Browne first wanted to know why Ahern hadn't disclosed in his RTE interview last September that he had received stg�30,000 from Micheal Wall in 1994. He said it was not credible that Ahern was going to use all that money to renovate a house he intended to rent. He refused to be silenced, saying, "Twenty years ago at a Fianna Fail press conference we attempted to press the then leader on his financial affairs and we were obstructed; I hope Fianna Fail has changed and that we will not be obstructed now."

Ahern kept pointing to the Mahon tribunal and saying he would disclose everything there. This was a home game for Ahern, surrounded as he was by cheering lackeys, but still he played very badly. And as the programme was minimally edited, we were privy to every squirming minute of it.

Afterwards, Browne seized the wriggling Taoiseach again but only, it turned out, to make up the row by asking him if he was enjoying the campaign.

Vincent, no one gives a toss whether or not Bertie is enjoying the campaign. Don't go turning into Bibi Baskin on us now . . . your country needs you.

The other socialist in Dail Eireann, Joe Higgins, was David Norris's guest on Newstalk's Sunday with Norris, embodying a less grubby, more idealistic rationale. Higgins wanted to talk about GM food, and the war in Iraq, and the market-dominated capitalist system, and the besmirching of the very word socialism. Norris was not all that interested.

For a fully paid-up member of the intelligentsia (and long-time member of the Oireachtas), he has a peculiarly girly attitude to politics. He's clearly a big fan of Higgins, but for his wit, not for his principles;

perhaps he belongs to the school of commentators who think oration is everything in politics.

"You have such a mastery of wordsf and a sense of comic timing, " he gushed. He rapidly grew tired of Higgins' communist manifesto and kept wanting him to come out with a stirring turn of phrase, so he could giggle delightedly. 'That's enough about Marxism, say something funny, ' was the unspoken entreaty.

Anyway, no matter who his interviewee is, the appeal of Sunday with Norris will always be Norris.

No guest could be more idiosyncratic than Norris himself. He's a sort of cross between Truman Capote and Julian from the Famous Five, combining flamboyant pomposity with lashings of ginger beer.

"I understand your father is dead. Is your mother still alive?" he asked. "Yes . . .", began Higgins. "Isn't that marvellous!" interrupted Norris, startlingly.

"She sounds like a fantastic woman!"

Altogether Norris seemed very taken with the idea that an ordinary farming family from Lispole, Co Kerry, could produce a Joe Higgins, but only he could be surprised at that.