THESE past few days, listeners could have been forgiven for looking at their wireless and wondering: "Who's the daddy?" Or at least who's the new daddy? The week began with Joe Duffy coming over all paternal with Nicky Byrne, father of Rocco and Jay; son-in-law of a man who can confidently declare that two tiny babies are "in good form" and "appreciative"; and sire of songs that only a mother could love.

In the face of a celebrity multiple birth which was threatening to dwarf that of his own triplets, "Talk To Joe" temporarily became "Let Joe Talk At You". With just the occasional pause to pant his way through his memories of the contractions, Liveline's host fired advice at The Westlife One, whose laughter became increasingly nervous amid dire warnings about lost sleep, nappy-changing rotas and double buggies.

"And all the stuff in the papers about selling the photos . . . have you discussed? . . . no, you haven't, " Joe ventured, and answered. We did, however, glean that Nicky thinks politics is "a strange game"; that he would trust Bertie to babysit . . . "no better man" . . . and that his own mother used to put himself and his sister in the same rig-outs when they were kids. "And did the dress suit you?" said Joe. "I thought it was cool at the time, " said Nicky.

On Make 'em Laugh, Make 'em LaughRob Brydon kicked off his series about sitcoms by pointing out that he would be concentrating not on the "stinkers" but on the "richness". An Irish version of this show would do the exact opposite, of course, given our collective fondness for ranting on about Leave It To Mrs O'Brien and Upwardly Mobile instead of celebrating . . . oh, er, right.

Anyway, Brydon summoned up my personal '70s favourite, Butterflies, in which Wendy Craig went quietly bonkers in suburbia."I think I'll paint the house purple this year, and I'll have naked gnomes, and a rude doorknocker, and I'll hoist my knickers up on the television aerial, " she fantasised, "that should liven things up a bit." Teri Hatcher, eat your heart out.

In next week's episode, the "sit" will be the workplace, and on Salford Lad, we heard how Stephen Patrick Morrissey once laboured as a hospital porter before finding his vocation in The Smiths. "He quit when he was asked to clean a surgeon's bloodspattered boots, " revealed presenter Stuart Maconie, a man whose own notebooks must be littered with half-finished lyrics to ditties like That Debonair Fellow and Marlowe's Brother.

Suggs of Madness recalled appearing on Top of the Pops the same night as The Smiths made their debut.

"We were doing Night Boat to Cairo in pit helmets and khaki shorts, and on the other stage were Morrissey, and Dexys doing Geno, " he recalled. "And I suddenly had this terribly disorientating feeling of being a children's entertainer at a very serious party."

And finally, for the politically starved, let us give our first preference to Brendan Fitzpatrick's wonderfully evocative mini-documentaries on great election counts past for Morning Ireland. Following on from poor Nora Owen's sufferings at the hands (buttons?

beeps? ) of those wretched machines in 2002, we were reminded of the marathon battle for Dublin SouthCentral a decade before between Ben Briscoe and Eric Byrne. Or "The Agony and the Ex-TD", as one wag dubbed it. Briscoe's son was seriously ill at the time. "Take my seat but don't take my son, " he remembered praying, "and in the end, both survived."

Come on, Taoiseach, put us out of our misery!