Media

Enda Kenny being stingy with the crabs on The Restaurant; bizarre behaviour both upstairs and downstairs in Hotel Babylon and surreal Japanese anime on The South Bank Show are all on the menu for
Dermot Bolger this week

This, surely, was an image too far for any self-respecting newspaper. For a man who is seen as an honoured leader by millions of people to be depicted in this crass way pushes out the boundaries, not merely of press freedom, but of taste, decency and sound editorial judgment.

A few years ago, when the Irish Times was still asking me to review the odd book for its books page, I was taken aback to find myself described, at the end of a review, as "a journalist and critic".

Sections of the print media seem to have learnt little about taste, decency and appropriateness from the debacle surrounding the reporting of Liam Lawlor's death.

The old ones, perhaps slightly customised, are best. Paddy Irishman dies suddenly in his sleep and goes straight to heaven. On his very first trip to the heavenly canteen, he's just about to tuck into his fatted calf when, looking about him, he spots a familiar face at the top table. A curly-haired chap in a crumpled suit and an open-necked shirt appears to be dominating proceedings at the table, engaging all around him in what has all the appearances of a gang-interrogation. The man spits out questions and responses with an air of exasperation and heavy sarcasm.

Modernists battling to open our minds in the 1960s; hosts smoothing over famous Irish murders and sportsmen trundling headfirst down the slopes. By Dermot Bolger

 It's always dangerous when old people are allowed to talk about popular culture, and never was this more app...

It's the IRA's fault, you see, for ending the war in the North. British soldiers used to get such good experience in policing civil disorder and winning hearts 'n' minds, but now that the army lacks its local training ground for discipline and stoicism under intolerable stone-throwing, all hell has broken loose.

The chairman of the Public Appointments Service (PAS) is also on the board of Independent News and Media, with whom PAS places many of its recruitment ads. Emma Browne reports