Brian Cowen, Ireland’s Prime Minister, has ‘not given up hope’ on finding a buyer for the beleaguered nation, as evidenced in photos on the website of the Roinn an Taoisigh.

As a straight man, I love Dublin Pride as a spectacle above all. A festival of bright colour, an astoundingly optimistic and positive oasis in a year where all news seems to be bad. Today was great fun, and took place in sweltering, vicious sun. These photos, all taken with the camera on the iPhone [...]

Obviously, the bars near the BBC website HQ are a bit dodgy. Otherwise, how would one explain the warnings of extreme danger for people being encouraged to send photos of their favourite beermat to the BBC News site?

En route to what should be a nicely exciting game; very happy to have spotted it in time; it more than makes up for missing the Six Nations match, which I will watch, as per tradition, in the Carpenter pub. Am expecting a great game; Danny Cipriani and Harry Ellis have been sent to the [...]