MONDAY
Brian Cowen's barn-storming performance sends out a signal that FF is not about to give up without a fight. The opposition had spent money "two or three times over", Cowen claims. News spreads that he's admitted smoking cannabis 30 years ago. Spliffo Biffo is doing the rounds by early evening. Bet Ahern wishes he had such troubles.

TUESDAY
Cardboard cutouts of Dick Roche and Martin Cullen adorn the FG top table at the morning media briefing. Carlow-Kilkenny TD Phil Hogan is asked if there's a danger that his party has peaked too early. "It's great to peak sometime, Fine Gael hasn't peaked in a long time, " Hogan admits. The party's director of election is beaming. "It's hard to keep smiling, " Frank Flannery says. Over at FF, Seamus Brennan is bemoaning the "phantom election campaign" of the previous two weeks.

There's mention of FF getting 77 seats. "What headline will you write when we get that?"

Brennan asks. Liz O'Donnell is talking education in the afternoon. "Wake up and smell the coffee, " she warns about a possible FG-Lab win.

WEDNESDAY
"And now for today's stunt, " Pat Rabbitte says as he puts a voting paper into a ballot box for the photographers. The fact that the ballot paper on government waste is ticked twice probably renders it null and void but nobody spoils the photo-op. In a sign that this campaign has already gone on too long the Labour leader delivers wise cracks we've all heard before. Sinn Fein is the last party to publish its manifesto. Mary Lou McDonald seems alarmed when Gerry Adams defers a taxation question to her. Pressed about his economic plan Adams says there are no "simple answers to these questions . . . they all have to be worked out".

THURSDAY
It's the return of Old Labour this morning as Ruairi Quinn and Brendan Howlin take the morning briefing. Asked about Cowen's hashsmoking days, Brendan Howlin mentions the need for "joint-up government". Howlin won't say if he's ever had a joint. It seems he has company over at FF, where Brian Lenihan and Willie O'Dea claim never to have been led astray, unlike their "nance minister colleague. O'Dea . . . who's partial to a bit of snuff . . . is talking about Fine Gael's plan to legalise small brothels. The defence minister should take the briefing more often because for once there's little tension in the room. He has a pop at both opposition leaders. "When Pat Rabbitte speaks he subtracts rather than adds to the sum of human knowledge, " O'Dea says, and notes that Enda Kenny's energetic campaign has seen him "running from one safe house to another around the country".

FRIDAY
The morning after the night before. Both FF and FG think their man was great in the big debate.

"Who do you think won?" FG front benchers Olwyn Enright and Denis Naughton are asked to general laughter. "Do you want a show of hands?"

responds communications director Ciaran Conlon as his own hand is quickly raised high.

"Enda Kenny didn't know what he was talking about, " Brian Cowen claims. The finance minister is back for yet another FF briefing with thoughts that the party's slogan should be changed from 'Bertie's Team' to 'Brian's Brigade'. He's more measured than on Monday but still tears strips off the opposition. And then he passes nicely on the hash story while Martin Cullen and Mary Hanafin join the club of FF non-inhalers. "I'm the good girl who doesn't smoke or drink, " Hanafin says, sweetly.