'Twas the night before Christmas, and An Taoiseach Brian Cowen was trudging down Merrion Row avoiding snowballs thrown at velocity from, well, everyone. With the Nitelinks not running, he checked into the Merrion Hotel, and, several brandies later, found himself tossing and turning in a not uncomfortable bed under Egyptian cotton sheets with a delightfully high thread count. Suddenly, he woke. At the bottom of his bed, a figure loomed.

"I am de ghost of Christmas Past."

Cowen sat up abruptly.

"What's that under your arm?"

"Eh, nuttin."

"That's not nothing, Bertie, that's my selection box."

"I don't know what yizzer talkin' about. I just found it downstairs. I was eh, just bringin' it up to ye, it's just restin' under me arm. Anyway, I am here to show you de folly of yizzer ways. De trute. Come wit me."

De ghost of Christmas Past led him outside, and within seconds, they reached their destination. Baggot Street was illuminated in the snow, and laughter and the clinking of glasses filled the air. Ministers spilled out of Doheny & Nesbitts. Cowen headed for the bar.

"Eh, yih can't order pints in a dreaim," de Ghost of Christmas Past informed him.

"Then where did you get that pint of Bass?"

De Ghost of Christmas Past looked at the pint in his fist. "I'm different, I can get away wit dese kind of tings." They surveyed the landscape, as Range Rovers ploughed through the snow stuffed with Brown Thomas bags. "Stall de ball dere, just have to run to de jacks, to, eh, powder me nose."

Cowen headed outside for a smoke and to earwig on a conversation about buying property in Madagascar. When de Ghost of Christmas Past returned, Cowen was gone to Paddy Power across the road to throw a few quid on some horses that he knew had won.

"Give us dat, now!" de Ghost of Christmas Past said, wrestling the betting slip out of his hand. "We all partied," Cowen muttered. "We all partied," de Ghost of Christmas Past echoed, nodding sagely. Everything turned to black. Cowen opened his eyes, staring at the elaborate plasterwork on his hotel room ceiling, sweating. "Jaysus. Someone must have put some of those headshop yokes in me brandy. Must. Get. On. To. Dermot. About. That," he muttered falling back asleep as a repeat of Xposé blinked from the muted TV screen. Within minutes a breeze snuck into the room as the door cracked open. "Howya."

Cowen jolted upright. "Bertie?!"

"No, de udder wan."

"Oh, Joe, I see."

"Yeah, yeah, yeah." Joe Duffy sat at the foot of Cowen's bed, donning a hat he stole from Paul Cunningham. "I am de Ghost of Christmas Present. I'm going to take you a little further away this time."

"How are we going to get there?"

"Don't worry, I've a horse outside."

"What is this strange place?" Cowen asked. The light of his candle illuminated a Dante-esque vision before him, women foaming at the mouth, old men shaking their fists, screeches and howls coming from wretched victims. Fianna Fáil TDs perched on stools, deflecting questions with increasing unease. Cowen shivered in the corner of the studio as a tall figure sidled up next to him.

"An Taoiseach, it has been a while." Pat Kenny ran his fingers through his hair.

"Pat! What the f**k? Is this not a dream? I thought no one could see me?"

"Well, not the average person, Taoiseach. Correct me if I'm wrong, and that's rather an impossibility, but I figure you have been brought here through gravitational time dilation. If you understood the theory of special relativity in conjuction with the twin paradox, you would have drawn that conclusion too." The lights came on, and Kenny glided towards the camera.

"Why have you brought me here?" Cowen asked de Ghost of Christmas Present.

"The hour of rage, the colosseum where de public descend to articulate dere anger and talk about why they want a Nama for de little people. To truly understand yizzer voters, you need to see them with dere emotions at dere most extreme, dere most raw."

"I don't like this," Cowen said, whimpering, shaking his jowls, "I don't like this one bit." A flash of light, and he was back in the Merrion hotel. About to fall back asleep, his eyes suddenly open wide. "Hang on, I've seen the Muppets version of this," he muttered to himself. "Where's the future bit?" Outside, a hooded figure polished a sickle.

Hold me...

Just when you thought Lindsay Lohan might actually be making some progress, she was busted for throwing a boozy party. In rehab. As in actually having a rave-up in the place where she's meant to be recoving from rave-ups. I've heard in a piss-up in a brewery but a piss-up in rehab is pretty impressive.

Thrill me...

I hate New Year's Eve, but if you HAVE to go out then you could do worse in Dublin this year than check out Fight Like Apes at the Village or And So I Watch You From Afar next door in Whelan's. I'll be at home in a grump.

Kiss me...

I met a guy recently who has what is possibly the greatest website ever, www.pluckwuck.com. He takes a rubber chicken everywhere he goes and photographs it with celebrities he comes across. And thanks to being in the music industry, he comes across quite a few. Chick it out.

Kill me

This incessant toilet swabbing of news organisations' premises à la The Sun hiding in the jacks in RTÉ is all getting quite boring. RTÉ is not some cesspool of drug abuse. It's not unique to drug use either, nor is any media organisation, or anywhere else for that matter. Drugs are everywhere – isn't it time we dealt with that reality, instead of trying to sex it up?

umullally@tribune.ie