MONDAY

Woe, woe and thrice woe. Ibec director general Turlough O'Sullivan is on morning radio, killing our grande-latte buzz with complaints about Ireland's negative reputation abroad. Like an OK! magazine obituary, it's all a bit premature – the threatened national strike is a whole week away. Has he not seen all those smiling Irish faces in today's papers? The nation ­– even those of us who couldn't tell a feather from a fly – is knocked out by Irish boxer Bernard Dunne's win as WBA world super bantamweight. And there are as many green flags flying in Dublin for yesterday's rugby squad homecoming as on Paddy's Day. The day before, an estimated television audience of 1.2 million witnessed an almost McGuinness/ Paisley moment as President Mary McAleese stood beside Prince William to present the Ireland team with the Six Nations trophy. Later, 9,000 fans watched Dunne make Irish boxing history in Dublin. So no woes, but O, O and thrice O, from O'Driscoll and O'Gara and the O2 arena. Ireland's reputation as a nation of winners is soaring higher than an O'Callaghan line-out leap.

TUESDAY

Angels & Demons is causing fears of an own goal at the Vatican. The film version of The Da Vinci Code prequel is due for release in May, but already Rome is anxious not to give it the "oxygen of publicity". As the pope might say, a negative campaign would cause the spread of its fame, not stop it. Not surprisingly, the film-makers were denied access last summer to the Vatican and two Roman churches where the story is set. More surprising is the hierarchy's complaint that the film is really "a Masonic plot" to "undermine the credibility of the church". Surely they don't need any more help on that score. But audiences who feel the films, and the books, are second-rate anyway may give this latest thriller a miss, agreeing with the sentiments of diocese of Rome spokesman Father Marco Fibbi: "The name Dan Brown was enough…"

WEDNESDAY

How much money is enough? Trevor Sargent suggests Fine Gael TDs don't need the €20,000 payment their Oireachtas chairmen receive, while Alan Shatter hits back that the "minister for wild mushrooms'" main function of popping up on the media "surrounded by vegetables" hardly requires €150,000 of taxpayers' money. €19m obviously wasn't enough for DDDA chairman Gerry McCaughey – his shareholder wife saved him €4m in capital gains tax, enjoying la dolce vita as a tax exile in Italy. Michael Fingleton's Irish Nationwide €27.6m pension isn't enough either. He needed a further €1m boost to his pot, paid out after last September's bank guarantee. (That's the money taxpayers have lent the banks so they can lend it back to us again and charge interest.) The newly-capped €360,000 CEO annual salary isn't enough to tempt Fingleton's successor, Daniel Kitchen, either. That amount wouldn't run Ger Killally's home in Edenderry. He needs €16,000 a month alone to keep his nine-bedroom pile ticking over. That's almost €6,000 more than basic unemployment benefit of €10,624 for an entire year.

THURSDAY

£2m each in a trust fund to set up her two sons for life, but nothing for her husband of one month – the Jade Goody story has lots of life left, even if the 27-year-old herself has moved on to the Big Brother house in the sky. While she may no longer compete successfully for front-page coverage against that other saturation-level story – the terminally ill global economy – there are now five million-plus entries on her on Google and the media continues debating Goody's goodness. Or badness. Any gripes may be less about a celebrity taking 'reality' too far, and more about a much bigger reality check facing everyone. With so much preoccupation about economic survival, Goody's so-very-public demise is a stark reminder of that ultimate certainty.

FRIDAY

Another mother controversially using her celebrity to benefit kids is Madonna. A Malawi official confirms that the recently divorced singer is to adopt another child from the impoverished African country where she also co-founded a charity, Raising Malawi. The adoption of David Banda, now three, was successfully completed in 2008. Even though one generous Malawi official described her as "a perfect mum", it's reported that the singer, rumoured to have split from 22-year-old Brazilian Jesus Luz, could encounter more of a legal battle, this time round on moral grounds – Malawian law prohibits adoption by single or divorced parents. But don't you know she'll get her away – even without the help of Jesus.

You can not be serious

Obama on Jay Leno last week: "Washington is like American Idol, except everyone is like Simon Cowell." Cowell later claimed he turned down a dinner invite from the president: "He wanted to do eight, I wasn't free until nine. But I said, 'Any time I'm in Washington…'"