'Rourke, Michael Mulcahy, Eoin Ryan the younger, Liz McManus and Kildare's Sean Power, another budding author. His opus, with the working title Feet First, is a compilation of personalities' reminiscences about their most embarrassing moments and he hopes it will be out in time for Christmas. Proceeds will go the Cancer Unit of Our Lady's Hospital for Sick Children in Crumlin.