Planet Election compiled by Mary Hannigan: Three weeks ago Jacques Chirac was hauled over les coals by Daft Punk for the unauthorised use of their song One More Time in the French presidential election, with the popsters' main objection appearing to be that Chirac was too old and unhip to be associated with their happening music.
Last week Fianna Fáil landed themselves in similar trouble for using All Together Now as their campaign song without the consent of the Liverpool band responsible for the tune, The Farm.
The song was last used in a political campaign by the British Labour Party for the 1999 Scottish elections, although, as the BBC pointed out at the time, "Labour activists admitted that most of the lyrics were inappropriate since the song dwells on British soldiers rushing towards German machine guns at the Somme".
Indeed, the Fianna Fáil faithful might mull over the opening verse of the song - "Remember boy that your forefathers died, lost in millions for a country's pride, never mention the trenches of Belgium, when they stopped fighting and they were one".
And they might wonder quite what it has to do with the quest for a third seat in Galway West.
Still, they're probably just relieved their tune-choosers didn't opt for another classic by The Farm, Tell the Story ("All the disused derelict buildings, they tell of stories of time gone by, they tell of broken dreams and promises, of all those forgotten lies"), although they might yet consider asking for permission to use the band's Get on, get on, get on, get on the groovy train for the launch of Luas in 2093.
In Fianna Fáil's defence, we should point out that in the "inappropriate campaign song" stakes they still trail former United States President William H. Taft, by some distance. Three weeks after he was born Taft's mother Louise wrote, with alarm, that "he is very large of his age and grows fat every day". The growing didn't stop there - by the time he put his feet up in the Oval Office Taft, allegedly, weighed in at 370 pounds, give or take a Big Mac. His campaign song for the 1909 presidential election? Get On The Raft With Taft. A choice of jingle that, we suspect, left his supporters with that sinking feeling.
A few campaign kick-off points
After the Progressive Democrats chose Prosperous as the location for the launch of their election campaign ("Because today Prosperous is Ireland, and Ireland is Prosperous," as Mary Harney (left) put it, we were inundated with one e-mail suggesting a few more appropriately named venues for campaign kick-offs. Horse and Jockey, for example, was offered as a suitable spot for Charlie McCreevy to get his election up and running while Hospital was suggested as a good starting point for Minister for Health Mícheál Martin (and not Ballynagore). Blarney and Effin were also proposed, but we're not telling you for whom, nor will we reveal which politicians were advised to leave the State and make Muck City (Alabama), Bald Head (Maine), Boring (Maryland) Uncertain (Texas), Dismal (Tennessee) or Porkey (Pennsylvania) their campaign launching pads. As for Nutt's Corner in Antrim . . .
No spanner in the works
Fine Gael's 29-year-old Dublin North East candidate, Gavin Doyle, caught our attention with his nifty campaign slogan "Politicians are a pack of tools" last week, but we felt a bit let down by his qualification: "by which I mean, of course, that they are what you use to get jobs done. I believe I can help you mend what's wrong and secure what's right in our community," he explained. Speaking of tools, we can confirm that Doyle is not the subject of the currently popular description of a campaign poster doing the rounds: "The Spanner on the Banner".
Healy-Rae goes into hyperspace
Election candidates have taken to cyberspace like never before, but few of their website efforts match that of Jackie Healy-Rae (right), which - how do we put it - is part political, part petrol pump, part pub promo. "A trip to Healy-Rae's local pub in Kilgarvan is a must for the tourists and locals alike," it proclaims. "Situated on the outskirts of town is the local Mace shop owned by Michael Healy-Rae and here you may obtain all your essentials from the shop and fuel from the pumps. Excellent parking facilities are always available in safe surroundings." That's not all. "If your needs are the use of heavy duty machinery, Danny is only a phone call away for the plant hire." The politics? Not much, except: "Vote No 1 Healy-Rae . . . towards a better South Kerry".
Update overdue
If Jackie Healy-Rae's personal website is a winner, we humbly suggest that Mary Harney's is in need of a bit of work and urgent updating. Headline news? "Tánaiste gets full and immediate funding for Knockmitten pedestrian crossing". And the last thing of note that the Tánaiste did, according to the website's diary? She voted in the referendum on the Nice Treaty in June 2001. Since then? Nothing. Has it taken her 10 months to recover from the result?
Has the CIA lost interest in us?
God be with the days when the CIA kept so close an eye on political developments the globe over that they'd know who reached the quota in Sligo-Leitrim even before the watching tallymen had finished totting up. Now, it seems, they've lost interest in political happenings in this part of the world. Included on their current list of "Political parties and leaders" for the Republic of Ireland on the factbook section of their website? "Democratic Left [Proinsias De Rossa]".
Will we tell them or will you?
Politicians lose their grip
If you tuned in late to Joe Duffy's Liveline last Friday afternoon you might have been a touch perplexed. Seamus: "I've just driven over Michael Noonan in the middle of the Stillorgan dual carriageway." Joe: "How is he?" Seamus: "Flattened. But I'm not the only one who's driven over him." Soon after, however, Noonan was back on his feet and "dangling loosely" in front of Colm from Galway and by the time Patricia from Carrigaline called in it was evident the Fine Gael leader had lost control - he'd decked her husband. ("It upset him that it was Michael Noonan that hit him, he wouldn't be a Fine Gael fan," she revealed.) Ruairí Quinn, too, was the running amok. "He came at me at about 50 miles an hour, it was frightening," reported Pat on an ugly incident in Glasnevin. "Did you move to the left to avoid him," asked Joe, before taking a call from a woman from Blackrock (and not Clontarf), who alleged that Quinn fell on top of her husband when he was on his way to Mass that morning.
So, why were Noonan and Quinn's posters losing their grip of their poles? A restaurateur from Dublin had the answer. He rang in to say that these posters were made from corriboard and that "if they're printed horizontally the cable tie that they put through them can rip off", something that won't happen if "the corrugation runs vertically". Labour and Fine Gael, then, run horizontally, as the latest opinion polls confirm; Fianna Fáil run vertically. Except for Tom "horizontal" Kitt who'd come loose in Dublin South and was blocking traffic lights. There's a rebel in every camp.