You see, there’s something about ‘Paddy’ Honohan that leaves you uncertain – and in some cases even a bit terrified. There we were, listening to Curran probing the ancient guru, our ears pricked like hounds in a state of maximum alertness. In these times, every word from such a source can carry a world of resonance, every slight change of tone or significant pause can send our confidence crashing.

But Honohan, with all his knowledge, has this clubbable manner, almost a kind of chatty style. So he can be reassuring, telling us that in terms of Irish banking, “I can’t see where that big shock is coming from”.

For a moment we are happy, released from our anxieties and all the other torments which besiege us when ‘the markets’ are in ‘turmoil’. Paddy can’t see where the big shock is coming from – let’s rock, let’s roll, let’s boogie! I was driving when I heard it, and I had a strong urge to start blowing the horn like lads on their way to a wedding reception.

But there was more to his statement. While he can’t see where that big shock is coming from, “it doesn’t mean there mightn’t be one”.

Cheers Paddy. Thanks for that, mate.

Still, he reiterated that in Ireland he “doesn’t see banking as the source of risks”. So we exhaled again, only for Honohan to add good-naturedly that the risks are more from the tech sector.

Ah Paddy, Paddy, Paddy…

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Sure enough, I found myself listening to an item on Talking History (Newstalk, Sunday, 7pm) with Patrick Geoghegan about the destruction of ancient civilisations, and the collapse of ruling elites. I wonder what brought that on?

John Darlington, author of Amongst the Ruins, talked Geoghegan through some of the calamities which have wiped certain ways of life out of existence and examined the ways in which history keeps repeating itself. It is a timely subject in light of Gary Lineker being briefly cancelled by the BBC for his observations on history repeating itself.

The kind of things that wipe out whole cultures are not unfamiliar to us. Things like an over-dependence on certain resources; natural disasters such as earthquakes; deterioration in climate; new diseases; economic collapse; and war. Indeed eagle-eyed readers may have noted we are currently experiencing a bit of everything in that line. Along with human error, which makes it hard for us to see these patterns and to learn lessons.

I would now like to warn readers I am going to use some lines from Samuel Taylor Coleridge, which Darlington quoted: “If men could learn from history, what lessons might it teach us! But passion and party blind our eyes and the light which experience gives us is a lantern on the stern which shines only on the waves behind us.”

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But never mind Coleridge, for International Poetry Day, Newstalk Breakfast (Newstalk, weekdays, 7am) noted that John Cooper Clarke’s ‘I Wanna Be Yours’ has had more than a billion listens on TikTok and is therefore the most popular poem of all time. “I wanna be your vacuum cleaner breathing in your dust / I wanna be your Ford Cortina, I will never rust…” Cooper Clarke advises.

Naturally it is claimed this is not on the same level as your ‘real’ poetry, and this is true – it is on a higher level because it is infused with the sounds and spirit of rock and roll. I recall a TV feature in which Van Morrison and other Irish poets were ‘saying’ their poems, and Van seemed somewhat bashful in such exalted company – until his music kicked in along with the lyrics, magically elevating him to a higher place. That’s poetry.

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