It would have been funnier had it been Enya attacking Daniel O'Donnell and doing her Celtic mysticism. (She'd have to trudge her way through his foundation with a pickaxe first. ) In this week of scraps, young buck artist Cian McLoughlin wasn't getting away so easily for his crimes against humanity. Launching a sell-out exhibition of paintings at the Office of Public Works on St Stephen's Green to coincide with the centenary of Samuel Beckett? At 28? Who the f*** does he think he is, the little upstart? "Jesus, " McLoughlin told me, "I'm feeling pretty old today." Old? Does he want me to leave him crying for his mammy? "The centenary was a coincidence, " McLoughlin added. "I got lucky."

Lucky? "The pictures start at 1,200 for the smaller ones and the bigger ones, I'd rather not say."

In a good-natured exchange at the OPW, Michael Colgan asked Michael Gambon, "Are you Ian McKellen?"

"F*** off!" Gambon told Colgan. Was this a scoop? "Slave driver! Bunch of bastards!" Gambon lamented when Colgan left. "He said I've a bald head and how could he work with someone with a bald head?"