The business of Ireland is business? I don't think I've heard anyone dare, publicly, to put it quite so blatantly as dear old Calvin Coolidge did about the US, shortly before business went bust.
But it's a slippery slope, liberally greased by the populist hype about Eircom shares. It's increasingly uncontested for big companies to be discussed in the media exclusively in terms of share-price performance and prospects, in terms of mergers and acquisitions, in terms of revenues and "results", rather than in terms of their social roles, their environmental impact, their behaviour as employers. In fact, we often don't hear much about the goods and services they sell!
On the national airwaves we've had the impressive Shane Ross bringing his broker's wisdom to The Last Word (Today FM, Monday to Friday). And Geraldine Harney on Morning Ireland (RTE Radio 1, Monday to Friday) almost invariably makes business news considerably livelier than the sports briefs that follow. Now we've got the Sunday Business Show (Today FM), invading our weekends (last count, more than 40,000 listeners) with this stuff. It's even evangelising: tomorrow's programme will feature a guide for first-time share buyers.
Presented by a talented business journalist and smooth broadcaster, Tom McEnaney, the Sunday Business Show does what it does exceptionally well. Unlike the newspaper whose name its moniker resembles, what it does is present wall-to-wall men talking wall-to-wall business, with the built-in right-wing bias as solid and unspoken as the best biases always are.
The business guys are, of course, all hot and bothered about the performance of new-technology companies. Last Sunday's show climaxed (sexual pun very much intended) in a long interview with Baltimore Technologies boss Fran Rooney.
Baltimore's entry into the FTSE 100 appears to be a cause for national celebration to rival the success of Istabraq. (And Baltimore's share-price rise makes the odds on the Tipp-trained horse look like a pretty miserable way to make a few bob.) All the same, this week I'd rather have been at Cheltenham than working for Fran Rooney.
"Big and all as our multiple is, there are bigger ones out there," Rooney told McEnaney, by way of evading the question of whether his company is overvalued - and in the process introducing a men's room image of "multiple" envy. (Oooh, I'd love to see one which is bigger than Fran's.)
Rooney, in fairness, was actually quite happy to talk, in general terms, about products and customers - even, heaven help us, about "a vision for mobile commerce". McEnaney saw that as a starting point (he clearly adores gadget technology), but sounded keener when the chat turned to acquisitions and alliances.
Was there a tough line of questioning anywhere in the programme about whether dot.com employers are complying with European working-hours directives - a story that's staring from the night-lighted windows of office blocks all over Ireland? In my dreams.
The radio reviewer's postbag tends, I'm sorry to confess, to be a dull old sack. Even with the email taken into account, what comes my way is mostly press releases, cassette tapes, a few invites (to be spurned mercilessly, of course) and the occasional personalised please-listen plea. The best regular e-spam is a weekly playlist from Sleeping Bag, which goes out Mondays at midnight on Dublin's Anna Livia - way past my bedtime, but I invariably say "oh wow" to the email 'round about Wednesday.
But no, almost none of it makes for engaged, engaging reading. Even programme-makers who are licking their wounds rarely extend the activity to licking an envelope destined for The Irish Times.
What a delight, then, to have inspired a few genuine missives (including transatlantic email: they must be putting this thing on the website - hi Mom!) with the comments in last week's column about, of all things, a US radio show, A Prairie Home Companion.
Garrison Keillor's weekly exercise in good old-fashioned radio has many devoted admirers, including in Dublin, where it can be heard both on Anna Livia each Saturday and, for Cablelinked listeners, on the World Radio Network up at 102.7 FM on a Sunday morning (if you're not stuck into the Sunday Business Show).
I'm not devoted, as I made clear last week, but that doesn't mean I'm not an admirer: seeing the programme being transmitted from an RTE studio in Dublin a fortnight ago was a fascinating experience. I certainly didn't mean to convey any contempt for efforts of Keillor and co, nor for their charms - and I'm glad, in spite of one reader's complaint, that I didn't sacrifice my seat to a real fan.
However, I make no apology for hoping earnestly that RTE Radio 1, as it loses its pre-eminence, never seeks to follow the example of National Public Radio in the US, with its mix of stodgy currents affairs, worthy high-cultural output and polished ho-hummery from the likes of Keillor - brought to you by a combination of public money and corporate sponsorship.
And all virtually ignored by the vast majority of Americans.
No, I don't want Keillor and NPR to go away - minority interests deserve both airtime and subsidy, in my book. I just think that "public service broadcasting" can and must do much better.
You know, I don't know what this column has been whinging about down the years. Sure, there's a lot of crap music on the radio, but there really is an awful lot of good stuff too, especially in the evenings.
Noted here before and still worth regular attendance is An Taobh Tuathail, a fantastic, ad-free music programme every single solitary evening of the week on Raidio na Gaeltachta - arguably the best, certainly the coolest consequence of RnaG's increased output since the migration of FM3.
Given the party weekend that's in it, anyone in range of the Temple Bar Music Centre tomorrow evening should really go along and celebrate the fuaimeanna funcai with DJs Cian O Ciobhain and Ronan Mac Aodha Bhui, starting at 11 p.m. (See Weekend 12.) I might even break the habit of a lifetime and stay out a bit late myself - I could even meet some newtech employees going off duty.
Harry Browne can be contacted at hbrowne@irish-times.ie Do please write.