MONDAY

Another Monday, another election result. But this time it's Iran, where thousands of supporters of defeated presidential candidate Mir Hossein Mousavi take to the streets of Tehran in protest over alleged electoral fraud. Former prime minister Mousavi is described as a reformist committed to "Islamic principles but with liberal aspirations". But president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad dismisses the huge demonstrations as merely like the "passions after a football match". Seventy percent of Iran's 71 million population is under 30 years of age, too young to remember the tumultuous Islamic revolution of 1979. But they are living the technology revolution.

Social reform is a Mousavi promise; social networking is how his internet-savvy followers stay connected. Attempts by the government to block Facebook and YouTube have, so far, failed, while Twitter increasingly becomes the preferred messaging medium for demonstrators able to spread the word. But as a new Iranian revolution takes to the Tweets, also challenged is the western perception of the Islamic republic as a wholly repressed, compulsory chador-wearing nation.

TUESDAY

…and yes, we said yes, we will Yes... Bloomsday, and stately Micheál Martin's soliloquy, urges the nation to lie back and think positively about Lisbon. A year on since the treaty was rejected like a dirty book of old, the government embarks on a new odyssey to convince the No community with guarantees that yes, we have a full-time commissioner, but no, we can't be part of a pan-European army and no, abortion can't be foisted on us. Angry demons and dangerous trials lie ahead for 'Ulysses' Martin – even before the date of the next referendum is announced, dangerous sirens are wailing as ex-MEP Mary Lou McDonald tries to lure wavering voters on to the rocks, singing about the positives of a negative. But many citizens want to cover their ears against another Lisbon debate that's sure to be as un-savoury as a snot-green sea – as our most famous European export would have dubbed
it…

WEDNESDAY

A Velcro suit could fix the nation safely onto that metaphorical EU mast. Enter Brüno, the gay Austrian fashion journalist who 'sabotaged' the Paris catwalk with afore­mentioned attire, but who everyone has twigged is Sasha Baron Cohen in outrageously camp disguise. His red-carpet garb at the eponymous Brüno film premiere in London is a take on a Buckingham Palace guardsman uniform with tight lederhosen hotpants, a bearskin hat, a sleeveless red brass-buttoned jacket and knee-high boots. Like Borat's Kazakhstan, Austria is finding it hard to get the Sacha Baron Cohen joke. Post Josef Fritzl , they are incensed that "A is for Austria where people are brought up to 'try and achieve ze Austrian dream – find a job, get a dungeon and raise a family in it'". Not to mention a surely distorted view of the fashion industry as Bruno extols his adoration for Naomi Campbell because "even after 25 years in ze business, she is still a total bitch".

THURSDAY

How now, Brown-Cowen? The British PM lives up to the dour Scots stereotype, allegedly grumbling over the Irish govern­ment's contentious Lisbon treaty guarantees. He's responding to the Taoiseach's pleading letter, sent on the eve of the summit in Brussels, written in "strictest confidence" and splashed all over the papers. Although wanting "to do the right thing by Ireland and by Europe", Gordon Brown also insists "the Lisbon Treaty, as it affected Britain, will not be changed in any way". Coming in from the left is new MEP Joe Higgins, describing the guaran­tees debate as "a charade" design­ed to "throw dust in the eyes of ordinary people". Good that Joe is speaking minorities' rights too – with his emphasis on workers.

FRIDAY

"Dirt and dust fills Tehran's streets," says Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in reference to demonstrators before resorting to more customary denounce­ments of them as "thieves, homosexuals and scumbags". As plain-clothes security forces continue to attack protestors, senior cleric, Ahmadinejad supporter and supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei signals a crackdown is imminent while speaking at Friday prayers. The folly of giving political control to religious leaders is horribly familiar, while our freedom to argue, whine and whinge about Lisbon is surely a luxury in comparison to the government-led silencing of political dissent in Iran. Not even Sacha Baron Cohen would find that a laughing matter.

Learning Curve

President Barack Obama – the one-man swat team – gets a Katcha Bug Humane Bug Catcher and a ticking off from Peta. "We support compassion even for the most curious, smallest and least sympathetic animals," Peta spokesman Bruce Friedrich said. "Swatting a fly on TV indicates he's [Obama] not perfect and… we wish he hadn't."