MONDAY

To Wayne and Coleen Rooney a son is born. The baby's arrival is greeted with genuine emotion on the part of this clearly besotted young couple but there is much snobbish sneering from the so-called quality press over the all important choice of name. Kai? Ché? Kai, we learn from the lofty ones, means "triumphant" in Mandarin, is the Finnish word for "rejoice" and the Burmese for "strong" … or (the subtext being what an ignorant pair) the Maori for "to eat" and (could this be where they thought of it?) the name of a monk in the computer game Mortal Kombat. Anyone can google, even the clever-clogs educated "elite" who have a lexicon of weird baby names all of their own... Still, the other side can perfect its own masterclass in sneering and inverted snobbery too. Pat Kenny invites Ictu president Jack O'Connor onto The Frontline, his late night current affairs version of Mortal Kombat and after a lengthy and civilised, if completely incomprehensible Q&A over Ictu's better, fairer way to put the economy back on track, Pat asks the trade unionist what he'd class as a trophy house. "A house like your's probably," quips Jack to the sound of silence as his 'joke' bombs. Pat looks as if he will deck Jack."I don't want this kinda crap coming at me," he glares. Jack apologises. "I'm sorry if I offended you. I didn't mean to give offence at all," he says. But Jack knows this is all about the verbal needle and the damage done…

TUESDAY

Apologies too from David McWilliams whose line about Miriam O'Callaghan "this is my web, you have walked into it, clothes on or off" is a decent impersonation of Silvio Berlusconi. Miriam graciously accepts the apology but between indiscretions over private meetings/job applications with Brian Lenihan and a mighty whiff of sexism, it's David who is blushing. And how come they're all ignoring that sex god Mark Little? Plain old-fashioned snobbery and sexism get their legal endorsement from the Supreme Court when it votes by three to two that Portmarnock Golf Club is not in breach of the Equal Status Act by having a men-only membership rule. The five most eminent judges in the land deliberate on the interpretation of the phrases "principal purpose", "cater only" and "needs". The Equality Authority's case is that the club is discriminatory because its "principal purpose" is to play golf, not to cater only for the "needs" of men. The court decides that the club's principal purpose is actually to cater only for the "golfing needs" of men. Whatever cringeworthy explanation Portmarnock's members wants to put on their legally discriminatory policy, maybe the Department of Arts, Culture and Sport when disbursing grants, should decide that a club that caters only for the golfing needs of men should look after itself and get no help – financial or promotional – from the men and women whose principal purpose is to pay tax.

WEDNESDAY

Class war and real war... Previously unpublished writings of the first world war poet Siegfried Sassoon come to light as Cambridge University acquires the poet's personal papers for its archive.

"Can I forget the voice of one who cried for me to save him, save him, as he died?

I will remember you, and from your wrongs

Shall rise the power and the poignance of my songs

And this shall comfort me until the end

That I have been your captain and your friend."

'Mad Jack' Sassoon was the epitome of the British officer class, scion of the wealthy family fighting in the trenches with incredible personal courage "for democracy". But having witnessed death on a scale and brutality, his powerful letter, A Soldier's Declaration, read in the House of Commons, was credited with changing attitudes to the war: "O believe that the war upon which I entered as a war of defence and liberation has now become a war of aggression and conquest." ... Iraq. Afghanistan. Just today five young British soldiers are shot and killed by an Afghan police officer they are training. Obama is right to take his time to decide America's real aims in Afghanistan before committing more young men's lives to a campaign whose strategic aims are uncertain.

THURSDAY

U2 play an MTV concert in front of the Brandenburg Gate behind a specially constructed wall as part of celebrations for the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall. The GAA celebrates every day in every way the 125th anniversary of its foundation. Taoiseach Brian Cowen debates the economy with former taoiseach Garret FitzGerald on the celebratory 25th anniversary of the first broadcast of RTE news programme Morning Ireland. And the commentators have gone into overdrive assessing whether there's still hope after a full year of President Obama. If we carry on at this rate, the only news we read will be about news that happened on the same day one, five, 10 or 100 years ago.

FRIDAY

Will today's march go down in history as the end of the economic civil war here, when public sector workers finally put up the white flag and surrendered to common sense? Thousands turn out for the march but not in the sort of numbers that would worry a government. Most are public-sector workers because the private sector sees this protest as sectional and self serving. If there is a better, fairer way, the union movement needs to recalibrate its political sat-nav because stopping traffic and inconveniencing people desperately clinging onto their jobs is changing nobody's agenda.

You cannot be serious

"I spent a lot of time working out every single detail, just making sure every detail was perfect."

Katy Perry has 12 costume changes at the MTV awards – one of the tackiest a West Ham lingerie look with 'Rusty' (Russell Brand) written across her rear.