Supermarket Sweep

Ballymote, Co. Sligo, where I had my first experiences of the ways of the world appears to be a hot ticket for powerful men scrambling for votes these days; last summer Mayor of New York Michael Bloomberg jetted in (and back out again rather quickly), and this week it was the turn of the State Wine Waiter-in-chief Mr Bertie Ahern, who was in town to open the newly-refurbished Kane's Supermarket (refurbished to the tune of €4 million, how times have changed in Ballymote). Bertie's intervention is doubly significant as the chief rival of Kane's is Perry's Spar Supermarket, owned by local Fine Gael deppity John Perry. I am not going to vote for either Perry or any of the specimens put forward by Fianna Fáil - nor am I going to be spending my pennies any time soon in either shop - but I am amused at this little piece of political theatre (or maybe 'vaudeville' would be a better word). Text-book Irish bad form. And there was me, wasting my time on Nicolas Sarkozy