Even though armed members of the Israeli Defence Forces boarded the Gaza aid convoy?uninvited while outside Israel's territorial waters, the country's authorities claimed "We didn't look for confrontation but it was a massive attack". Free Gaza activists could say the same. Nine people died (but no Israelis) and 50 were wounded. Among Palestinian supporters on board were internationally known names such as Swedish crime novelist Henning Mankell. The assault on the aid ships is as depressing as one of his Wallander storylines.
First Ronan and Yvonne (we can work it out) now Gráinne Seoige and TV production executive Stephen Cullinane split after eight years of marriage. They remain "good friends" of course but who next? Not Al Gore and Tipper, surely? They've reputedly "grown apart". What? After surviving 40 years together?
... but love endures. Or at least its letters. Elizabeth Taylor releases previously unpublished missives to her from Richard Burton, the man so good she married him twice
(but divorced twice too). 'Mark Anthony' addresses his 'Cleopatra' as 'Dear Twit, Twaddle', and 'My little Twitch' – all obviously intended for her famous violet blue eyes only, not ours.
John Fingleton's salary is enough to make ordinary workers twitch. The former head of our competition authority is now chief executive of Britain's Office of Fair Trading – officially Britain's best-paid public servant, earning between £275,000 and £279,999. Depending on expenses, that's about twice what prime minister David Cameron now earns (£142,500) since he took a 5% pay cut when voted into office.
Though the VW camper van is hitting pensionable age, is heavy, slow, prone to brake failure and destined for the Old Volks home, the besotted refuse to break up with their darling. "It's not about the destination, but the journey," says long-time lover, and car restorer Adrian "Kerouac" Ward. Just hearing the name brings the smell of petrol and exhaust fumes rolling back.
Old folks and young folks rev up their search engines as the earliest surviving complete census of Ireland goes online. Minister for tourism, culture and sport Mary Hanafin extravagantly described it as "an important and exciting day for people all over the world who want to trace their roots" (surely she means Irish roots) and that brings history "a bit closer to us all". The census shows her own great-great-grandparents were clothes dealers in Longford. "That's where my interest in clothes came from," she confirms.
Certain male employees of New York's Citibank were a tad too interested in a female colleague's clothes. The woman was fired and has now taken a suit against her former employer all because of her, er, suit. Debrahlee Lorenzana (33) told the New York Post of male bosses insisting "she must refrain from wearing certain items of clothing, in particular, turtleneck tops, pencil skirts, fitted business suits, or other properly tailored clothing". Think those 'easily distracted male managers' should've been paying more attention to the rise and fall of bank finances rather than hemlines.
He's on the electoral register in Clontarf in Dublin, yet Bertie Ahern's Seanad nominee Ivor Callely has claimed over €81,000 in travel expenses from his holiday home on the Sheep's Head peninsula in west Cork to the Seanad – a lucrative 370kms away. You can bet the journey wasn't undertaken in a VW camper van. Altogether now, "It's not about the destination, but the journey." (Lucky he didn't go to Gaza, or he'd bankrupt us.)
This could be what the multi-billion euro hole in public finances looks like. And it's pretty scary. After Tropical Storm Agatha in Central America kills more than 100 people, a 60m-deep three-storey swallowing sinkhole opens in Guatemala City.
Taxi driver Derrick "Birdy" Bird, tells friends in the pub "there's going to be a rampage tomorrow" before waking the next morning to begin Britain's worst massacre since Dunblane in 1996. He shoots 12 people dead and seriously injures many more before turning the gun on himself. But he doesn't fit the stereotype of the tortured, mass-killing loner. Was it a row with his brother or workmates? Was it his tax bill? We may never know.
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