A trawler sank off the coast of west Cork with tragic results, while the Costa Concordia cruise ship split itself open on rocks of the western Italian coast. Well, I say split itself, really it was the captain who did it by being a reckless prick. The whole sorry debacle got more grizzly and yet more preposterous as the week went on, best exemplified by the exasperated incredulity of the Italian coastguard as it became clearer and clearer that Captain Francesco Schettino was dangerously out of his depth and should never have quit the job he had in his youth, which by the looks of him appeared to be a male dancer in music videos for disco-era acts like Sister Sledge and Donna Summer.

You might expect a certain crisis of confidence in the luxury boating industry following such a debacle but the British government are trying their best in an unusual way. Struggling with that usual quandary – what do you get as a Jubilee present for the Queen who has everything? – they came up not just with a desperation, 4am idea but a desperation, 4am idea that someone came up with while watching an early morning episode of Bullseye. Let’s get her a speedboat!

But after a bit of finessing they decided a yacht would be a bit more Queenie. Originally they wanted to buy the yacht from public funds, but since even the Tories thinking a publically funded luxury rubber duckie for a publically funded rich lady was pushing the bounds of taste a bit hard, they decided that private sponsorship was the way to go. Of course, not everyone was happy even with that, as several Daily Mail-under-the-arm brigadiers on BBC’s Question Time seemed to think private money would demean Her Ladyship’s Lady Ship and that it was only proper order that the public purse be prised open for Our Liz. You have to love the Monarchist right wing: if members of a family from Blackburn on state welfare swan round the streets in the middle of the day wearing ornate jewellery they’d be castigated and would urged to be cut off the state teat, but when the Windsor’s  do exactly the same it’s called an engagement, and it’s deserving of a yacht.  In fairness to Elizabeth though, she seems a nice sort who’d be mortified at such grandiose gestures, so maybe they should just ask her what she wants. I reckon she’d settle for Skyrim and a few joke telephones for the corgis.

But if they’re insistent on getting a yacht rather than get their corporate pals to pony up the dough they could always ask Jay-Z, who probably has a few spare unused ones knocking about his backyard marina. Since he and Beyoncé became parents, Jay has been putting his big pimpin’ money where his crazy large mouth is, a simple Google search of “Jay Z ridiculous baby gifts” revealing their newborn has received, among many others some of which were donated to charity, a gold rocking horse, a diamond-studded dummy and high-chair and an opulent party in his own nightclub featuring stacks of champagnes bottles made of gold for his girl, Blue Ivy. You’d think that would have been a better name for the nightclub than the child, but we won’t judge.

In stateside news the Republican Primaries have reached interstellar levels of insane, as it transpired Rick Santorum won in Iowa after all, Newt Gingrich appealed to swing voters in the most disturbingly literal way possible and Mitt Romney is…still a robot.  All the while, Obama is feeling so comfortable he’s opening speeches with Reverend Al Green tunes. But one issue no politician will want to run on this year is the Stop Online Privacy Act, which caused significant consternation on the internet this week. While consternation is one of the things the internet does best, this week saw it stepped up a notch with the blackout protest of sites like Wikipedia, Reddit and, eh, I Can Haz Cheesburger.

As a result of the HTTP 404 Uproar, Congress has put the missile to crack a nut they call SOPA and its Senate counterpart PIPA on ice, which is where they will likely stay. After all this is one of the biggest ethical dilemmas of our era, trying to find the balance between the rights of hardworking artists to not be poor and maintaining the sanctity of free share of knowledge and ideas. And what clueless congressman would be bothered with that in an election year?

I’ll be honest, much as I love this it was pretty blissful that the only thing even resembling news I saw over the holiday was that roving reporter in Central Park when I was watching Elf for the 29^th time. But now, with the holiday season gone and forgotten like 2009’s snow, it’s back to business.

Pensioners the country over though will no doubt have hoped that the Revenue Commission had taken a few extra days holidays and saved them the stress of finding out they may have more tax to pay than usual, which is to say, any. With the grey vote not a section of society to be clusterfucked with, Chairperson Josephine Feehily apologised for the confusion and panic the letters caused, but even it’s just one of myriad compelling reasons to consider putting a bullet in your TV Elvis style rather than endure RTE News’ coverage of widespread misery: austerity pickets, whispers surrounding a second bailout, abysmal treatment of laid off workers, a worrying surge of random violence and suspect devices up North, impending ructions at the notion of a household charge, and the tragic death of two marvellous campaigners, journalist Mary Raftery who near singlehandedly shone a spotlight on Church abuse of children, and mental health advocate John McCarthy. But hey, it’s not all bad news. The Tesco in Omagh recently won Loo of The Year, Babychange Facilities Division!

Things in Britain aren’t much better mind you, but at least they’re more entertaining. Ed Milliband made a minor spelling error last week, yet the mistake pretty much summed up his hapless, vaguely embarrassing leadership so far. In paying tribute to the recently departed legendary quiz don Bob Holness, Ed identified him as the presenter of “Blackbusters”. Which, as we all know, was not a quiz but the first movie Isaac Hayes ever scored. Meanwhile across the other side of the house David Cameron has been in full Down Wit Da Kids mode and discussing music with the Telegraph. He has big love for lipsome chanteuse Lana Del Rey, but finds Katy Perry “appalling”, which is a little unfair, and not a small bit hipster.

Another popular concept he’s not wild on is Scottish Independence, as the PM and Alex Salmond are painting their faces blue and waving each other’s arses at each other in preparation of the big fight coming down the road. Cameron wants it early to attempt to smother its chances of winning a la the AV referendum, Salmond and the SNP want it in 2014 like they promised before the last election in a bid to get a good run at a groundswell. To complicate matters, a Scottish solo run wouldn’t be binding as Westminster needs to sanction any referendum, or at least grant the Scottish parliament the power to do so. The West Lothian Question has just become a Mexican Standoff.

But while the UK looks set to be dismembered, the Harley Medical Group wins this week’s prize for lack of surgical spirit. They’ve announced that they won’t be removing faulty breast implants as it would be too expensive and anyway, it was the government’s fault for not realising how stupid they were in operating with bad implants in the first place. It’s a wonder they don’t do work on brass necks. Speaking of which, the disgraced columnist Johann Hari is making a return to Premier League journalism with The Independent in the next few weeks. He got in serious, perhaps irreparable trouble a few months ago for embellishing articles with quotes that came from other interviews, books and other such sources but he’ll no doubt hope all that is, to quote his interview with Anthony Kiedis, under the bridge.

In Canada this week letting bygones be bygones has taken on a strange hue, as their government have decided to erase the validity of same sex marriages conducted there if gay marriage isn’t legal in the country the wedders came from. I know, it doesn’t make any sense to me either. Apart from making me wonder what the point is of countries having different rules at all if they’re just going to demur to the more arse-backwards among us, one of the people who have had their marriages dissolved is Dan Savage, gay rights campaigner and the man behind the frothy definition of Santorum. “Harper” is about to mean something very rude.

And speaking of Santorum (the politician, not to the other thing), the fact he’s in the mix at all in the ongoing Republican Primaries demonstrates just how baloobas the whole thing has got. In a sane world Rick Santorum being a contender for the Presidency should be as likely as Man United playing Andrei Kanchelskis for their next game, or a piano falling from the sky and on to the stage of the Republican Convention this summer, but the modern day Republican party is about as sane as croquet flamingo, and not nearly as fun. As it stands, Turbo-Dana Santorum aside, the other contenders are Mitt Romney, who looks as trustworthy as the host of one of those crooked 50’s gameshows who’d privatize his own grandmother to get elected; Ron “Old free markets and individual liberty ain’t what she used to be, ain’t what she used to be, ain’t what she used to be”  Paul, who wears an onion on his belt, which was the style at the time; Newt Gingrich, a man whose ego is architecturally unsound; and Jon Huntsman, who is actually OK, but tanking in the polls, probably because of his reasonableness.

And it’s still only January.

After all, harsh Tory governments there, harsh Fine Gael/Labour governments here, general civil unrest everywhere and North African leader assassinations does have a bit of a rolled-up sleeved pastel jacket and asymmetrical haircut about it. But there have been a host of modern twists on some old standards.

For starters, this Fine Gael/Labour coalition comes with a seventeen million seat majority, give or take a few zeros, following the most seismic election in Ireland since lads with names like Fortesque were still knocking about Dublin Castle. Far from the days where Charles Haughey had a band of roughneck goons on every corner, Fianna Fáil mainstays were catapulted out of office with extreme prejudice, losing nearly 60 seats since the last election. They were decimated. Actually, decimated originally meant to lose a tenth, so it was about five and a half times worse than that. And now, they sit on the opposition benches, the first time they’d done that since an Acorn PC replete with Windows 95 was a pretty sensational Christmas gift, and taken as seriously as a clip on Youtube of a dog dancing the cha cha. The rest of the Dáil therefore saw the other parties along with a melange of Independents returned in unpredented numbers, yet in spite of this the government that was formed is in a combination we’ve already seen six times before. That even after such a massive change we end up with a familiar result tells you all you need to know about Ireland.

Over in the UK David Cameron has had a hard year  of having his economic policies not work, and Nick Clegg has had a harder year of being able to look himself in the mirror. With growth anaemic and rancour rising (not least within his own cabinet), its all come to a head in the last few weeks after his run-in with EU leaders in Brussels. While in ostensibly trying to protect the City of London and the UK he was attempting a High Noon moment, it ended up more like Home Alone, with the rest of Europe scooting off without him. The irony is that his determination to be steadfast, united and nationalistic has resulted in a scrubbing of soft power, raised tensions to breaking point within the coalition and puts the devolved nations in the UK, especially Scotland, in an extraordinarily difficult position. Unless he’s the world’s largest masochist, 2012 will not be one David Cameron enjoys.

Disunity has been at a high water mark in the States this year too, as a lethal cocktail of an impending election and the Republicans sniffing lunacy in an unventilated area has prompted some keraazy results. The most absurd side-effect of Republican’s mind-altering policy was congressional obstinacy over raising the debt ceiling. They eventually raised the debt ceiling, thus stopping the sky from falling in, but the madness only got worse as the apparent cream of the GOP crop curdled with increasing drama. With Iowa only weeks away, if this war of attrition continues Dan Quayle will start looking like a credible option.

But, more than a list of things that happened, 2011 was a year where big themes big changes and big contradictions were at play. This was a year of movements that expanded beyond democracy and decisions that were hostile to it. A year of civil unrest, of peaceful protest and of disturbing violence. A year of regime changes and political deadlock.

This time last year, it would be scarcely believable one Tunisian grocer’s act of desperation could have set in motion a shifting of sands that is literally changing the world. The urge for revolution couldn’t be contained, but the Old Order tried their best, and in Bahrain and Syria they are winning. In Egypt, the result still is in no way clear. The dominos even fell as far as Palestine, although their quest for autonomy hit a 30 ft high wall, this time a figurative one, in the shape of an obstinate Netanyahu, a servile Obama, a rabid Congress and hysterical special interests. Still, membership of UNESCO is better than a bullet in the wall.

But while the Arab Spring and regime change is still a work in progress, there will still be a long list of namechecks during the In Memoriam part of next year’s award ceremony for world despots, The Dickies. Mubarak? Deposed. Gaddafi?  Boom! Bin Laden? Doesn’t have a face anymore. Kim Jong-il? Died due to chronic awesomeness, allegedly. Murdoch? Cut down to size and drenched in pie. The authoritarian attrition rate this year has been as high as a Shakespeare tragedy, or an episode of Spooks.

Closer to home (and pretty much everywhere else I guess) the Occupy movement gained international notoriety, support , derision and a stinging sensation around the eyes all at once. It’s been telling that most of the criticism seems to stem from the fact they don’t provide an alternative or have clear aims, even though anything beyond a cursory listen would discredit that. They’ve also got criticism for not being an electorally viable movement, as if the sole legitimate means of civic participation has been getting a seat in a parliament. That narrowness of thought and imagination regarding the capacity of participation and alternative ways of doing things has been most inescapable this year, more’s the pity, among most of the world’s leaders, who have a level of faith in austerity and free market economics not seen since my Grandfather tried to solve every physical ailment with vinegar.

In 2011 we’ve got to the point that technocrats, credit agencies and brazen self-interests call as many shots as any elected government does, and all of them are reading market entrails too. This level of ideological orthodoxy in the face of a swell of movements calling for a more equitable way of governance may well be a last sting in the tail of the conservative consensus. The only question then is how, and when, the tipping point manifests itself.

Whether you agree with the ways, means or motives of the Occupy movement or not, we can only hope that 2012 is a year free of the kind of deranged, politically-oriented violence we saw this year in Oslo and Arizona, or the misdirected anger of the English city riots. Similarly, we can only hope a media that confuses loud and forceful with value and meaning can learn some lessons.

Thankfully, this year wasn’t all misery and portent, there were more than a few salvageable nuggets of jollity. Ireland brought out the fine china twice this year for the Queen and the President, and ended the year in the hunt for silverware at Euro 2012. Liverpool spent 35 million quid on a ponytail, and Fernando Torres officially turned into plasticine. Sepp Blatter pissed everyone off, but tried to make up for it by arranging a photo shoot with a black dude, while shrugging his arms and grinning. It worked. Zane Lowe got some hilarious abuse for being uppity about Beyonce. Rihanna got her norks out in a Co Down wheat field, while Rory McIlroy became a hero for his mastery of much greener, far away pastures. Injunctions made sure not being talked about was the only thing anyone talked about for a while. In Tipperary, they nearly built a casino. And in Germany, a cow called Yvonne evaded capture, hunters, animals whisperers and the deep baritone moo of a sexy bull for three months and became a national, if not international hero. Hopefully 2012 will see the release of the film of her life story. Presumably, Shia LeBoeuf will be involved.

First, as teed up so inanely by Enda Kenny, came the Budget: so awful they announced it twice. Brendan Howlin and Michael Noonan announced a series of measures that enforced the idea I’ve long held: that austerity would be a marvellous idea if it weren’t for the nuisance of people getting in the way. At the top of a fairly long list of objectionable things was the hike in car tax, even for low emission cars, as it seems that too many people were doing the right thing for it to be profitable anymore. It’s hard to give up yer oul cynicism when the government gives a fundamental principle of fair taxation such a good, hard kick up the arse straight out the gate.

While Michael Noonan must be wondering how after 30 years in ministerial politics he still finds himself doling out fuzzy lollipops (although at least he has no phone-tapping, Mafioso tactics to deal with anymore) there is a certain degree of apt casting for a Fine Gael elder statesman being the nation’s cod liver oil dispenser. Brendan Howlin, however, best get as many sniffs out of his leather cabinet seat as he can, as Labour have made themselves and everyone who voted for them look like idiots. They’ve already asked two of their stone cold maverick backbenchers who play by their own rules, Tommy Broughan and Patrick Nulty, to hand in their committee member badges, and along with Willie Penrose gives a total number of 3 Labour renegades. Sadly, it’s the other 34 who are off their case.

But while dreams of Tallaght Strategy II (or some other method of getting Fianna Fáil off their paper mache high horse) go down the commode along with the disposable income of low to middle income earners, in Brussels this week Europe’s leaders attended another summit to save the Euro, the continental centre-right equivalent of there being anything said for having another Mass. They eventually came up with…something, but David Cameron vetoed it on the grounds that it wasn’t in the UK’s interests. Or at least one square mile of it, around the St Paul’s Cathedral area. While financial transfer taxes wouldn’t be a bad idea at all, rules on fiscal discipline regarding balanced budgets and spending limits are a Keynesian nightmare, and if anyone truly thinks curbs on government spending caused this crisis or can save us from the next one, they’re in for a shiny, skyscraper-sized fall.

Meanwhile back at the ranch Rick Perry has been trying his best to make people forget about the fact he can’t remember anything, with an ad reminding everyone how much he hates people who don’t love Jesus. He claims you know something is wrong when gays can openly serve in the military but kids can’t openly pray or celebrate Christmas in schools. He has a point, being a gay soldier is a lifestyle choice, but young Christians were born that way. In most universes a man whose chances of becoming his party’s nominee were campfire ashes trying to revive his appeal by making a wildly divisive ad would hit the ceiling of madness. But this is the Republican primary, so in this case the ceiling of madness is way higher, made of marble and has a picture of Robocop wrestling a lion etched into it.

Newt Gingrich, an idiot’s idea of a smart person, raised eyebrows this week by saying Palestinians were” invented”, which shows both an ignorance about the fundamentals of geopolitics and a hostility to the innovation of nation creators that is not at all American. Herman “Bootysweat” Cain suspended his campaign in some style, rocking up to the stage in a bus before quoting the Pokémon movie. And Michelle Bachmann, who I’m now convinced is Sasha Baron Cohen’s most ingenious character yet, was stunned to silence by an 8 year old who took exception to her stance on lesbian mothers, what with him having one. Meanwhile, Barack Obama delivered one of the most lauded speeches of his tenure in office in Kansas, brilliantly flicked off charges from the Republicans he was soft on middle-east policy (His answer was essentially “Bin Laden, bitches”) and Hillary Clinton made a ground-breaking speech on gay rights in Geneva. It’s going to be an ugly year for red states.

And just in case you needed any more proof that the American right were going through the five stages of lunacy (they’re currently at the fourth stage, incoherent rampage) a presenter on Fox News show “Follow The Money” (which with a name like that you know will be a hoot) laid into, wait for it, The Muppets. It seems their latest movie features a malevolent oil baron called Tex Richman, so perhaps it was inevitable that the channel bankrolled by a malevolent baron would take offence. What happened next was classic Fox: the presenter gets a talking head on to totally agree with him, followed by a talking head who doesn’t, but in this case he and another presenter he has brought in specifically for the task talk over her in an attempt to brow beat them into submission.

To be honest, the only surprising thing about all this is that Fox haven’t cottoned on to Kermit and his collective’s leftist conspiracy earlier. The Muppets Christmas Carol was a clear allegory for the forces of liberalism brainwashing an upright conservative, while Sesame Street was flagrant socialist propaganda, with its pushy multiculturalism and underlying message of treating everyone nicely.

Most surprising of all though is how the star of the show, Jason Segel, has allowed himself to be involved in such lefty malarky. After all, he appeared in the great right wing film of our times, where he featured as a self-made salesman who lived a luxurious life of self-interest whose favourite band was the famed Objectivists Rush.

I Love You Man, I think it was called.

It started with us still reeling from the tragic deaths of Gary Speed and, although it happened several months hither, the tribute to the death of Kate Fitzgerald. Things got a lot darker in the middle of the week when Broadsheet (which you can read here) unearthed a series of revelations about how her story came (at least partially) to print, each more damning than the last.

Diocesan reports being released this week did nothing to lift the pall either, while on the other end of the spectrum RTE’s grave errors in the Fr Reynolds case will have long term repercussions. Elsewhere Leo Varadkar waded deep into Pee Flynn territory with his talks of holidays and it not being all bad in relation to the budget and, in a big poisonous aggravated appendix to last week’s Scully “moar racism” affair, a woman was arrested for being an ignorant bitch on a tram.

Thankfully though there was more going on this week than the worrying and the depressing, there was plenty of the frivolity and idiocy upon which this article was built. Top of that list this week was Paul McMullan, the man who is to journalism what Lionel Hutz is to law. His testimony to the Leveson Inquiry was reminiscent of a man whose greatest wish in life is to be one of those old barflies with an uncontrollable beard who tells fantastical stories to anyone who’ll tolerate him, gleefully recounting his tales of chasing celebrities, rooting through bins, pretending to be a rent boy and generally revelling in the fact that he’s the Woodword and Bernstein of our evil parallel universe. He also went on to claim hacking was a worthy tool. Hackers are certainly half that.

If the News of The World still existed this week they’d probably be leathering into the public sector strikers, but in their absence there were plenty of people to take up the slack. Controversialist for hire Jeremy Clarkson made the most headlines for saying that, actually, you know what, I won’t bother saying what he said. It’s exactly what he wants. The strikes however, apart from making a point about pension promises being revoked, also rather emphatically underlined a by-product of the financial crisis: rather than people pulling together against a more culpable force for rights they all ought to have, they’re lining up against each other like Sharks and Jets wondering why the guys across from them should get such-and-such while they go without. Divide and conquer it seems never goes out of style.

While workers take it to the streets over the very future of work practices, a serious dose of the petties broke out in Kansas. Over in the Yellow Brick State Governor and flat-earther Sam Brownback was made look a thorough tit by a schoolgirl who jokingly tweeted that the Governor was a tad uninteresting (“he blows a lot” was her exact phrase, even though she never actually met him). Before you could type 140 characters the Governor’s staff saw the tweet and contacted her school, where her principal demand she write an apology. Governor Brownback later apologised for his staff’s overreaction, and when a man who thinks evolution is hooey and homosexuality is against natural law is being the reasonable one, you know you’re in trouble.

And as the old saying goes, when a US Governor catches a crazy-ass cold, a Belfast Mayor sneezes. This week Sinn Féin’s 24 year old mayor Niall O’Donnghaile, in a perfect confluence of stupid action and reason, refused to give a girl of 15 her Duke of Edinburgh prize because she was a member of the Army cadets. Since taking the position (only a couple of days after being elected) a few months ago his gold chain has been a lightning rod, whether he’s taking down royal portraits to make way for the Proclamation, not visiting the Cenotaph on Remembrance Day or not attending a soldiers homecoming from Afghanistan. His behaviour has prompted protests outside City Hall and, worse yet, a speech from Deputy Mayor that was crushing in its mammyisms (she actually said how disappointed she was in him). So now, the youngest ever Mayor of Belfast stands to have the ignominious honour be the only person in living memory who has ever had to resign for snubbing a teenage girl. I tell ya, kids today. No respect.

But, there’s a difference between being a loose canon and shooting your mouth off. Alas, a great section of people expressing opinions on the internet this week don’t seem to know the difference, as pride in their opinion and ability to express it with less than five spelling mistakes per paragraph blinded them from the fact that their opinion was, in actual fact, a phalanx of bristly testacles.

For starters, a worrying amount of people seem to have a real problem with The Blacks. And by that, I don’t mean the social climbing family up the street with the two Mercedes and an absolute bitch of a daughter.  After Naas Mayor Darren Scully made the decision that he wouldn’t be dealing with black Africans on account of them being rude, aggressive, asking for stuff he possibly couldn’t give them and other things white people also do, within hours he was being asked to deal with nobody at all as he was stripped of his chain, his badge and the gun in his ankle holster. That said he still remains a Councillor, and also a member of Fine Gael, who are too busy roaming the countryside putting bayonets in anything that looks like bags of money to notice.

You’d like to think that Scully’s slip of the brain was an isolated incident, but no. A slew of comments praising Scully for dropping dud truth bombs about the coming over here with the taking of the jobs or the taking of the benefits if they don’t have the jobs, and a bunch of other stuff I’m frankly too dismayed and exasperated to repeat.  The fact leaders of the black community in Ireland spoke up about that and other assorted racism only seemed to embolden the trolls. My favourite comments came from those who seemed to take offence at the fact black people met in such a way at all, though I’m not sure what their thoughts are on, for example, the Irish Centre in Hammersmith. And one who said when we were faced with racism we didn’t just whine, which is true. In the case of Tammany Hall, they just beat the shit out of people and imposed political dominance.

It was sad and yet oddly appropriate that a week of bang-your-head-against-the-wall bigotry coincided with the anniversary of JFK’s death, who helped advance the cause of Civil Rights to the point where his successor Lyndon Johnson couldn’t get legislation passed fast enough and Marvin Gaye sang a song about him. I wonder what he’d say about the situation in his ancestral homeland this week. “Where all the sexy ladies at?” perhaps.

And speaking of people who tapped prolifically, News International were back in the spotlight this week, as the Leveson Inquiry unleashed a schedule of stars I’m A Celebrity would kill for. But it was a different kind of annoying parasite and bug that the likes of Hugh Grant, Steve Coogan, JK Rowling and the McCanns and Sienna Miller were gunning for. It’s only a matter of time before the Murdochs depart to the escape pod once and for all.

Thankfully there were one or two rays of goodness in a pretty malevolent week. TD Derek Keating organised a charity single for suicide crisis centre Pieta House, and brought some of his workplace friends with him. Some of the notable collaborators Sending Their Love Down The Oireachtas Well were Ministers Simon Coveney and Joan Burton, Peter Matthews sounding like a cross between Paul Robeson and a sober, picnicking Fr Jack Hackett, Mick Wallace wearing a beautifully co-ordinated purple arm sling with his pink shirt and Michael Ring wearing his headphones like an MC straight outta Compton. Not only did they avoid a Rap Against Rape situation but it’s actually done quite well, to the point where a follow up single could be on the cards. What’s So Funny ‘Bout Peace, Love And Understanding, maybe?

I not quite sure who’s responsible for the world at the minute, but I do know they shouldn’t be. This week in Greece and Italy we saw a landslide victory for the Technocratic Party, a political movement sweeping the Mediterranean. Their success is made all the more impressive by the fact they haven’t had a single vote cast for them. The electronic equivalent of reading entrails they call market forces have been increasingly prominent in the political sphere for the past three decades, but now it looks like they’re an official fourth branch of government, along with the executive,  judiciary and Zeppo. And with the powers market forces have, they have no interest in their separation.

If modern elected parliaments putting their power rings together to assemble an austere superhero doesn’t unsettle you, then perhaps the annexation of the Occupy movement will. This week swathes of protests from New York to Seattle have been broken up in bruising, peppery-eyed fashion, the First Amendment presumably having a statute of limitations. That local politicians would break up such protests, the purpose of which most Americans agree with, only brings to light an unfortunate fact of politics: the 99% may elect the leaders they put in office, but the 1% donate the money they use to run for it.

Thankfully there was no such violence in Dublin during the week where students were marching to prevent fees being reintroduced, although if placards could kill Education Minister Ruairi Quinn would be in trouble. Acutely aware of Quinn’s pre-election pledge not to so much as touch third level fees or grants with surgical gloves, the students of today laid the boot in to the Uni revolutionary of times gone by with signs ranging from “Labour Lied” to “Quinn Ya Lyin’ Hoor Ya!”, before camping outside the Department of Education’s offices. Labour must be wondering why they ever paid up for the all you can eat turd buffet they call austerity government. And if they aren’t, then they should.

One man in their ranks (or at least he was) that can’t claim to have broken any such pledge is Willie Penrose, who resigned as a minister this week over barracks closures, specifically the one in his backyard of Mullingar. Not only are the camps being closed with undue haste and with questionable savings, but with the close of Cavan barracks it now means there is a no military presence on the northern border from Carlingford to Beleek, and none from Beleek to Malin, so we’d better hope that semtex doesn’t become fashionable again, or that livestock don’t come down with anything nasty any time soon.

Keeping healthy in the US got easier this week thanks to Congress, who decided to count the tomato puree on pizza as a vegetable rather than fund actual healthy eating initiatives. I never knew eating well could be so easy. All we need to do now is get them to reassign whiskey as a health drink (it means “water of life” like, what could be healthier?) and we are panned out unconscious on easy street. And to add that real flourish that makes them the Man United of craven, feckless  legislatures, this week the freedom-loving Republican Congress also proposed a bill that would propose to tighten up online copyright laws. In other words, censor the internet. You don’t need to be a comic book guy to know this truly is the worst Congress ever.

But if only the pizza and stupidity thing ended there. GOP Presidential candidate and erstwhile dough raiser Herman Cain claimed this week manly men should have an abundance of meat on their pizzas, and questioned the masculinity of fellows who have it piled high with vegetables, calling it a sissy pizza. If he were to become President next year he’d have one pretty obvious battle with Congress from the outset, but those slim chances got narrower and narrower after he was filmed giving an answer on his thoughts on the Libya invasion that made me seriously wonder if his knowledge of the wider world was based on Yakko Warner’s Nations Of The World song from Animaniacs. He may not know much about Libya or the insurgents, but he can’t be beat on United States, Canada, Mexico, Panama, Haiti, Jamaica, Peru.

It’s been harder than usual for me to escape carnal iniquity this week, as it seems everyone is up to it. First came the story that Justin Bieber has been Billie Jeaned by 20-year-old Mariah Yeater. The news rocked his apparently 14 million-strong fanbase (although it probably didn’t rock Mariah, as the whole affair allegedly only lasted 30 seconds) and as such it didn’t take long for Justin’s loving fans and associated media to play the traditional game in this instance, “Guess How Big A Nutter She Is”. As it happened, this was a rather easy game, as a combination of statutory rape laws combined with Myspace photos that ranged from the bonkers-looking to the topless made her case look far from compelling. The internet holds no mercy for people who claim to have been personally infected with Bieber Fever.

In the more serious field of Republican party pratfalls, allegations of sexual misconduct have been intensifying for inexplicable leading light Herman Cain. Although given the fact the claims are coming from settlements made back in the mid nineties, maybe allegations isn’t the right word. Cain’s muddled recollection was bad enough but then this week Sharon Bielek made some startling statements, the main thrust of which was Herman Cain got physically emotional while offering her a job, so long as she gave him one. A job, that is. Ahem. It’s likely that Herman Cain’s campaign won’t recover from all this, but worse still is the fact that a man who took pride in not knowing who the President of Ubeki-beki-beki-beki-stan-stan was, who thinks it’s only a matter of time before China becomes a nuclear power (that time being fifty years ago) and proposing a tax plan more bananas than Fyffes conducting a hostile takeover of a Daiquiri factory ever got started in the first place.

But of course, spare a thought for the other Austin Powers henchmen they call the Republican field. Mitt Romney continues to alienate people by trying to be as inoffensive as possible, while Rick Perry’s chances are finished due to something that happened at the last debate that I can’t quite recall at the minute. I’ll let you know as soon as I remember.

Mind you, if the Republicans find themselves in really dire straits they can now call on a man who combines all the qualities of the main candidates: Silvio Berlusconi. He has the CEO bona fides of Romney, the capacity for excruciating soundbites of Perry, and the sexual peccadilloes of Cain. He’s available to take up the job whenever too, as he’s just resigned as Prime Minister of Italy. Feeling hamstrung by the constraints of office, he claims one of the reasons he resigned was because he felt more powerful as a private citizen. Then again, as a private citizen he owns a truckload of TV channels and AC Milan, so I can understand why he’d feel like that. Thus, after three terms over 17 years of corruption scandals, cavalier attitude, sex parties, megalomania and pinching the Chancellor of Germany’s ass, his political career ends in profligacy and failure. Or, put another way, bungs and cowabunga bunga bunga power drunka Merkel’s junka money spunka flunka.

As Italy and Greece appoint bank managers to their respective premierships, Enda Kenny would be all too able to tell them that the job  isn’t as sexy as it seems, the trappings of office being more of the bear variety. This week, his government have made a slew of decisions that caused enough noise to drown out the giggles of Fianna Fáil members everywhere. While their decision to discontinue the Vatican made sense on a certain level (why does a Church need diplomats anyway? Should we be sending envoys to World of Warcraft too?) the suggestion that it was a money-saving exercise rings hollow when they’re keeping the building they worked out of. Worse yet were their more drastic attempts at saving money with the restricting of capital spending projects, most notably the deferral of transforming the A5 which would make the route from Dublin to Derry 60% less harrowing. Elsewhere the government have been embarrassed by the fact their nominee for the European Court of Auditors Kevin Cardiff, in his role as Secretary General of the Department of Finance, may have forgot to carry the one somewhere in government calculations of the national debt. 3.6 billion times. But not be outdone in the embarrassment stakes Phil “Enemy of the State” Hogan claimed this week that the Climate Change Bill was not a priority for the government. In the wake of two consecutive winters of arctic conditions and increasingly numerous and voluminous flash flooding nationwide, I don’t know whether he’s more to be ridiculed or pitied.

Half of my week was spent at a residential-cum-midterm evaluation for the Donegal Youth Council, where frank talking, wall climbing and getting marker on my hands were high on the order of business. This coming Tuesday I’ll be filming a talking head piece marking the tenth anniversary of Dáil na nÓg (I think I’ll go for Diarmuid Ferriter-style authority, with a pinch of Pee Flynn mentalism thrown in for good measure). That same day, I’ll turn the demographic-busting age of 26. And this is my 100^th What Kind Of Week Has It Been column.

Even though this was a busy week of news, what with the Vatican cutting off funding to Kim Kardashian who narrowly survived a vote of no confidence in the Greek parliament (it’s possible I’ve been a bit distracted) my synapses have zeroed in on further gone reflections. For example, the circus surrounding the recent Presidential campaign got me to thinking about what I was doing during the last one.

I actually remember it quite vividly, because it was the same date as my 12^th birthday party. And that night, after my party (three hours of indoor football, followed by cake eating) I went to Eason’s in Derry to buy a book I’d long coveted with my card money (some things, it seems, never change) and took to reading it while watching Mary McAleese’s acceptance speech. It certainly doesn’t feel like 14 years ago.

Now, as I stare into turning 26 and it stares back into me, birthdays aren’t so much a pretext for putting scoops of ice cream in a large glass of coke and pretending to be Ian Walker so much as it becomes an inventory on how your life is going. I’m not sure how I rate.

On one hand, I’ve had the chance to do things 12 year old me would not have imagined possible, and it’s only really when you take a step back do you realise how far you’ve come. On the other hand, most of the world’s top sports stars, actors and popstars I see about the place are now younger than me. A lot of said stars can dive into their pits of money like Scrooge McDuck, boast of winning myriad world championships and step out with jaw-droppingly good looking other famous people. I have not much money and fewer awards to my name.  I’m not stepping out with anyone, jaw-droppingly good looking or otherwise. I don’t even have a cat.

While I’d describe my outlook on life as generally sunny, I feel a lot of pressure. Sometimes I feel anxiety that I won’t get to where I want to be in life, other times I’m out and out terrified about it. A lot of the pressure is internal, as I’ve always had a very clear idea of what I’ve wanted to do in life (something for which I actually feel quite lucky). Some of it is immediately external, in that family and friends and colleagues have always seemed to have very definite ideas as to where I’d end up. My biggest fear is that, for whatever reason, I don’t fulfil that prophecy. But some of that pressure is also cultural.

In ways the problem of pressure to be successful at a young age is not dissimilar to that of body image. Sports and pop stars are given enormous credence in popular culture, arenas of achievement where being over 35 gives you the status of a veteran, or even a retiree. We have popular music talent shows where teary fortysomethings claim “this is their last chance”. We have TV modelling shows where girls in their late twenties, even if they’re Christy Turlington facsimiles, aren’t even considered. With such a message surreptitiously being delivered at every turnabout, small wonder I often see Lewis Hamilton in an ad or at a race and think “Christ, I am wasting my life”.

But when I have such moments of (increasingly frequent) raw panic, I always try and step back. I may not be worth much, but I’d hope I’ve done things of value, particularly for other people. The setbacks, near-misses and frustrations of my own career seem rather small when you consider the throngs of potentially talented people who’ll never even have a chance of getting in the game. I also take comfort in the fact that in the history of everyone who has ever been successful there was a time when they weren’t, and that not everyone’s time comes right away. The actor Jon Hamm worked as a waiter and a designer on a porn set when most of his contemporaries were getting cast in Dawson’s Creek and Party Of Five, but becoming Don Draper is probably worth the long apprenticeship. Dancing judge Len Goodman is a massive transatlantic star but he was hardly in front of a camera until his late fifties. And how many films have you ever seen featuring a 30 year-old Morgan Freeman?

Reflection is an important part of writing a piece like this every week, but too much of it stops you from doing anything new. I am lucky to be able to do this every week, and luckier still that people read it. And as long as you can do something you enjoy, and that others can enjoy too, then everything else is just scale.

He now joins the hall of illustrious Aras occupiers; the Protestant one with the tache who used to be on money, the one who couldn’t be picked out of a police profile, the one who inspired the plot to Weekend At Bernie’s, the one who could’ve been a character in Downton Abbey, the brilliant but effete one who was forced to resign, the one who told Haughey to fuck off, the one with the candle who got shit done like a liberal BA Barracus, and the one who followed her but in a less radical but impressive way all the same.

Given the fact the role is essentially that of national uncle (unless you’re in the Defence Forces, in which case you’re the President’s bitch) the campaign was at times disproportionately rough, and merciless. All the losing candidates were attacked and felled one by one with the samurai sword of media scrutiny, and the yellow and black jumpsuit of fate. David Norris was vanquished by letters to Israel, and his propensity to try and dig his way out of a hole. Mary Davis was done in by her myriad state appointments and the general public’s torpor towards her. Martin McGuinness ran a race against his past he was doomed to lose from day one. Gay Mitchell was cruelly ruled out of becoming President because of his inherent Gay Mitchellness. Dana showed up to the no-holds barred battle royale with a small blue book and a bottle of holy water, and thus was such a no-hoper that the allegations aimed at members of her family were more of a bizarre sideshow than electorally significant. Stranger still was the suggestion that someone slashed the tyres of her car in a malevolent bid to injure her, or worse. I always knew Dana lived in the fifties, but I didn’t realise until then that she lived in a fifties Hitchcock movie. Lucky the campaign didn’t go on for much longer, or she may have been targeted by a crop dusting airplane while out on a rural canvas.

But the biggest fall and thus the loudest dull thud came from Sean Gallagher, who after an inexplicable 18 point bump two weeks out (the poll being released on the same day as his rating fell 10 percent after the audience at the SpunOut debate actually listened to him) lost it all in the last few days. The reason? Hard to say. It could be how woefully he handled Martin McGuinness’ charges of misconduct on The Frontline. It could have been how woefully he handled being questioned by Glenna Lynch on that same show, or by questioning her motives the following morning on radio and getting his ass handed to him again when Glenna heard this, stopped the car and called in. It could have been the general sniff of Fianna Fail chancer and Crilly-esque finances about him. Or it could have been the fact that, good natured and magnanimous man though he was, as a candidate for President he was as ill-suited as a David Byrne suit and as inspiring as a tin of Ronseal , a candidate who, in the words of Presidential template Jed Bartlet, “made unengaged into a Zen-like thing”. I know what should have been the clincher, but alas, I’m not sure it was.

As it went, Higgins cruised to victory after three counts and a million votes, with Gallagher a distant second and McGuinness in third. Mitchell saved some face by coming fourth albeit with a percentage of the vote so low its best expressed in degrees Kelvin, Norris was a disappointing fifth and Dana somehow managed to slip in to sixth. Mary Davis, rather sadly, ended up spending thousands upon thousands of quid for a wooden spoon.

Elsewhere on a crowded electoral card Fianna Fail (who apparently still exist) were in celebratory mood after coming in second in the Dublin West by-election. There were chants of “We’re back, we’re back” from their camp after the first count, but I wouldn’t worry. The fact the Soldiers of Destiny are celebrating losing a seat they held and 22% of the vote is something even the most virulent anti-FFer couldn’t have dreamt of five years ago. Labour’s Patrick Nulty made it a great day for Labour by becoming their second TD in Dublin West, while Fine Gael’s Eithne Loftus compounded their misery by getting votes from her extended family and little else.

In the referenda, Judges Pay passed, but Oireachtas Inquiries was turned away at the door for not producing a warrant. As with most referenda, the campaign was reductive, partisan and generally sigh inducing, although a long way off the high water marks of unborn babies and Eurovillains. One of the more unusual contributions to the debate came from eight former Attorneys General who came out strongly for a no vote. The AG8’s arrival in town seemed to reinforce the notion that the Judiciary were sci-fi characters from a planet of pure logic, with the legislative body a base assembly of yahoos. Whatever the veracity of the latter, some of the esteemed counsel’s previous made you wonder how judicious their own interference was. Patrick Connolly was the CJ’s AG during GUBU. Peter Sutherland has been involved in so many banking concerns I wouldn’t be surprised if he had a vault like Scrooge McDuck. Michael “If I had my way I’d kill anyone who looked at me cock-eyed” McDowell hardly needs introduction. My personal favourite though is Harry Whelehan, judge for a day and the Attorney General who precipitated the X Case debacle, bungled the Brendan Smyth case and became the smoking gun that brought down a government. Talk about the need to separate powers.

But while Michael D’s victory is a triumph for integrity, dignity and decency, in the sporting world beyond candidate baiting such qualities are in short supply. Carlitos Tevez has recently appointed himself President of the Talented But Truculent Bollocks Society, while jockeys have got themselves into a silky lather over new whip rules. You’d think in this modern age of enlightened views and indoor plumbing the notion of using a whip on an animal for anything, not least for negligible racing advantage, would have gone out with pogs or sitcoms about black lads moving next door, but apparently not. Odder yet is the arguments they’re using, or rather not using. Bypassing the usual “But sure whipping a horse is like splashing water on a person’s face!” or “We just plain fear change” statements, Ruby Walsh went a different, aesthetic direction:

“This affair has dampened my enthusiasm for racing. It is now a watered down affair. I was watching the racing from Haydock and it looked like watching a schooling race with everyone pushing away with hands and heels. It didn’t look what it used to look like, as competitive or as thrilling.”

The poor mite. Pushing along with hands and heels?! What fresh tyranny next, only having black and white silks? Getting rid of jockeys altogether? Actually, that might not be the worst idea, they are essentially ballast.

But, in a sporting world of petulance and obstinacy, it’s nice to know there’s one man who acts like a true pro: Mario Balotelli. Super Mario has had a busy week even by his madcap standards, what with putting manners on the red side of Manchester, setting his house alight with fireworks with his mates and then fronting a Halloween safety campaign. Better still, this appears to be the week where Balotelli has officially shifted in the public consciousness into loveable nutter territory. In the words of none other than Noel Gallagher:

“Football needs players like him because most footballers are basically squares. He’s a total rock’n'roller. There’s a bit of Mario in all of us – well, maybe not Gary Neville – but the rest of us most definitely. Have you never wondered what it would be like to set off rockets in your house? Visit a women’s prison just for a nosy? Write off a supercar? Deal only in cash? Befriend the mafia? Mario lives life on the edge, so people like you don’t have to.”

Here’s to living dangerously. And vicariously.