Bring on the beef!

  Enda Kenny, the Irish Prime Minister (or 'Ginger' as I like to call him) is in Tokyo at the moment shucking for some of that Japanese yen. Yesterday he met with Prime Minister Abe and they agreed, as Miriam Lord so wonderfully put it, "to let the Mullingar heifers back into Japan". In return Enda was called upon to denounce those Chinese feckers and their hysterical war-mongering. Ginger though was the model of diplomatic circumspection stating that he would like nothing better than "to see peace in our time", and that really "we should give peace a chance", and indeed "peace be with you and also with you".
Although the farmers of Westmeath and its hinterlands will be glad to know that they have regained access to the Japanese beef market, our Enda is only too aware that China is a much, much larger and considerably more lucrative market than here. That is why he made some apparently affirmative sounding comments about understanding Japan's 'concern' and all the recent Chinese chest-thumping, but he also made bloody sure not to say anything that could be construed as criticism of Ireland's largest export market in east Asia.
Meanwhile the Japanese Minister of Education, on a brief visit to planet Earth, suggested renaming Valentine's day 'Ireland day' as (a) the kanji ideogram for the word 'love' (愛) is the first kanji used in writing Ireland (愛欄); and (b) apparently St. Valentine is allegedly buried in Dublin. After a 'humor the amadán smile from Abe and a pat on the head from Enda he was sent back to his spaceship.
Ginger, incidentally, has no plans to come to Muroran and Cian is taking it personally.