It has offered up some funny moments though, not least of which was hearing Michael Lowry acting all normal on The Last Word on Monday. He and Matt Cooper chatted about the apparent demise of the rural pub, and acted as if nothing had ever happened. It was Cooper, you'll remember, who, as editor of this newspaper, gave Lowry not a moment's peace over his awarding of the second mobile phone licence to Denis O'Brien in 1995. But Lowry seems to be over it. . . much like the electorate, really. We're up to our national knees in half-buried hatchets.

Tonight With Vincent Browne on Wednesday was also a series of tiny laughs. In the studio were broadcaster Derek Davis, who has such a gift for being uncontroversial that he really should run for office, and psychologist Maedb Ruane, who seems determined to make herself notorious.

He began, though, by speaking on the phone to Gay Byrne, which was a bit of a dogfight. Picture a savvy, belligerent Jack Russell taking on a self-regarding poodle who thinks everyone is looking at him.

Browne put it to Byrne that, if he thinks rumours of the death of the country pub have been greatly exaggerated, "when was the last time you spent a night in a rural pub, or indeed any pub?"

"What has that got to do with anything Vincent?"

snapped Byrne. He also denied saying the problem was exaggerated. "I never made that statement. I don't know where you got that statement from."

Browne said it was in Wednesday's Daily Mail.

"Aahh, " sighed Byrne, and seemed about to slag off the Daily Mail before suddenly recollecting that he needs the co-operation of the newspapers these days.

Then Maedb Ruane entered into it. "I think what Eamon �? Cuív came up with is one of the most gobsmackingly Father Ted-ish initiatives of recent years, " she declared. "The idea of using other rural transport schemes to fund these mythical oul' fellas who live up mountains. . ."

Browne wasn't having that. "What do you mean, mythical oul' fellas?" he fumed, and Ruane started babbling about how the women in rural Ireland don't go to the pub and do just fine by joining the ICA and playing cards. God almighty, we only live in the country, we don't live in the 1930s.

What was needed, said Ruane, was a change in the culture, and everybody seemed to agree. The problem is country folk are too fond of the drink, whereas city folk would prefer a society where everybody just goes round to Michael McDowell's house for finger food and a single glass of Merlot.

The other side of the drink story was brought vividly alive, without any rhetoric, on Ronan Kelly's Flux, a programme that has made itself necessary listening every week. Deirdre is a 46-year-old Irish woman now living in Chicago. She was an alcoholic early in life, after the death of her husband, and became homeless after losing custody of her children.

As if all that wasn't enough, she was viciously attacked by her boyfriend and is now in a wheelchair. The most remarkable thing about her, though, was not her bad luck but her scorching honesty and good humour.

Where does Kelly find these people?