An okey dokey, open Pairc an Chrocaigh, day for Bill and us

TV View: There we were, in a daze, trying to figure out one of life's great imponderables - how could that Liverpool team, the one we just watched on RTÉ fail to beat Spurs at Anfield, get the better of Juventus over two legs in the Champions League quarter-finals? - when Bill O'Herlihy startled us, rudely interrupting our chin-scratching session.

"The news . . . . is . . coming through . . . . from . . . Croke . . . . .Park . . . that rule . . for . . . tee . . two . . is . . . .," he began, in a Morse code kind of way.

Bill? Spit it out man.

"is . . . . . . . . . gone."

"The yes vote has triumphed! This, gentlemen, is a great day for Ireland - not just for Irish sport, for Ireland," he said to John Giles and Jim Beglin, while doing that swingy thingie in his swingy chair again.

"Yes, Bill," Gilesie emoted.

"It's a great day for the GAA, a great day for everybody who loves sport here in Ireland," said Marty Morrissey when Bill had a chat with him, live from Croke Park.

"And a great day for Ireland, Marty! It's a wonderful, wonderful day," said Bill.

"This is great day for Irish sport," Marty replied. By now we were half figuring it was an all-round great day.

"It's the 21st century, it's time to open our arms and spread them around the world," said Marty, by which stage we were expecting himself and Bill to break into song, something along the lines of "we've got the whole okey dokey sporting world in our hands".

That, then, was the tone on RTÉ all day. Pro-Rule 42 folk bad, Anti-Rule 42 people good. Cork's argument, then, was bad (roughly: Aldi were voting to rent their state-of-the-art premises to Lidl so Lidl could carry on selling their goods while their own premises, as impressive as a rusting cow-shed, were refurbished, but when the refurbishment was complete would Aldi have lost all their customers to Lidl?). Convincing, maybe, but bad. Forward-thinking, maybe, but backward.

Formula One - The Dublin Grand Prix! - might be the next step for Croke Park but, alas, we're unlikely to see Eddie Irvine strut his stuff there, since retiring a few years back. Retiring, but never shy, as he once again proved on Saturday's Tubridy Tonight. We always feared Eddie would come to a bad end. The nightmare became a reality on Saturday: Eddie now sports a perm, a style not seen since Coronation Street's Deirdre married Ken. The first time.

Eddie, though, is a contented man, despite the perm. He lives, for the most part, in Miami, where he's had to moor his yacht at the side of his art gallery because it was obstructing the view from his $3 million pad. We've all been there Eddie, we've all been there.

Happily, he's rolling in it this weather, largely because the property game in Florida is a "no-brainer", "your Granny could make money at it". And his bar in Dublin, Cocoon, is doing fine, except it'd be doing a whole lot better if it was subject to American labour laws.

"Business is tough - the rents are so high, the labour costs are so high, the taxes are so high, everything is so high," he sighed, his perm shivering with exasperation. "In Ohio the labour laws compared to here, it's amazing - they get 10 days' holiday a year, if they're sick for nine days they get one day's holiday a year," he swooned.

"Are you all for that," asked Ryan. "It's fantastic if you own the company, it's amazing. If they're not performing you can just sack them - here you've got to pay them six months of this and de de da, it's a big difference for running a business."

As Michael Howard has so frequently put it of late: are you thinking what we're thinking? Yep. Empty vessels make a desperate racket.

Alex Ferguson isn't thinking what Michael's thinking, he's voting Labour. He even turned up in Oldham last week at a do to support the party. Newsnight's Michael Crick was waiting for him. Crick, you might know, is a Manchester United diehard, but has devoted a fair lump of his time to investigating Ferguson and his son's off-the-field activities.

"Some people think you and Tony Blair have the same problem, you're both past your sell-by date," he shouted at Ferguson as he arrived. Ferguson smiled a smile that said something along the lines of "xxxx you".

At least he was cheered by his boys reaching the FA Cup final against Wenger's lads. "Who will they appoint to referee the final?" John Motson nervously asked Mark Lawrenson yesterday. After some thought Lawro gave his answer: "Kofi Annan". But if Kofi has any sense he'll opt to send Hans Blix instead.