Sixteen years before the nature of sports media changed forever in this country with the invention of the British Twitter reaction (and what a wild ride it has been since) we had British cabinet ministers being interviewed about GAA matches on RTE.
Galway had just beaten Kildare after a scintillating second half performance and Marty Morrissey was speaking to the towering midfield duo of Kevin Walsh and Sean O'Domhnaill. After big Sean confirmed that the west was alive and kicking, Marty pulled in the then UK Minister for Sport, the late Tony Banks for a word.
A diehard Chelsea man, Tony was incredibly enthusiastic about what he had just witnessed. Rightly so, too. In fact, the RTE makeshift background shook with the vigour of his contribution. He declared Kevin Walsh the man of the match, a verdict with which the Sunday Game panel differed.
Banks, who died in 2006, was often described as 'colourful' by British political correspondents. He said that Margaret Thatcher 'behaved with the sensitivity of a sex starved boa constrictor'.
When John Major, frequently accused of being out of his depth, ascended to become prime minister in 1990, Tony Banks observed:
He was a fairly competent chairman of housing [on Lambeth council]. Every time he gets up now I keep thinking, 'What on earth is Councillor Major doing?' I can't believe he's here and sometimes I think he can't either.
Two years before he died, on the back of revelations that the MI5 proposed to use pigeons as flying bombs during the Second World War, he tried to pass an early day motion welcoming an asteroid hit.
That this House is appalled, but barely surprised, at the revelations in M15 files regarding the bizarre and inhumane proposals to use pigeons as flying bombs; recognises the important and live-saving role of carrier pigeons in two world wars and wonders at the lack of gratitude towards these gentle creatures; and believes that humans represent the most obscene, perverted, cruel, uncivilised and lethal species ever to inhabit the planet and looks forward to the day when the inevitable asteroid slams into the earth and wipes them out thus giving nature the opportunity to start again.
Another jewel from killianm2.
