A glance at the week that was
Jade bows out
Jade Goody passed away last weekend, and the news made the front page of all the British papers, and was covered by the global media. Quite a turnaround for someone who first made their name as a fourth-place runner-up on Big Brother and then followed it up with a racist bullying row. But the way she turned her terminal cancer into a public spectacle proved quite a moneyspinner for her children and the glossy magazines, even if many in the media questioned the dignity of the whole thing.
Darkest hour
Today will see the globe go dark for an hour at 8.30pm – or at least that is what the organisers of Earth Hour are hoping for. Not yet a great success in Ireland, the idea has proven popular with Astronomy Ireland, which is getting out its telescopes for the occasion. However, there is a small problem for the Irish end in that it clashes with Ireland's soccer qualifier with Bulgaria tonight. Although, depending on how the game is going, it could be a good idea to turn off the floodlights an hour into it.
We now know
The fall in Ireland’s Gross Domestic Product for the fourth quarter of last year was the highest since the early 1990s
Jamie Oliver was the bestselling author in Britain last year, beating JK Rowling
Madonna is to adopt a second child from Malawi, according to reports
The numbers
10 years
Jail sentence of a pilot who paused to pray rather than take emergency measures during a crash-landing in which killed 16 people died
€1 million
Irish Nationwide chief executive Michael Fingleton's bonus for 2008
5.9%
fall in alcohol sales in the Republic last year