MONDAY

The final farewell to Darren Sutherland is heartbreaking. His mum Lynda and father Tony, his sisters Nicole and Shaneika, can barely stand such is the depth of their grief. Everyone knows why. There was something about Darren, called the Dazzler not just for his speed in the boxing ring but for the brilliance in his eyes when he smiled, that connected with those who never met him as much as those who knew him intimately. His personal pain and confusion must have been enormous in the last weeks of his wonderful life. At his funeral, Fr Declan Hurley speaks so warmly of his personality: "wherever Darren went, his gentle, kind, modest generous heart endeared him to everybody", a gentleness, modesty and generosity that, in the end perhaps, left him less able to cope with doubts about the future career as a professional boxer he had embarked upon.

TUESDAY

Yeehaw, all roads lead to Athy as 50,000 go to the opening day of the Ploughing Championship. And a funny ol'farm show it is too. Brush Sheils is rockin' and rollin' his way through the 'Fields of Athenry', while commercial stands extolling different methods of artificial insemination jostle for business with image consultants and men in pink jumpers selling Sex and the City scent. All in all, it's a welly good day, not least because it's not raining and visitors are not forced to endure a spot of pelotherapy. That's a mudbath to you and me, a pleasure England manager Fabio Capello and his wife enjoyed on their holiday. Embarrassing photos of the mud-covered pair are printed in the News of the World and the Daily Mail, prompting today's intervention of the Press Complaints Commission who have called in the editors for doing the dirty on the man who may win the World Cup for England 44 years after the victory that they can never forget.

WEDNESDAY

Foot in mouth disease strikes, as contrary Mary puts her welly in it and warns TDs to beware of the bull in the An Bord Snip Nua report, prompting a bitter harvest of awful puns. "There are many recommendations in the McCarthy report that do not make sense," she tells Eamon Gilmore in the Dáil . "Many. Many." Has Mary become a toxic asset to this government? Plain toxic is Muammar Gaddafi whose only saving grace is that he is no longer dangerously bonkers, just bonkers. He demonstrates this all too clearly in his 100-minute maiden speech to the UN general assembly, the highlight of which is his personal act of terrorism, tearing up the UN charter and referring to the two greatest conspiracy theories of our time – who shot JFK and the fact that swine flu is a biological weapon of mass destruction. Top that Mary!

THURSDAY

Happy birthday to that other biological weapon of mass destruction, that magical member of the extended family, Uncle Arthur. Exactly 250 years old today, the first pints of the black stuff were brewed at St James's Gate and at precisely 17.59, 50 million people around the world join the toast to what Taoiseach Brian Cowen – never a man to use a word when a cliché will do – calls "an iconic Irish brand". Jasmine Guinness wears black and white to the party but Mary Coughlan, an iconic advocate of golden handshakes to underperforming chief executives that, as she might have said herself, "do not make sense", is a dream in tangerine. Congratulations to a beaming Eamon Dunphy and radiant Jane Gogan on saying "I do" after 18 years together. Their wedding day may be Arthur's Day but Dunphy reserves the right not to be involved in the greatest global PR coup of all time. "I never touched Guinness," he admits with a twinkle, "but I tried other things."

FRIDAY

Green is of course the colour of indignation. If there's a bit of a row over principle and public money, who ya gonna call? Why Dan Boyle, of course. The Supreme Golden Circle-buster duly pops up on Morning Ireland to fly the Green party flag over who knew what about the handsome pay-off to Fás chief exec Rody Molloy and whether a lawyer was present when the deal was sealed. Tánaiste Mary Coughlan decides to initiate a review of her own decision so, all in all, we know indecision will rule. Not okay.

You Cannot Be Serious

"We are developing a pilot, or experimental level uranium enrichment site that is not yet in operation..." [Or words to that effect].

Iran admits in a letter to the International Atomic Energy Agency that it is developing a second nuclear facility that could be used to develop nuclear warheads.