Our roving reporter (aka: Associate Editor) recently popped in with wadge of Local Planets for an impromptu promo and chat with Tom Parlon, at his office on Main Street, Birr, County Offaly. Behind the wiggly blue screen the Minister sat silently bundled in his overcoat, his ‘blue’ extremities evidential. His greeting was not warm: ‘Sorry it’s so cold in here’, he said. ‘We can’t get the storage heaters running. We signed up for Airtricity but there’s some sort of hold up between them and the ESB. We’ve been waiting for weeks and now my assistant has gone skiing - probably thought it would be warmer over there.’ The Local Planet reporter was on the brink of forgetting her decorum but stopped short of recommending Frawley’s, just up the road, for Thermal Underwear.

So, ‘not even a Minister can get things done quickly’, he commented wryly. But shiver-me-timbers; there’s more to the story. Our hardy Assoc.Ed. (whose own office is referred to as The Arctic), got back to the Minister with the jaunty request for a photograph of him in his overcoat to go with a story: we thought it might help speed things up if Ireland’s Paper on Sustainable Living gave the two power companies a sarky noodge, to help sustain the comforts of a busy politician. But upon her return three days later, his receptionist and assistant gave her the cold shoulder. ‘It is not quite as Tom explained to you.’

The dark-haired young woman explained tensely that she had now explained it all to Tom. It was something to do with the previous leaseholder and...numbers, numbers, numbers....it was all very confusing to the rebuffed Ass. Ed. But all those numbers must have been equally baffling to a very cold, Junior Minister from the Department of Finance who was last seen striding across the Main Street in a thick overcoat.