Bertie Ahern must have lost the gift of timing. The very day after John O'Donoghue's self-regarding resignation speech, Ahern thought it would be a good moment to bend the ear of radio talk show listeners. What was he thinking? Bile was already flowing dark and thick down the streets of Ireland at the mere thought of him and his kind.

Ahern, promoting his autobiography what he's written in joined-up writing, appeared first on the Ray D'Arcy Show. For an interview recorded earlier that morning, D'Arcy had bearded Ahern in his Drumcondra lair and became at once an object of pity, all alone in St Luke's with the godfather himself. And then, what with the unfamiliar sound quality away from the Today FM studio, Ahern's grunting and sighing in the background became unusually audible, so that he sounded even more like Brando as Vito Corleone. You imagined him muttering menacingly: "Someday, and that day may never come, I'll call upon you to do a service for me".

However, it turned out the pity was unnecessary. Little Ray D'Arcy ? Little Ray of Sunshine D'Arcy ? became a tiny spitfire. For once, he played Bert to Bertie's Ernie, all severity and muted rage. Listeners, probably expecting the usual Toady [sic] FM, will have been elated.

He began by asking Ahern about the writing of the book, at which Ahern began talking about his mountain of documents and records. D'Arcy interrupted him.

"You sound like a very organised man," he said. "You had all those papers, and you are able to quote people verbatim etcetera. But people listening this morning will say: 'He can do that, and yet, faced by interrogation at a tribunal, his memory is very shady'." Admittedly, this was a clumsy enough sentence to outdo even Bertie Ahern, but still: Go on Ray. We're all rooting for you.

He wondered how the former taoiseach thinks people see him now. "It's different," said Ahern. "I mean when you're out of power a lot of people don't see you at all." O, would that that were true.

Later, D'Arcy began to read out the messages from listeners. "There's a lot of strong language... I would say hate," he began.

"Well, they're the people who tend to ring in to radio programmes," countered Ahern, but Darcy would not consent to have his demographic dissed. He paused for a moment.

"Okay, right," he said, then thought better of acquiescing. "Well, it's not fair of you just to dismiss them like that." Ahern came back with "But they do", but no one could hear him way down there on the low moral ground.

Unexpectedly, Ahern had an easier time later that morning on Today with Pat Kenny (RTE Radio One). It wasn't that Kenny was more relaxed than usual in his questioning; it was that clearly this was not a personal crusade for him, and sometimes a personal crusade is what's needed.

Ahern began by defending John O'Donoghue. We needn't go into that here. Then he was asked whether he had been fiddling while Rome burned. Kenny played the clip of the then taoiseach recommending suicide to economists.

"I apologised immediately after that for mentioning suicide," said Ahern. "But I don't change my view about economists. They give you the five arguments on one side; they give you the five arguments on the other side. We never would have got out of our problems in the 1970s if we hadda listened to that."

Kenny enquired about Ahern's treatment of his secretary, Grainne Carruth, who wept at the Mahon tribunal. Ahern claimed he hadn't been able to speak to her before her appearance. "What I would have told her, Pat, was 'If they have the evidence, just say you cannot recollect it'." Yes indeed. I think we knew that.

Kenny also reported on his listeners' responses. One texter said: "I'm going to do something I've never done before, Pat. I'm going to switch you off."

It appears Bertie Ahern hates radio listeners. He hates us. "It's not much good sitting at home having your biscuit and tea griping about it," he said. "I mean we all together have to get it up. And I'm proud that we got it up." Good heavens.

He then began whingeing as usual about all the people who are out to get him ? "chauvinistic people who just kinda never liked me, who are kind of élitist people; most of them who came up from nothing but like to speak with a spud in their mouth. They're upset when people aren't throwing rocks at me."

Given the chance, he would have kept this up for the entire programme. After all these years, it still seems the only way to make Bertie Ahern disappear is to disconnect your aerial.

etynan@tribune.ie