I have been sort of housebound this past while with the result that I have been re-introduced to the wonders of the radio. There are, as I have mentioned previously, programmes where Alexa is called into action to switch off the nonsense.

As the RTÉ cameras scanned the crowd at the State funeral of the former Taoiseach, John Bruton, it lingered on the faces of the great and the good – those expected to be present and a few who seemed out of their comfort zones.

Where is the remote control? It really is time to switch the channel. Enough, already. The RTÉ story is on repeat. Again and again it recurs. It has become a vampire story, impossible to kill off, rising from the seeming dead every few weeks.

I'm old school, literally, and like my contemporaries, I have observed seismic shifts in the education system in Ireland. But these are minor compared to what may unfold in the following decades.

When the novelist Philip Roth wrote The Plot Against America in 2004, alternative history fiction was not regarded as a very credible literary formula.

This time of year, if you walk by an old farm house or a deserted cottage, you will generally see bunches of daffodils popping up here and there.

Of all the injustices against women's sport over the last century, the plight of a child who become known as Yankee bat girl is hidden away deep at the back of the filing cabinet.

Springtime is finally here. A beautiful time of the year, the morning sun rises earlier, brightening our day; the evening light fades later, nature brings new life, young lambs jumping through fields and daffodils in full bloom.

It is with a certain amount of trepidation that one steps in on the preserve of the Western People sports department but the election of a new Uachtaráin of the GAA is a significant and a seldom event, so I feel justified in doing so.

At this time of year, when it seems too late for a big fall of snow, I console myself by remembering that in 1947, the Big Snow fell on February 25. I like snow, you see, and each winter I secretly hope for another such spectacular fall.