MOST OF us have come across it.
Taking poetic licence to the extreme, a flatulator (master of flatulence) cracks a banger in a crowded room.
A release of gas, a rasping good fart, after a feed of cabbage, beans and beer is not to be sniffed at.
Object of any group would be to finger the culprit, and to eject him or her back to the dung pile from which he or she may have emerged.
It is never easy to source an orifice from which a blast of wind thunders, a tornado that can sometimes be dubbed an SBD (Silent but Deadly).
The sharpshooter may escape unscathed, and following any speculation, some innocent soul may be blamed for releasing the blaster that would have kept a kite flying.
Now we find that a group of what we might term old farts and young guns champagne partied during a Covid ban.
Irony is that employees of our Government’s Department of Foreign Affairs found themselves in a totally different position to our buddies in beans and cabbage land.
PRAYING NO ONE WOULD FIND OUT
Wind was the common denominator.
The former wanted to clear the air by ridding their venue of the unwelcome smell.
Men and women who are paid by our taxpayers may have done everything possible to ensure that any stench didn’t leave their room, if you get our drift.
They would have been hoping, perhaps praying that no one would find out about the gathering.
Mum was the word.
The Foreign Affairs Department was celebrating Ireland winning a seat on the UN Security Council.
In drinking a toast to one seat, the officials bared their own backsides.
They threw caution to the wind and quaffed champagne.
Eventually, a story complete with pic of the revelers hit the media.
An unsuspecting public got its first whiff of a celebration that should not have been, no masks, no social distancing.
It had taken quite a while for a to-then well-kept secret to get wings.
PARTYING AS WE ISOLATED
The bubbly bash was in June 2020 but it is only in recent days that our people found out that the public service colleagues of those who make Covid rules were partying while the rest of us were in isolation.
We had been through it all before with Golfgate when a bold as brass bunch of so-called high society sat down together for grub and beer after a game of golf in Clifden, Galway.
The Oireachtas Golf Society had hit the town and let its hair down at a bash for the great and good at a time of Covid restrictions.
That dinner was in August 2020 and led to the stepping down of the then Agriculture Minister Dara Calleary; the end of the political career of Tullaroan, Kilkenny-born MEP Phil Hogan and a bench full of embarrassment for Supreme Court Judge Séamus Woulfe.
The fall-out for some, particularly Hogan, seemed harsh.
THE BURNING QUESTION
As there is a court case pending, the matter is now sub-judice.
So we will simply have to wait and see if the golf ball will be finally over or if there will be more rounds to play.
Meanwhile, there has been what we might term lame excuses proffered for the Department of Foreign Affairs faux pas at their Iveagh House HQ, once owned by the Guinness family.
The burning question is will there be repercussions following the champagne party?
We suspect that the issue is still bubbling.
But we doubt if it will boil over.
Life is a bit like that in FF, FG, Green Ireland.
Golfgate, Champagnegate; will the farce continue?
Those closest to Government seem to be experts at toying with rules that a majority of us obey.
Unfortunately for them, their arrogance, silliness, carelessness, call it what you will, tends to leave a nasty pong.
