Tuesday 5th:

An edifying and pleasant hour with Flor Crowley TD, Cork South-West. We discuss some rather obscure and intricate points of similarity, or perhaps agreement, between Engels and Teilhard de Chardin. Deputy Crowley tells me that such conversation nowadays, is, as a rule, only available inside the portals of Dail Eireann. He is most gracious, and suggests that I am the only citizen in Ireland worthy of our legislature. I am afraid that I blush somewhat at this.

YOU could tell that Charlie was feeling confident - he was making Arms Crisis jokes. He picked up a rifleemicrophone left on the table by a TV crew, cradled it in his arm and trained it on the gathered press, a wide grin on his face. Some of the journalists began laughing and Charlie joined in and there was a big ho-ho , nudge-nudge, wink-wink, until a couple of journalists raised their cameras.  By Gene Kerrigan

The 1982 General Election could be a disaster both for women candidates and for women's issues. There is, as yet, no evidence of women's groups organising or even being prepared to begin organising for this election. Several of the women candidates who got in on the last count in 1981, largely assisted by the public awareness of women's issues and women's candidates, are in danger of losing their seats. There is a distinct possibility that the number of women elected will be considerably less than the 22nd Dail's unprecedented figure of eleven women members. By Pat Brennan

Oh, goody! We get to go through all that again. Gee whizz, terrific. Me, I'd made extensive preparations for the budget. Cartons of smokes, a bottle of this, a bottle of that. Heard a rumour that newspaper prices were inncreasing so I began hoarding a stock of the Irish Times. Time for one last night with the elbows down in O'Donoghues before they start taxing barstools.

The battle for the IFA presidency is complicated by the personel finances of one of the contenders and allegations of political bias.  By Pat Brennan

Des O'Malley was choosing his words the way Steve Davis choooses the angle off the side cushion into the corner pocket. Very carefully, deliberately.

When performances of Beethoven's Fifth Symphony were given in England towards the end of the nineteenth century, the final movement, the Ode to Joy, was often accompanied to a rousing finale by four military brass bands. Victorian culture with its bawdy music halls and tawdry ballads was often so far over the top that even the more extravagant Ken Russell might seem tame in comparison. Victorian England was not iust the era of the straight-laced, its culture represented a curious .ble nd of the sentimental and the pompous.

When the evening started the whiskey shelf was groaning. Now it was purring contentedly and I was purring back at it - always glad to help relieve a burden.

The road from Charlestown to Kilkelly rises, swoops, twists and turns with all the whimsy of a starling's flight. The sun reflects from the countless million snowwflakes carpeting the Mayo countryside. Suddenly, rising from the hills and trees, like a tightly woven white net cast skyward by a giant hand, a mist makes a mockery of the sun, reduces the road to a stretch of tarmacadam that peters out twenty yards ahead, and sucks the colour and substance from all it leaves visible.

In their six years as the National Film Studios of Ireland, Ardmore Studios have proved to be a commercial disaster. Is Ardmore about the development of the Irish film industry or is it merely a "Government Showcase"? By Paddy Agnew