Brian Cowen in the nip

I had to do a double take. "did he just say paintings of an Taoiseach semi- naked?" was my initial reaction when I heard in passing about the latest scandal in Irish politics( for once it wasnt about more money being squandered or how far in debt we really are). I for one and I'm sure I'm not the only one, would never dream of picturing him nor want to picture him in the nip, I think it's be best all round if he kept his clothes where there supposed to be: on him. I don't mean to say he isn't physically attractive, surely someone out there thinks he has fine physical attributes, i for one am not one of those, I'd much prefer to think of our leader as one, fully clothed,I'm not sure where he stands on the hippy lifestyle.

In fairness, this has caused far too much uproar than it should have. Have we nothing better to get excited about? Clearly not. Brian Cowen is an easy target for caricatures, he has, how do you say, a rather distinctive physical appearance, making him ideal. The Irish times features him regularly. Why so mad at this? Matt Cooper literally hasn't closed his mouth to take a deep breath form talking about the incident. Gardai sent to the radio station, a school teacher questioned, RTE news apologise, such hype over something so small. Now to top it all off the little people feel hard done by, that he should've been allowed to hang the picture up, after all what has happened to freedom of speech? But in fairness gluing the paintings to the National Art Gallery probably wasn't this guys smartest move, it is a prized area housing the national collection of Irish and European fine art. Defacing the walls of the gallery? Not what I would have choosen. Surely his front door wouldve been more impressive?

Now people are apparently posting naked drawings of him to their blogs/facebook pages, where will it stop? A naked Dail Eireann? I dread the thought.